On My Radar: Catherine Bull

What’s the most creative advertising idea you’ve seen recently?

I love all the wacky promotional giveaways at baseball games, not just bobbleheads. And I was at a game over the weekend, and they had A Steal of a Deal! If a Dodger steals a base, am/pm gives everyone a free hot dog and Coke. Stuff like this is so fun. You really feel like you won the lottery or something. And the promotions are so blatant, there’s no shame in it.

What website(s) do you use most regularly?

New York Times Games. I don’t need coffee in the morning, but I can’t start the day without doing all the word puzzles, and always in this order: Connections, Wordle, Strands. I always have an open Spelling Bee that I’m working on — I’m usually about a week behind, so I’m always catching up on past puzzles. 

I don’t need coffee in the morning, but I can’t start the day without doing all the word puzzles.

I still have to do the crossword on paper though. I love the Set Game for a visual game, and you can play that online at setgame.com.

What’s the most recent piece of tech that you’ve bought?

Does a coffee grinder count? It’s Bodum. I also just got a ball winder, for yarn. I am low-tech.

What product could you not live without?

My headlamp, my teddy bear, and my pocketknife [all shown top of page].

What’s the best film you’ve seen over the last year?

Flipside, directed by Chris Wilcha. It’s a beautiful, smart, funny and poignant documentary about how to make art when you also have to make a living. Chris takes you on a journey through 30 years of personal creative failures, all while his family grows, his career as a commercial director takes off, and he grapples with the challenge of balancing success with the beauty of the life he's built. He confronts — and ultimately embraces — the uniquely Gen-X fear of selling out. It’s Once in a Lifetime by Talking Heads meets a beautifully shot insurance ad that makes you cry. 

What film do you think everyone should have seen?

Dancer in the Dark by Lars von Trier. It’s astonishing, it’s stunning, it’s emotionally wrenching and technically bonkers. Björk is phenomenal. Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I try to imagine who else could have played that part; she had never acted before (or since), and the role is for a singer who also wrote the songs for the film. Maybe Sinéad O’Connor? It would have been a completely different film, but she also had the personal history of a strong maternal bond with her single child, and that relationship is what the film’s about. 

It’s astonishing, it’s stunning, it’s emotionally wrenching and technically bonkers.

From an editing standpoint, I remember hearing Björk talk about how von Trier had directed her to take as much time as she needed when playing a scene of dialogue, that it wasn’t necessary to respond right away, they could cut out (or not) any pauses when editing. That sort of blew my mind. It’s so obvious, but I come from a theatre background where you think, oh, they just film the performance and show that, so you have to get the timing perfect. Anyway, what they did in that film with the musical numbers was revolutionary, sometimes hiding as many as 100 digital cameras in the landscape to capture the choreographed routines, and you never catch sight of a single one of them in the finished film.

What’s your preferred social media platform?

About three years ago, I started working on a documentary series about teens and social media, and when I did, my own social media use plummeted drastically. I’ve only ever used Instagram, but I stopped looking at it — not just from working on a show that continuously hammered home the grim side of social media but, for me, it had started to feel like homework, and at the end of a long day working on the computer, the last thing I wanted to do was feel obligated to have more screen time. 

I started working on a documentary series about teens and social media, and when I did, my own social media use plummeted drastically. 

But now I am back on again. I missed my friends! There are so many people, acquaintances and even close friends whose lives I can only really know about by looking on Instagram and seeing their latest postings, so I try to look a few times a week now. The ads are dumb, but I love reading the comments when the brands are clueless enough to enable them. People can be so nuts! It is fun.

What’s your favourite TV show?

Gosh! Maybe Mad Men? My answer would probably change and flop around between the same half-dozen that everyone loves. For comedies, I love to rewatch Party Down and Girls (kind of more in that weird genre of half-hour drama-comedy). But Mad Men will always be one of my top three dramas. 

There was this insane blogger who would post PhD-thesis-level essays about each episode the very next morning. 

I remember at the time it aired, there was this insane blogger who would post PhD-thesis-level essays about each episode the very next morning. She wasn’t a paid reviewer, this was from the love of the show, and its depth warranted such serious and deeply committed scholarship. Her blogger name was Silkstone, but Google is not helping me find those old posts right now. Heather Havrilesky was posting weekly reviews on Salon at the time, which were also fantastic. 

