Doug Pray: Copy Cat BY SUSAN MICHALS PHOTOGRAPHY DAVID MIEZAL

No one thinks of ad people as revolutionaries. Instead, they are usually viewed as the people who make pretty editorial propaganda to manipulate us into buying things we don’t need. They work for The Man — they are part of the dreaded ‘system.’ But if you look closer, you might realize that, while it is true they work within those dreaded con­fines, they are also the people who defy it.

Like many of these advertising innovators, director Doug Pray has never been one to adhere to the status quo either. His documentaries — films like Big Rig and Surfwise — tell stories of outsiders and underdogs: vivid portraits of America’s subculture. So Art & Copy, a documentary about some of the greatest legends in advertising, was not what he had in mind when he began sourcing his next film. “I never thought I would be making a movie like this, which is funny because I did,” says the director with a laugh. “Early on, Kirk Souder, one of my producers, said to me, ‘These are people who grew flowers in hell.’” Pray had always had a soft spot for rebels, but initially he didn’t see the correlation. “It’s easy to be misquoted in saying, ‘All advertisers are rebels’ but this particular group of people were rebellious in the sense that it is really dif­ficult to get a brilliant campaign created…there are a lot of forces working against you.” So while names like Lee Clow, Jeff Goodby, and Mary Wells might not ring any bells, how about taglines like “Think Differ­ent,” “Got Milk?” or “Plop Plop Fizz Fizz.” These are some of the great creative forces behind Art & Copy

— people who most likely wouldn’t be recognized walking down the street — unless you worked in advertising — but individuals who have had a major impact on the way we live.

Seminal, yes, but with the advent of the DVR, many an advertising masterpiece now goes unseen. Does that mean advertising is on its way out? According to Pray, we’ll still see people like these thirty years down the road. “The medium is not important; the format will change, but the message still needs to get out. All these new ways of commu­nicating are still in their infancy. It’s liquid, it’s going to keep changing and evolving.” The same goes for Pray, who has made one stunning documentary after another for nearly fifteen years. “I promised myself that after finishing this I would take a little break. I’m not going to give up docs, but by the time you’re into about a third of production you want to start another one. If you keep doing that, it will go on throughout your entire life. It’s like documentary crack.” Prior to the film, Pray had no idea of the blood, sweat, and tears that goes into getting an ad made — and that some never see the light of day. It was an enlightening experience, even for the film­maker, to hear firsthand what went down to get these fabulous campaigns produced, though we don’t hear how many times they may have heard ‘think outside the box’ — aka, the account person’s way of telling the creatives to get more creative. “When I started making the movie I realized it was such a departure from what I’m used to, but in the end, I realized you actually can work in society and make a difference. I like what [Nike campaign creator] Dan Weiden says: ‘If you can use this profession to speak honestly, weird shit can happen.’” ▼