Tuesday, March 17, 2009


This 1970 Chevelle experimental photo was shot on the Screen Gems lot in California. The location is on one of their streets with small town stores. The fellow looking out the door at the "Police"car is Bill Graefen, an outstanding copy writer I worked well with. We had a fleet of new Chevy prototypes to shoot but no client approved layouts. It was a wonderful way to work. We had a specific direction in mind for each car line and only crude layout ideas to shoot from. This was an easy one to set up. Borrow a "gum-ball"from Screen Gems prop department and install big tires on the rear of the car along with a police star. This was going a little too far for Chevy at the time. Or maybe it was that we had so many other shots they liked better. Warren Winstanley shot the picture along with the others on this "Experimental" shoot. I am happy to have saved the picture and to show it now. Chevrolet was very trusting of us to allow this kind of creative effort. It had taken several years to build the trust with smaller shoots of a similar nature. I'll bet some of these ads could make it through the approval process today. I don't understand why most of the auto advertising being done now shows only bright and shinny sheet metal with no attempt to make the picture contribute more to the communication. I'll bet it has something to do with computers and the ease of putting an ad together that looks very finished and slick. The problem is that all the ads look pretty much alike. A bunch of the cars already look alike too, so some ads with bold ideas in the illustrations could be helpful in making somebody stand out from the pack.

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