Why did you move on to Disney?

KN was bought out by Univas, a French Company, and the joy went out of it as it has done in so much of the advertising business.  When big business takes over in advertising, the first thing that can get choked off is the creative process.

What exactly does the Creative Director of Walt Disney Studios do?

Now they must have a dozen creative directors, but back then they only had one, and that was me.  My basic job was the responsibility to create the broadcast advertising --the radio and TV spots, and the cinema trailers-- that promoted the Disney movies and the television shows Disney was producing.  It was a big job, and I never had less than 150 projects moving through my office at any one time.  In addition to being 'The Trailer Guy', I was the low-budget hit man, the go-to guy and the fall guy.   In short, any production project that was too dicey or too small to get anybody's attention was dumped on me.  That meant, in addition to the teams of writer/producers and editors I built, I had two guys who did 'plug shows', network specials promoting our new movies, like "Disney's Famous Villains" when we came out with 101 Dalmatians.  It was a great opportunity.  I built a low-budget department that was unique in the industry.  Instead of farming work out to the creative boutiques for big bucks, we did most of it in-house.  My people were all excellent writers who understood film production and motion picture advertising.  And it was a fantastic job for me.  I got to direct promos featuring movie stars and personalities like Bill Cosby, Marie Osmond, Ray Bradbury, George Plimpton...I got to write some campaigns that I'm proud of to this day...and I wrote lots of jingles and show openings...who wouldn't love a job like that?!

Did you actually work with Mr. Walt Disney?

No, Walt, always a heavy smoker, had died from the Big C over 10 years before I got there.  But in those days his spirit was everywhere on the lot.  Almost everybody had 'Walt Stories', trying to keep the magic alive.   Walt would have done it this way, Walt would have said, Walt would have bust a gut, Walt would never have allowed that.  And, partly because nobody moved in to fill those giant shoes, the studio was in a bit of a quagmire while I was there.  And much to my discredit, I didn't do much to pull it out of the mud.  You can do brilliant ad campaigns for movies, but all they do is pull in a big 1st weekend.  After that, attendance on a dog movie will drop like a stone.   

You may have heard the path to success in the movie business is hard and rocky--you'll not be happy to hear that once you get there, things aren't all glory and roses, either.  When you go to Writer's Bootcamp, the first thing they drill at you is 'Don't fight the system.  There is a system, and it WORKS!"  Well, no lie, it works if it works for you...but don't be surprised to find out how much dysfunction and outright ignorance you'll find at every level in the business.  I tell some few of these stories in TINSEL WILDERNESS...I'm tempted to write them as fiction, because they are often quite absurd and nearly unbelievable.  And yet, shining like crystals in a dark mine shaft, you find bright people going about their jobs, producing absolutely brilliant work.  I saw Eastern Promises again the other day.  Disgustingly violent, absolutely brilliant.  SOMETHING'S still working in the system. 

What did you learn from your experiences as Creative Director to motivate you to write, produce and direct?

It's a good question, but with me it was actually the opposite.  I was taught that you couldn't 'Creative Direct' anybody unless you were a master of that craft or discipline yourself.  I had as my mentors some of the greatest people not only in advertising - Nelson B. Winkless (creator of the Snap Crackle Pop song) and the great Leo Burnett himself (a wonderful writer as well as one who inspired creatives), but in show business (Joe Barbera, Bill Hanna, Phil Mendez, Marty Katz, Sid Ganis, Mike Jittlov, Betsy Baytos, Mike Spenser, Ron Howard, Rod Serling, Eddie Ropolo, legendary London filmmaker Harold Orton, Charles Eames who invented the Eames Chair and is a great storytelling filmmaker in his own right, artist/reporter Franklin McMahon, Sr., Jim Ramsey, Head Writer at Grey Detroit who was shot in the stomach, lived under a tank for a week and then half crawled down the Korean peninsula holding his guts in with one hand...what does that tell you about tenacity?).  But the point was always the same...know how to do it yourself or how the hell can you direct anybody else?
What did you write, produce and direct?

