Bill Weems.
I never met Bill. I talked to him once on the phone. Otherwise I only knew him by reputation. But he comes to mind frequently, most recently during last week’s 12-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
Bill was a commercial producer who was among the victims of hijacked United Airlines flight 175 which crashed into the World Trade Center in New York on Sept. 11, 2001. He lost his life at the age of 46.
Bill was en route from Boston to Los Angeles for the posting of a campaign for the Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star products directed by Danny Ducovny for advertising agency Mullen. Bill freelanced for both ad agencies and production houses.
Professionally, he was highly regarded. Personally even more so as a dedicated husband and father.
Bill and so many and so much more needs to be remembered–not just one day a year. A perspective that inspires and haunts me is what I naively thought in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.
I thought, for example, that we’d come together more than ever before as a country. I thought that serious journalism would make a major comeback. How could it not in light of what had just happened?
Fast forward to today and polarization rather than thoughtful, civil debate seems to be the norm in the court of public opinion.
As for the Fourth Estate, tabloid journalism has become mainstream.
By no coincidence, polarization and tabloid nonsense share a common bond–they’re generators of profit, with little or no regard for what the cost is to society at large.
That’s why BBDO New York’s campaign–print, media, outdoor, digital and video advertising–for The National September 11 Memorial & Museum struck a responsive chord for me.
In BBDO’s public service television spot produced by Brand New School and titled “Day To Remember,” which broke last week, a Robert De Niro voiceover relates:
“Take a day to reflect. To explore. To learn. To honor the best in humanity that overcame the worst. To remember compassion, kindness, courage. Take a day to remember the day that changed us forever.”
Directing and Editing “Conclave”; Insights From Edward Berger and Nick Emerson
It’s been a bruising election year but this time we’re referring to a ballot box struggle that’s more adult than the one you’d typically first think of in 2024. Rather, on the industry awards front, the election being cited is that of the Pope which takes front and center stage in director Edward Berger’s Conclave (Focus Features), based on the 2016 novel of the same title by Robert Harris. Adapted by screenwriter Peter Straugham, Conclave stars Ralph Fiennes as the cardinal leading the conclave that has convened to select the next Pope. While part political thriller, full of backstabbing and behind-closed-door machinations, Conclave also registers as a thoughtful adult drama dealing with themes such as a crisis of faith, weighing the greater good, and engaging in a struggle that’s as much about spirituality as the attainment of power.
Conclave is Berger’s first feature after his heralded All Quiet on the Western Front, winner of four Oscars in 2023, including for Best International Feature Film. And while Conclave would on the surface seem to be quite a departure from that World War I drama, there’s a shared bond of humanity which courses through both films.
For Berger, the heightened awareness of humanity hit home for him by virtue of where he was--in Rome, primarily at the famed Cinecittà studio--to shoot Conclave, sans any involvement from the Vatican. He recalled waking up in Rome to “soak up” the city. While having his morning espresso, Berger recollected looking out a window and seeing a priest walking about with a cigarette in his mouth, a nun having a cup of coffee, an archbishop carrying a briefcase. It dawned on Berger that these were just people going to... Read More