Articles by month: May 2011

Relief for our poor, weary brain

By Gary Kott on May 21, 2011 at 08:40 AM in Blogs

Words, words, more words -- we’re bombarded constantly -- words in books, blogs, newspapers -- more words in magazines, mail, business reports -- on Facebook, on billboards, on benches --

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MADISON AVENUE

MEMORY LANE

I found a thirty-five-year-old can of film in a storage box and sent it to a digital transfer service -- the reel is all that remains of the many TV commercials I wrote and produced before I left for Hollywood -- luckily, the images survived though the colors didn't -- at one point I had a carton filled with television commercials I created -- but, alas, I lost that carton during a period of pure chaos and bedlam...

Deep down at the bottom of the storage box I found a bunch of print ads I wrote eons ago -- the first batch was a campaign for Arrow Shirts -- my partner was the talented art director John Lucci -- our goal was to make very inexpensive shirts look and sound rich and upscale -- we decided to forgo working with perfect-looking male models in lieu of regular guys with crooked noses and craggy skin -- click the images below for larger views..

At the time, fashion designer Halston was planning to introduce a men's shirt line -- they contacted the bosses at Young & Rubicam and requested the Arrow team to work up a spec campaign -- John Lucci and I picked a movie theme to introduce the shirts -- we decided to feature extreme close-ups of details in order to convey a sense of the highest quality -- I left Y&R soon after and headed to Hollywood -- I have no idea what happened to the campaign after I left, or if Halston ever went ahead and produced men's shirts...

Gary Kott Quick Look

Hollywood career: Writer/Supervising Producer of The Cosby Show during its five consecutive years of number one ratings. Writer of pilots, screenplays, and other TV shows including Fame, Remington Steele, Hotel, The White Shadow. Awards: Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award, NAACP Image Award, two Humanitas Prize nominations, one Emmy Award nomination. Previous career: Madison Avenue -- Vice President/Creative Director of Ogilvy & Mather -- copywriter, Young & Rubicam -- wrote and produced national television commercials and print ads -- nominated for many Clio Awards. Playwright: Plays appeared at the Actors Studio in New York, the Grove Street Playhouse, and the Santa Monica Playhouse. Folk Artist: Original works of sculpture and paintings. Guest speaker: Museum of Broadcasting in New York and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. Education: B.A. Marietta College -- Distinguished Alumnus Award.

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