Behind the Scenes, Blacks Are Appearing in Commercial Film Crews

During the filming of a new TV spot for McDonald’s, the executive producer looked around and realized that he was probably seeing history before his eyes.

When the catchy commercial premieres later this week during the National Basketball Assn. playoffs, all that TV viewers will see is blues legend B. B. King strumming--and even talking to--his guitar. What the public won’t see is the crew that filmed the ad. And that is what might make this commercial one for the record books.

Some 27 members of the 32-person production crew--from set designers to directors to wardrobe specialists--were minorities.

“People have become accustomed to seeing blacks in front of the camera,” said Foster V. Corder, executive producer of the minority-owned, Los Angeles production company Blackbird Films. “But almost no one asks who is behind the camera.”

Corder--who 20 years ago was a member of a Chicago street gang--asks that question all the time. And he is trying to get others to ask it, too. After working for production companies owned by Stevie Wonder and Wilt Chamberlain, Corder, 36, co-founded Blackbird Films five months ago. His partners are commercial director John W. Simmons, 38, and a minority investor, Yolanda Ramirez. The company films TV commercials exclusively, including the B. B King commercial for McDonald’s that it filmed last month in Las Vegas.

Handful of Companies

Blackbird is one of only a handful of TV commercial production companies nationwide that is minority-owned. For years, minorities have been virtually locked out of the production side of TV commercials. Both black and white film executives generally say it is probably less a case of racism than of oversight, ignorance and decades of close-knit relationships that tend to keep virtually all outsiders from getting inside the business.

Still, because blacks have had little chance to work behind the scenes on TV commercials, few have been able to assemble so-called reels of their commercials--which are the production world’s rough equivalent of resumes. Although many members of Blackbird’s staff of commercial directors have filmed everything from episodes of “Miami Vice” to “Hill Street Blues,” few have directed any commercials.

That’s why two months ago Blackbird sent letters to more than 200 ad agencies nationwide. “We’re tired of hearing people complain there are no blacks or Hispanics in the TV commercial production industry,” the letter said. “That’s why we formed Blackbird Films.”

Industry officials say the key to getting more blacks and Latinos working behind the scenes on commercials is for major advertisers such as McDonald’s and Coke to pressure their ad agencies to hire them.

McDonald’s has done just that. “We’re definitely looking to increase the use of minorities in the production side of the business.” said Rick Johnson, McDonald’s supervisor of advertising production. McDonald’s is one of the first major advertisers to not only hire a minority-owned ad agency for some of its commercials--but also to have that agency hire a minority-owned production company to film them.

“It’s the old adage of supply and demand,” said Daryll Merchant, producer at the Chicago-based minority ad agency Burrell Advertising, which created the B. B. King spot for McDonald’s. “So far, there has not really been a great demand out there for black production companies. The public may see 50,000 ads, but unfortunately, they really don’t know--or care--who produces them.”

Fred Lewis hopes that attitude changes--soon. Six months ago, he founded one of the few minority-owned commercial production companies in Los Angeles, Fred Lewis Productions. “The problem is, agencies reach a comfort level with the people they’ve worked with in the past, and the last thing they want to do is hire someone that doesn’t have much experience.” Lewis ought to know. Although he has several experienced directors on his staff--most of them white--his company is still waiting to film its first commercial.

Rely on Support

Even then, both Blackbird and Lewis’ firm still rely on some financial and technical support from larger, established production companies. Blackbird, for example, shares office space with Dove Films, which has filmed some commercials for AT&T; with actor Cliff Robertson, as well as several ads for the Los Angeles Times. For a fee that neither company would disclose, Dove also allows Blackbird to use most of its production and film editing equipment--valued at several hundred thousand dollars. Although the two companies have similar names, Dove has no ownership stake in Blackbird. But Dove does hope to eventually feel some rub-off from the clients that Blackbird picks up.

“In this business, you just can’t hang up a shingle and start work,” said Cal Bernstein, founder of Dove Films. Even lower-budget commercials can cost upward of $100,000 to produce, and often those costs aren’t reimbursed by ad agencies for weeks--or months.

Still, in the early going, it has been a day-to-day struggle for survival at Blackbird. And even as it struggles, Blackbird continues to mostly hire minorities for its commercial shoots. “You walk through almost any production studio and you don’t see any blacks,” said John Simmons, the co-founder of Blackbird who has directed four California Lottery spots. “You know there are blacks out there who do quality work, but nobody ever stopped to look and say, hey, the situation’s out of balance.”