I do like how there is a whole world now of podcasts, reviews and recaps that fans can lose themselves in with the really good shows. With Game of Thrones there was the Binge Mode podcast, with Mallory Rubin and Jason Concepcion — now the whole Ringer-verse and Prestige TV podcasts have great commentaries if you happen to have the time for a 3-½ hour discussion of an hourlong show (I live in LA, so there’s a lot of driving/listening time).

What’s your favourite podcast?

Ands speaking of podcasts... Dodger Blue Dream, by Richard Parks III. It’s my favourite podcast because it’s story and music-driven as much an aural adventure as a sports podcast. No prerequisite sports, baseball or Dodger love is necessary (although I am a huge baseball fan: LET’S GO METS!!). 

These are the stories that even the most devoted fans might miss.

These are the stories that even the most devoted fans might miss if not for the host’s unique narrative weaving that takes the listener through elation and heartbreak in equal measure. You can’t help but fall in love with the characters as described by Richard. He is a master.

What show/exhibition has most inspired you recently?

I just saw the Breath(e) show at the Hammer. It’s their contribution to Pacific Standard Time, an absolutely sprawling citywide exhibition showing work by over 800 artists. The theme this year is Art & Science Collide. Ambitious. The show at the Hammer was focused on climate and social justice, so it sounds a bit like eating your vegetables but there were definitely also moments of pure aesthetic happiness. Mel Chin’s paintings were a highlight. I also liked LaToya Ruby Frazier’s photo series about families in Flint Michigan receiving clean drinking water. Again, it sounds dry but it’s not just important and necessary social commentary, the pictures are full of colour and poetry.

If you could only listen to one music artist from now on, who would it be?

Willie Nelson. This is an impossible task, but this feels right; he is the greatest American songwriter and one hell of a guitar player. Also prolific, so you’d have a massive catalog to choose from, and not just country and western either. He has a song for every mood, and if I found myself in a world where I had to limit myself to just one musician, then something truly bleak and apocalyptic must have happened so I would need Willie to cheer me up and keep me going.

If there was one thing you could change about the advertising industry, what would it be?

I’ve been out of commercial editing for the past few years. Everyone tells me it’s no longer the same industry, so I’ll have to see for myself what has changed now that I’m working in commercials again. I do wonder, just from a personal consumer-of-advertising standpoint, when you’re watching a show on a streaming service or, say, you’re captive on a plane watching the airline-provided entertainment, why does every single ad block show the exact same spots over and over again? 

I was on a flight recently, you’re captive, they could show you anything, and every single break showed the exact same pre-programmed six spots.

I was on a flight recently, they have you there, you’re captive, they could show you anything, and every single break showed the exact same pre-programmed six spots. Why does the model not allow for variation here? Is it too hard to program unique commercial content? Or no one is paying for it so they just run the same stuff? I don’t get it. I hate it. If commercials are dying, why are streaming platforms not a viable place to run a variety of new ads?

Who or what has most influenced your career?

I studied in Paris during my junior year of college and I took a Film Theory class with a total cinephile professor who had an astounding VHS collection, a sizeable chunk of them starring Gina Lollobrigida... haha! The class focused on the French New Wave; I already loved movies for the element of escape, but learning to appreciate the patterns and style underlying the greatest films correlated to what I loved most about literature and made me want to pursue a career in film. When I returned to NYU for my senior year, I did an internship at the commercial editorial house First Edition, and they hired me when I graduated.

I was surrounded by creative people having fun in a totally chaotic atmosphere and it was exhilarating.

I remember watching Gavin Cutler edit a Diet Coke commercial about a meter maid, and he used the same shot to open and close the 30-second spot, just running it backwards for the end, and that simple choice blew me away, exposing how you find creative fulfilment even when you are cutting a commercial for a product. That has stayed with me all these years. It wasn’t in the board, he just saw the poetry of it and went for it. The client did not approve that cut, alas. 

Then, working with Eric Horowitz in the mid-90s at Progressive Image Group was pivotal. I was surrounded by creative people having fun in a totally chaotic atmosphere and it was exhilarating. Just to sit next to Eric and watch him work, the way I don’t really think assistants do anymore, was a complete education. Watching him make choices helped me understand how to tell a story through images. A great, underappreciated editor. Now he owns a bar in Brooklyn with the best pub food I’ve ever had, so I guess I am glad he left the business. Shoutout to the Double Windsor in Windsor Terrace.