Over the years, dozens of documentaries, dozens of marketing films, hundreds of commercials, thousands of ads and pieces of junk mail, a dozen or so  screenplays, a handful of books adapted to screenplay format.  I'm an equal opportunity creative.  Some people call that whoring around.  I call it paying the mortgage and keeping the kids in school.  As a creative person you have to survive to tell the next story, and the one after that...

We see that you won an Emmy. What did you earn an Emmy for and in what year?

The American Great Artist, artist/reporter/filmmaker Franklin McMahon, Sr. and I won an Emmy in 1969 for a 90 minute documentary that ran nationally the night before the 1968 Presidential Elections.  Those were momentous years with the death of Martin Luther King, the assassination of Robert Kennedy, the shooting of Governor George Wallace and the huge disruption at and around the Democratic Convention in Chicago when the Anti-Vietnam War people were in full howl and the machine squeezed McGovern's idealists out of the nomination.  Naturally, that film, which followed the candidates and recorded what they said on the campaign trail, would win many awards, including a CINE Golden Eagle, a Chicago EMMY, and dozens of other film festival awards from around the country and around the world.  Lesser known was a half hour film I did with McMahon, World Cities, which recorded the exploding population and the disruption in countries around the world as people everywhere were moving from rural areas to urban.  There's a film with as much relevance today as it had back then. 

What category?

Outstanding Program Achievement.  I'm listed as director, though I wasn't in the DGA at the time. 

Where do you keep your EMMY?

McMahon has the statuette.  We could have had more but we were low budget and Mac didn't want to pay for them.  I have a plaque on my wall, between the Silver we won at the Atlanta Film Festival and an honorable mention I won in the Hemingway Short Story Contest for a story I wrote about my dad. 

Did the Emmy benefit your career in any substantial way; did it make a difference in the type of work you did or the jobs you were offered?

Because of the EMMY, I was recognized as a filmmaker in Hollywood.  It helped me get a new show development slot at Hanna Barbera, and definitely was instrumental in getting me the gig with Steve McQueen in France. 

You have received many awards. What were the individual awards for and have they helped your career?

Please don't ask me to remember them one by one.  Certainly the ones that are most meaningful to me won't mean anything to anybody else.  I won an AAAAA award for Ford Corporate commercials nobody remembers and Pioneer and Caples awards for writing print, and something for producing the computer animated opening to The Black Hole and something for  some educationals I did for HB, and ... Awards are nice, but they can be a monumental pain in the ass.  That was yesterday, past history.  The constant problem facing any creative person is, "What have you done for the muse today?"  What have you written, produced, directed--what story have you told--that is significant, true to the bone, and appealing (seductive) to your audience?  That said, I think one of my most favorite awards is the plaque The Old Spooks & Spies gave me for editing TANS, true stories from military spies and their covert operations around the world. 

What advice would you offer to:

 -- writers trying to get published?

