There are very few names in advertising I've heard of... other than Don Draper. One is Leo Burnett. Another is Carol H. Williams. She was a trailblazing ad exec, and one of the best. Being a black woman working creative in the 1960s was a strange role for the time. She was the first African-American Creative Director. She was the first woman to be Creative Director at Leo Burnett Company. You know, the company that created the Jolly Green Giant, the Marlboro Man, and Tony the Tiger. If you love cereal characters, the odds are good the primary object of your affection in the realm was created in an office at Leo Burnett.
And that's where Carol H. Williams cut her teeth.
The amazingly wonderful animated documentary Carol H. Williams & The Rejected Script is a super-short piece of work that examines how chance encounters can make a huge difference.
Carol's latest script for Hungry Man Biscuits was rejected, and she was dejected by the experience. She entered into the elevator where she runs into, who else, but Leo Burnett. He asks her what's wrong, and tells him, and that's the origin story for so very much.
There's a lot here, from the elements of the campaign she had rejected, one based on her much-loved Uncle, to the way that she carried herself, and her work, into that elevator. There's also Leo Burnett, whose story is legendary and here, he's shown as something different than you see him portrayed as in the rest of his appearances.
This is Carol's story, but it is illustrator So A Ryu's work that is so incredible. Along with animators Brian Steckle and Michael McAfee, this is a short that gives us powerfully imprecise visuals, inspired by the likes of Ralph Steadman, that are so very non-60s advertising. It's that counter-point, I think, that had me so deeply drawn in. You would never have seen an image like the one above coming out of Burnett in 1969, and when it's presented alongside the exceptionally good narration, it brings us to a new place. This elevator meeting, it seems, was the edge of a zipper; one side was the 60s being spoken of, while the other was a new future. This visual contrast played in my head.
As a whole, there's a WHOLE lot of greatness in less than four minutes!
You can see Carol H. Williams and the Rejected Script as a part of Animated Worlds at Cinequest! Do yourself a favor and take this one in; it may well be the best survey of animation I've ever been a part of programming!
https://payments.cinequest.org/websales/pages/info.aspx?evtinfo=114201~78899376-35a9-4153-8303-e1557be2dc32&epguid=c5191bc9-d5f7-4fab-87e1-de8dcbff688d&#.XisUOEdKiUk
And that's where Carol H. Williams cut her teeth.
The amazingly wonderful animated documentary Carol H. Williams & The Rejected Script is a super-short piece of work that examines how chance encounters can make a huge difference.
Carol's latest script for Hungry Man Biscuits was rejected, and she was dejected by the experience. She entered into the elevator where she runs into, who else, but Leo Burnett. He asks her what's wrong, and tells him, and that's the origin story for so very much.
There's a lot here, from the elements of the campaign she had rejected, one based on her much-loved Uncle, to the way that she carried herself, and her work, into that elevator. There's also Leo Burnett, whose story is legendary and here, he's shown as something different than you see him portrayed as in the rest of his appearances.
This is Carol's story, but it is illustrator So A Ryu's work that is so incredible. Along with animators Brian Steckle and Michael McAfee, this is a short that gives us powerfully imprecise visuals, inspired by the likes of Ralph Steadman, that are so very non-60s advertising. It's that counter-point, I think, that had me so deeply drawn in. You would never have seen an image like the one above coming out of Burnett in 1969, and when it's presented alongside the exceptionally good narration, it brings us to a new place. This elevator meeting, it seems, was the edge of a zipper; one side was the 60s being spoken of, while the other was a new future. This visual contrast played in my head.
As a whole, there's a WHOLE lot of greatness in less than four minutes!
You can see Carol H. Williams and the Rejected Script as a part of Animated Worlds at Cinequest! Do yourself a favor and take this one in; it may well be the best survey of animation I've ever been a part of programming!
https://payments.cinequest.org/websales/pages/info.aspx?evtinfo=114201~78899376-35a9-4153-8303-e1557be2dc32&epguid=c5191bc9-d5f7-4fab-87e1-de8dcbff688d&#.XisUOEdKiUk
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