Dream Weaver Helps Group Air Message : Riots: An amateur director’s door-to-door interviews become Rebuild L.A.’s ad campaign to spread hope and share success stories.

There was Robert Bermeo--broom in hand--feeling like a fool.

He had left his home in Culver City and headed to southern Los Angeles to help with the cleanup that followed last April’s riots. But instead of cleaning up, he found himself sweeping broken glass from the street, then dumping it into a charred building site. “When I was done, I thought, what have I done?” recalled Bermeo. “I realized I had done nothing.”

So, what’s a 27-year-old commercial director wanna-be to do? Well, how about emerge from utter obscurity to direct 25 television commercials for Rebuild L.A.?

Late Tuesday afternoon, Rebuild L.A. leaders met with some of the most powerful ad executives in the city to discuss a long-term image campaign for Rebuild L.A. that could begin running by midsummer. But with the Rodney G. King civil rights trial expected to go to the jury very soon, a new batch of Bermeo’s ads are likely to hit the air within the next few days.

So while the city’s advertising elite continues to debate how to turn ideals such as hope into persuasive ads, one advertising neophyte has quietly done just that.

Never mind that Bermeo--who has yet to see the inside of a film school--had never before directed a TV spot. Forget for a moment that he is a veritable unknown on the often-cliquish Los Angeles ad scene. And never mind that the highly politicized Rebuild L.A. group had been previously all but paralyzed in promoting its message of hope.

None of this stopped Bermeo--a first-generation American whose father is from Peru--from plowing ahead. By profession, Bermeo is a TV writer developing shows for Los Angeles-based Mastrippolito Films. But Rebuild L.A., looking for minority voices--and on a shoestring budget--turned to Bermeo for help in filming ad research, which consisted of door-to-door interviews with residents and business owners. Those interviews quickly evolved into full-fledged TV spots.

The ads are documentary-style compilations of the hopes, dreams and frustrations of Los Angeles residents citywide. Some earlier spots were broadcast in January.

By midsummer, a third wave of TV spots that will feature some of Rebuild L.A.’s success stories is expected to be broadcast. This will be an image-building campaign for both the group and the city. Some of the city’s top agencies have stated interest in creating these ads, which will be filmed in English, Spanish and Korean.

The current ads feature sometimes angry and other times hopeful comments by black, white, Asian and Latino Los Angeles residents. “It didn’t matter what race they were,” Bermeo said. “The people didn’t look outward, they looked inward and said it all comes down to you and me building our community from within.”

Besides directing more than two dozen public service ads for Rebuild L.A.’s TV campaign, Bermeo has also written more than a dozen radio spots. He has donated about six weeks of his own time. For all his work, he has accepted no compensation.

“It’s foolish to assume that these spots are the answer to the problem,” Bermeo said. “Ads can only do so much. I’ve never seen an ad that can cure cancer. But what an ad can do is provide an avenue through which people can communicate.”

The newest ads include a call to action. At the end of each ad is a phone number for Rebuild L.A. Callers can receive information on the group, or they can learn how to volunteer or how to create jobs for youths in southern Los Angeles. The ads also feature off-camera voice-overs by actors Edward James Olmos and James Earl Jones.

Some have criticized Rebuild L.A.--a nonprofit group led by Peter V. Ueberroth, created to spearhead revival of riot-torn neighborhoods--for taking so long to get its ads on the air. The first ad didn’t air until nearly nine months after the riots.

“We’re trying to do the right thing,” said Dennis Holt, who chairs Rebuild L.A.’s media task force, which oversees advertising and public relations.

“We spent a lot of time listening to people,” said Holt, who is president of Los Angeles-based Western International Media, and who has helped Rebuild L.A. amass nearly $1 million worth of advertising time and space.

There are some skeptics in the ad community, however, who--while supportive of Rebuild L.A.’s overall efforts--question if public service ads are an effective means of communication.

“It sounds like a Band-Aid approach to me,” said Jean Robaire, co-creative director at the Los Angeles ad agency Stein Robaire Helm. Robaire, who has not seen the Rebuild L.A. ads, said the problem with most public service spots is that they are not realistic. “It’s hard to make them come across as anything more than advertising shells,” he said.

But realism was Bermeo’s chief aim. He was originally sent out to simply film interviews with residents from all parts of Los Angeles. And the comments from those interviewed were supposed to help the group devise a more concrete ad campaign. Then a panel of ad experts realized that Bermeo’s interviews were the campaign.

To help select the people interviewed, Rebuild L.A. turned to QRC, a Culver City-based marketing research group. The organization sent volunteers to city neighborhoods, looking for people willing to be interviewed where they live or work. “We wanted it to be as real as possible,” said Arnold Jacobson, co-founder of QRC. “We wanted to go out to people and listen to them rather than have them come listen to us.”

One person who appears in several spots is Jamil Shabazz, co-owner of the Crenshaw Cafe. In the ads he is seen wearing a hat that says “Don’t Sell Out.” “Everything starts in the family,” he says in the ad, waving one finger in the air, “with the children.”