“In order to be a good creative director, you have to understand your client and deliver what’s best for their brand and their goals.” – Dan Wulfing
1. What’s your story? When I was younger I wanted to be an astronaut. I was fed a steady visual diet of Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica. My mind was always 62 miles up above the surface of the Earth. It’s only fitting that I’m working at a place with a rocket for our logo.
2. How did you connect with Bottle Rocket Media? I, along with Brett, Dan and Siobhan, am an Oprah Winfrey Show vet. The 4 of us have a special bond that can only be forged in the fires of broadcast television. When I got the call to come on board, I couldn’t imagine any group of people I would rather work with.
3. How would you describe working with Bottle Rocket Media? BRM is one of the most delightful places to work. Not only do I get to spend my days working alongside people I know and trust, but those same people trust me and give me the creative freedom to grow and creatively direct the post department in all the ways that give me agency in my career and the company.
4. Why do you love being a Creative Director? It is such a challenging role because it’s so subjective. In order to be a good creative director, you have to understand your client and deliver what’s best for their brand and their goals. It forces you to shed your ego and grow into a leadership role. We’ve had clients that months, sometimes years, after we’ve done work for them, come back to us with another project and they are still talking about that first video we did and how everyone loves it, that’s the best, that’s how you know you’re making an impact on someone’s business.
5. Your role is integral to the success of the team, how do you think you fit in and how do your skills work well with the team? Above all, we are an ideal company. The vehicle we use to deliver our ideas is video, but the passenger is creativity. Our clients love our ideas and as the Creative Director, it’s incumbent on me to make sure those good ideas keep coming.
6. Share your rocket sauce with us! What is your greatest accomplishment thus far as a Creative Director? There are more than a few specific projects that I could talk about that truly are a feather in the cap, but I think my greatest achievement thus far is a holistic, raising of the bar and moving the company forward. Tactically, I can be proud of this project or that project, but as a whole, I feel best about moving Bottle Rocket Media forward with good work and an ever-growing creative team.
7. What’s your favorite movie/video?! My favorite video we’ve done at Bottle Rocket Media is a project we did for a company called Impossible Objects. We took what was an incredibly technical process about a novel 3d printing technique and turned it into a fantastic journey. It’s just really fun to watch.
8. What’s a talent you have that you rarely share? I’m a pretty open book, I like to share my talents with my family, friends, and coworkers because I want the best for them. But for those that don’t know me personally, I like to think of myself as a fairly adept baker, so I love making pies and cookies and bunt cakes for everyone in my life. Nothing says love quite like a stomach full of baked goods!
9. Pick what you could live without out of the three? Amazon, Netflix, or Google? Not to sound like a Luddite, but all three! I know these things are now fixtures in all our lives, but I’m becoming less and less a fan of digital everything. Amazon? I like walking into stores and saying hello to the people that work there. Netflix? I’d rather have good conversations than binge. Google? Schmoogle. It’s hard to escape all these things, but like a good friend of mine once said; Hang up and hang out.
10. If you had to sing karaoke, what would be your go-to song to sing? FourFiveSeconds