Directors who’ve operated their own production companies know what a time-consuming task it is to run a business and helm commercials at the same time.
Jesse Dylan has taken that juggling act one step further. He directs through Straw Dogs, the bicoastal spot production company that he co-founded with executive producer Craig Rodgers in late 1996, and he became a corporate mogul of sorts in ’99, when publicly traded, New York-headquartered Paradise Music & Entertainment (NASDAQ: PDSE) acquired Straw Dogs. Per the deal, Dylan was named chairman/ CEO of Paradise, whose holdings include such commercial entities as bicoastal Shelter Films; Picture Vision, Nashville; and Los Angeles-based post house Vapour, in addition to music, multimedia and Internet-related firms.
Dylan seems to disprove the notion that a creative mind cannot coexist with a head for business. But while he is in daily contact with Paradise staff, who fill him in on developments, Dylan insists that his Paradise responsibilities aren’t a big deal. "It doesn’t take that much extra time," he says. "You focus on it and just do it amongst everything else. It doesn’t require me to be involved in every single decision. My main thing is commercials—I love directing them. The other thing [Paradise] is really the same as when my company was a private company."
In fact, Dylan questions whether mentioning his Paradise role is really necessary. The topic he’s most likely to discuss is spot directing, his focus for the last eight years. For the past year, Dylan has been on a roll, staying busy with creatively rewarding work. Recent credits include three spots for TheStreet.com, a Web site offering financial and investment news, via DeVito/Verdi, New York; "What’s Coming" for Barron’s via Angotti, Thomas, Hedge, New York; and "Zoo" for Pepsi Twist via BBDO New York. At press time, he was in pre-production on another BBDO project, a spot for Pizza Hut.
It was last summer’s Dylan-directed six-spot campaign for ecampus.com, out of DeVito/Verdi, that began attracting attention. The spots touted the client as a provider of inexpensive textbooks and school supplies so that students can "get the intelligent education they so desperately need." The ads feature college-aged kids acting like, well, college-aged kids. For example, "Alphabet" features a student’s burped recitation of the alphabet. "Ransom" offers a broke college student who concocts a kidnapping ruse in an attempt to extort ransom money from his parents.
"[The creatives] loved Jesse and they thought, ‘He gets it,’ " says DeVito/Verdi executive producer Barbara Michelson, commenting on why the agency returned to Dylan to helm ads for TheStreet.com. "He has a great sense of humor and he knows what works and how to achieve that quickly."
The results for TheStreet.com include "Disorientation," which has become alternately referred to as "headupthebuttitis," the diagnosis given to an old man who has invested unwisely and, as a result, now walks around dazed, with only a dollar to his name. With a soothing voiceover complementing the black-and-white footage, the spot is a seemingly sensitive PSA about dementia, until the end. (In fact, Michelson relates, the client objected to one original sequence—which was removed—in which the man lies on the floor and cries, "I’m so poor!"—fearing it was insensitive and offensive.)
Other TheStreet.com spots are "Burger Boy," which offers a pastiche of images of a man, charting his ascendancy over the years from burger-flipper to company owner and—after a bad investment—back to burger-flipper; and "Brad and
