Bicoastal HSI Productions has added director Dave Merhar for commercial representation. He joins HSI after three years of spot directing at Santa Monica-based production house Visitor, a satellite of the Denver-headquartered parent company, animation house Celluloid Studios.
Merhar, who has an agency creative background, continues to maintain his own three-year-old Chicago-based ad agency, Fusion Idea Lab, which handles some project work for Anheuser-Busch, among other clients.
Since joining Visitor at its inception in 1997, Merhar has fortified his commercial reel with a body of comedy/dialogue-driven fare. Among his credits is the :30 "Shopping" for Bud Light, out of DDB Chicago—Merhar’s former agency of seven years. The spot, which broke on the ’98 Super Bowl, shows men taking refuge under a clothing rack while their significant others are shopping in a mall. He also helmed a Bud Light spot called "Slingshot," out of Fusion Idea Lab, which premiered on the ’99 Super Bowl. (In that ad, a man uses a slingshot to fling his goggle-wearing pet mouse through the open window of a woman’s apartment. Frightened, the woman shows up at the man’s place to wait it out until the mouse leaves.)
HSI executive producer Bill Sandwick said that Merhar fills a need for comedy at HSI, where David Dobkin is the company’s only other comedy director. "We’ve waited to look for the right guy and we think he’s it," said Sandwick of Merhar. "He really understands concepts and what is funny. He can tell a story in 30 seconds, and he can entertain and sell a product at the same time. For us, it’s a perfect match because we can really help each other. He wants to do good work and that’s what we’re all about."
DDB and Fusion have provided a fair share of Merhar’s directorial projects. For DDB, in addition to work for Anheuser-Busch, he has helmed commercials for Pep Boys, such as "Moose Crossing" and "Water Cooler." For Fusion, he’s done such Budweiser spots as "Log Jam," in which a group of beavers hijacks a Bud delivery truck; and "Run," which opens with a jogger running, but ends revealing that he’s chasing a bottle of Bud that he left sitting on the bumper of a truck.
Through Fusion, Merhar also recently directed a series of promos for FOX Family Channel, and just wrapped two Bud Light spots slated to break during the Olympics. Other recent directorial credits include ads for flu reliever Relenza via Saatchi & Saatchi, New York, RC Edge via Blum Group, New York, and Long’s Drugs via Pickett Advertising, San Francisco.
According to Merhar, he joined HSI with the goal of taking his directorial career to the next level. Noting that he’s done a lot of work out of Midwest-based agencies, he said he hopes to garner more projects originating from the East and West coasts.
"I’d talked to HSI before I ever left the agency [DDB Chicago]," said Merhar. "So I had some familiarity with the people that are there. And the opportunity to join HSI was still there [when] I felt it was time for my career to get a boost, to work in somewhat of a bigger arena. They have a very big presence in New York, and that’s an important market for me—one that I haven’t been able to reach to my fullest potential. They’re a terrific production company."
Merhar began his foray into directing during his stint at DDB, where his last position was senior VP/group creative director overseeing the Budweiser and Bud Light accounts. Among his most notable credits was the popular Bud Light "I Love You, Man" campaign.
In the wake of Merhar’s signing with HSI, he and Celluloid Studios are in the process of dissolving their formal affiliation whereby Celluloid has a partial ownership stake in Fusion, and vice versa. This arrangement was made in hopes that Fusion and Celluloid would collaborate on long-form, entertainment-oriented projects, although no such jobs came to pass.
"As of now, everything remains the same," said Merhar. "But with me leaving Visitor, there’s no reason for me to be a partner in Visitor, so that will be dissolved in the future. We certainly hope we’ll be working on projects together, but as far as legally binding ties, that will be dissolved." Celluloid president and Visitor president/executive producer Olivier Katz corroborated this, commenting, "We had more of a formal arrangement, which will no longer be the case."
Asked if he is interested in pursuing long-format projects at HSI, Merhar replied, "The possibility is probably greater, knowing that they’re working in long format already. I would hope so. If the opportunity came up, I’d certainly look at it."
At press time, Merhar was preparing to embark upon his last project for Visitor: a Sears spot featuring Bob Vila out of Ogilvy & Mather, Chicago.
HSI is repped on the East Coast by Melanie McEvoy, on the West Coast by Jessica Thomas, and in the Midwest by Los Angeles-based Kristina Kovachevic.