Some big-name ad directors, however, are becoming more familiar with the situation. Take Joe Pytka, for example, who has directed commercials for Pepsi that starred Michael Jackson and Madonna. Pytka says changes in the ethnic makeup of production crews are long overdue.

“You just don’t see many blacks on production crews,” Pytka said. “That’s because the film business is almost like a family business, where each father sort of teaches his son the trade. But everyone wants to get into this business, and everyone should have a fair shot.” But many production companies have no blacks on the payroll. And that angers Shirley Moore. So last year she founded the Alliance of Black Entertainment Technicians. And this Los Angeles organization keeps a computerized listing of more than 400 blacks who are skilled to work on commercial production crews.

A Need to Network

“The few blacks that are in this industry are so scattered, that I found need to network,” said Moore, who has been in charge of props for the TV show “Cagney & Lacey.” Several years ago, she said, only a small number of blacks were working on the production crew for “The Cosby Show.” Today, she said, about half of the 80 production crew members are black.

Indeed, Corder’s production company depends on Moore’s organization for the bulk of its production crews. But making commercials was the farthest thing from Corder’s mind 20 years ago when he became involved in a Chicago street gang. To keep him off the streets, Corder’s mother got him a job in the mail room at the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency.

“I wanted to get out of the ghetto so bad,” recalled Corder, who forged a birth certificate and joined the Navy. After two years in the Navy--which included more than a year in Vietnam--he attended film school in Chicago. From there, he found a number of free-lance photography jobs and eventually landed jobs with some small production companies before meeting up several years ago with his partner, John Simmons.

Not Easy

It hasn’t come easy for Simmons, either, who has directed some promotional ads for NBC, as well as an anti-gang public service spot that features the cast from the film “Stand and Deliver.” “For a black to be in any part of the film business,” he said, “everything is saying, no, no, no, unless you have rich parents who are backing you.”

He didn’t have rich parents. But Simmons still remembers some 20 years ago when he walked into a Chicago bank and asked a loan officer for a $1,500 loan so he could go to night school to learn cinematography. “I never saw a black cinematographer,” the loan officer laughed.

But Simmons didn’t laugh. And he got the loan.

Agency Takes on Steam to Get Desired Result

Here’s one local ad agency that’s so hot, it’s steaming. After the Los Angeles ad shop Fotouhi Alonso was recently awarded $10 million in new business from EPI Products, it celebrated by renting two oversized steam machines. What for? Well, EPI Products makes women’s skin-care products, including a special machine that gives steam facials. So, to film an ad for the EpiSauna Facial Sauna, the agency wanted lots of steam in a commercial that shows a woman’s reflection on a steaming, hot pond. Of course, Hollywood sound stages don’t come equipped with ponds, either. So the agency had to build the pond, too.

Riney Looks to 1990 Blastoff of Saturn Ads

The way ad man Hal Riney figures it, he could almost fly to Saturn before his ad agency’s commercials for the new Saturn division of General Motors hit the airwaves.

The commercials--none of which have been created yet--aren’t scheduled to air until mid-1990. But in the meantime, said Riney, chairman of the San Francisco ad firm Hal Riney & Partners, some 20 employees are working “in varing degrees” to create the first campaign for the new division whose cars GM hopes will directly compete with Japanese imports.

The agency won the $100-million business by showing GM executives a video that featured interviews with children who talked about what “Saturn” meant to them. But Riney insists that concept will not be part of the actual ad campaign.

The agency will continue to fiddle with broad concepts for the ad campaign but probably not create any commercials for many months, Riney said. “If I put them together now and started talking about them,” he added, “everyone would be bored with them before the cars even came out.”

Popularity Brings Problems for Pollster

John David Power III knows a lot about customer satisfaction. After all, the main mission of his Westlake Village company, J. D. Power & Associates, is to track customer satisfaction with cars. But lately, he said, he is himself dissatisfied with too many car makers who are touting his findings in ads.

At least six car makers--Buick, Acura, Nissan, Maza, As a result, he said, “I think the numbers are becoming less meaningful.”

Power said each auto maker must first get his permission before touting the results in commercials. The results come from a detailed, annual survey that Power takes of car owners one year after they purchase their cars. Power then sells this survey to car makers for up to $80,000.

Because so many auto makers are using his findings in their ads, Power said he is beginning to reject some requests. Also, he now turns down requests from those car makers who want to really bash the competition. “When they run ads like that,” he said, “the next day I usually get an angry call from the chairman of the company that gets beat up.”