You can try the secret as revealed to me by Eric Van Lowe and outlined in TINSEL WILDERNESS.  But you don't have to do that.  This is a terrific age of opportunity for young, struggling, or mid-level writers.  When the big publishers consolidated a few decades ago, it killed off many opportunities for really good writers who simply hadn't made it for any number of reasons.  They will deny this today, for obvious reasons, trucking out disclaimers and statistics...but I lived through it, and I don't buy the stories.  And you don't have to, either.  Today, it doesn't matter.  I'm a big believer in e-books, audio books, podcasts, print-on-demand, small press.  It's not there yet, but believe me, it's getting there. 
--to writers trying to break into film and television with pilots and screenplays?
I cannot say 'do as I do' because I haven't been enormously successful pitching my own stuff.  The joke around my home recording studio/office is that the next big earthquake will bury me in my own unpublished novel manuscripts, show pilots and screenplays.  BUT, THAT SAID, how else are you going to do it?  You have to write the novel, the screenplay.  Or you have to write the show and produce the pilot.  You can't simply present your idea--that's not storytelling, that's telling a story about a story.   And worse, ideas are cheap as dirt and easy to steal.
--to actors and actresses trying to get cast in films?
Be relentless, be inexorable, miss no chance to practice your craft, get better and better until either they have to cast you or you die of old age.  If you love a story idea, be willing to give your services away...do a great job and you'll not have to worry about more work.
--to composers / musicians?
It's a great time for music, though lots of the old talent is lamenting the 'death of the music business.'  Bad for them, maybe, but if they have real genius, they'll survive.  And terrific for young people coming up. 
--to talented people trying to get noticed?
Some are naturally better at attracting interest than others.  Self-promotion is a skill, and it is not the same as creative talent.  I know an enormously popular eBook writer who has promoted himself into his first publishing deal with the East-Of-The-Hudson Literary Mob...and he's going to fail miserably because he can't write worth a damn.  You've got to find the healthy balance between practicing your creative craft and promoting your work. 
Do you suggest getting agents and business managers?
Agents can be helpful after you get established.  Business managers take your money, and if you're that busy, you give them 15%.  Just don't let them manage ALL your money.  That means checks come in to your bank account, and then YOU pay your manager, not the other way around. 
Are union affiliations important? What affiliations do you have?
I've been a member of the DGA (Director's Guild of America) since the early 1970's, and a member of ASCAP (Song writers & Composers Union) for nearly as long.  They don't get you work, but they can protect your rights. 
What mistakes have you made and what did you learn as a result?
Too many really big and really important mistakes to mention in a paragraph, or even in a book.  TINSEL WILDERNESS is all about lessons I've learned, and I've got enough material for two or three more.  But, okay, you want to know a few of the biggies.  1) Failure to hear opportunity knocking.  In 1984, The Disney Channel was looking for programming, but I was writing a screenplay and couldn't be bothered.  That was a huge mistake.  2) Failure to take good shortcuts.  If I'd spent two or three years in Iowa, I could have avoided two decades of learning how to write long form. 
What are you working on now?
I'm recording the audio book version of my new novel, The Heart of Desire, 'as read by the author'.    http://double-dragon-ebooks.com/single.php?ISBN=1-55404-549-5   My due date is 1 April, and I'd like to beat that by a couple of weeks, so I've got work to be done.  Then, I'm retro-ing a screenplay I wrote, Purple Hearts, into a novel.  I'm adapting a short story to short film format with Marilyn Peake, the author.  I've promised my publisher a time travel romance novel by this fall.  I've got the 1st draft finished, still have to do a polish, and then record the audio book version.  I'm also developing a pilot (with Marilyn Peake, J. Richard Jacobs, Deron Douglas and my own son Matt Klawitter) based on J. Richard Jacobs' prize winning collections of sci fi/fantasy/horror stories TWISTED TAILS, Vol I, II, III and soon to be out IV.  Steve Zuckerman and I have come up with a song and we've cut together a pilot show we can shop around town. 
What are you interested in promoting?
I am most interested in promoting what I see as the great new wave in storytelling.  Internet, electronic printing, iPod and video driven, what an electrifying time to get out there and tell a story!

Whether it's YouTube, eBooks, podcasts, whatever--if you're a storyteller, now's the time to be spinning your webs and cutting your videos.

Finally, tell us a little about your family, children and where you enjoy working.

I live in Woodland Hills, California.  I've worked at most of the major studios, recording studios and post production houses around town, as well as many Indy production houses.  My wife and I have three sons, and they all vowed they would never go into the creative business.  The oldest may have escaped--he's a lawyer in Northern California--though he talks about the novel he might write some day.  My 2nd son is a top marketing executive at Bright Design, working for the Legendary Keith Bright.  And my youngest son is a rising young executive over at the Fox Studios.  --Danitelo.com with John Klawitter

Film and Television Star - Kimberly Russell

Currently filming PUSH in New York.
(Click photos for more!)