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We talk with Hunter Carr about the challenges of being Senior Art Director, writing six-second scripts and keeping up with the cultural zeitgeist.

Transcript by Rachael Haas

[Intro theme music]

Jesse: How was your day today?

Derek: We had an excellent lunch. So, I would say I’m stuffed from that.

Jesse: So, we had a cookout today, so they provided us lunch. I haven’t even seen it yet. What do they have over there?

Derek: It’s “ye-rohs,” if I’m going to pronounce it correctly.

Jesse: OK.

Derek: Yes, it was very tasty.

Jesse: Sounds good!

Derek: Actually, it was a really good lunch today.

Jesse: I remember back in the day, the cookout was always hamburgers and hot dogs.

Derek: We would actually cook out.

Jesse: Yes. And actually back in the day, they gave you groups and somebody would have to be the head of the group and make sure they organized the whole thing, and you would designate who’s gonna do the grilling, who’s gonna bring in the desserts, all that sort of thing. And for a while, they got really … not competitive, but they got really just kind of crazy and people would do different themes. I remember we had a ’50s diner. Somebody did an outdoor fair. And they would have all the food fit into that theme, which I thought was kinda cool.

Derek: This is a nostalgic time.

Jesse: Yeah, talking about the old days.

Derek: And so we’re gonna say, “Hey, Hunter, we did this before you were here.” [laughs]

Jesse: Way back when.

Derek: Way back in the day.

Jesse: And that’s a good segue …

Derek: Pre-COVID.

Jesse: Yeah, because our guest today is relatively new to Marcus Thomas. So, we’re gonna be excited to talk about what his perspective of Marcus Thomas is so far in the little time he’s been here. But for this guest, as we do for all our guests, we asked him to provide Two Truths and a Lie, and I’m gonna let Derek go ahead and read the first one.

Derek: All right, truth/lie number one: “I have an identical twin.” And maybe that twin is in the studio with us today.

Jesse: Maybe he sent his twin to do this. Perhaps he didn’t wanna do it.

Derek: Yeah.

Jesse: And that’s possible. Number two: “I have a perfect five-star Lyft and Uber rating.” You wanna read number three?

Derek: “Well, I wanna start by saying, ‘There’s an unmarked grave at the empty lot behind the 7-Eleven in Bowling Green, Kentucky.’ This is not a lie. This is a confession from me, Derek Oyen.” Hunter’s third truth was: he is allergic to shellfish. [pauses] I did it. I confess it all. Please call the police.

Jesse: OK Derek, I want to circle back to something you just said, and what it is that you said …

Derek: About shellfish?

Jesse: … Well, we’ll get to the shellfish, but to start that off, it sounded like you said, “There’s an unmarked grave,” and correct me if I’m remembering this wrong, “There’s an unmarked grave at the empty lot behind a 7-Eleven in Bowling Green. This is not a lie. This is a confession from me, Derek Oyen.” Did I get that right? Is that what you just said?

Derek: Bowling Green, Kentucky, not like Bowling Green, Ohio. And that is as I read it from what Hunter sent me, yes.

Jesse: So, what you’re saying is, you are reading what Hunter sent you. That is not actually a confession from Derek Oyen.

Derek: Exactly.

Jesse: So, there is not an unmarked grave.

Derek: I don’t know if there is or isn’t, but …

Jesse: OK, but you are not responsible for it.

Derek: I am not responsible.

Jesse: To confirm to our listeners, Derek is not saying he’s responsible for an unmarked grave, which may or may not be behind the 7-Eleven in Bowling Green, Kentucky. That’s all correct.

Derek: Here we are, trying to make sure this does not turn into a true crime podcast, right?

Jesse: Although it could be interesting.

Derek: Trying to cover the tracks here.

Jesse: Yeah, just to make sure.

Derek: Who else is really confused in this moment? I don’t know.

Jesse: Well, Hunter is the reason for this confusion, and I’ll let him introduce himself right now. Please tell us who you are and what you do here at Marcus Thomas.

Hunter: Hello! I am Hunter Carr, and I am a senior art director.

Jesse: Thank you very much, Hunter, for being on the show today. And just to clarify for the listeners, Hunter did provide all of the dialogue that Derek just said.

Derek: Hunter did say that there’s an unmarked grave behind the 7-Eleven in Bowling Green, yes.

Jesse: And you wanted Derek to read that?

Hunter: I wanted Derek to confess to something that he didn’t do because I thought it would be huge.

Jesse: So this God complex that you’ve been wrestling with for a while, I’d like to dive into that a little bit better …

Hunter: Yes.

Jesse:  … but your role here at Marcus Thomas. Say it again for us.

Hunter: Senior art director.

Jesse: OK. And what does that job kind of entail?

Hunter: When you’re making an ad, there’s a picture part and a word part, and I do the picture part. And a copywriter will do the word part.

Jesse: That’s nice.

Derek: That is a very clear definition. I like that.

Jesse: All right. Let’s get back to these Two Truths and a Lie, though.

Derek: This whole God complex thing makes it feel to me like the perfect five-star Lyft and Uber rating is gonna be a falsehood.

Jesse: I agree, because I think he’s getting into that Uber driver’s head and forcing them to do things, like, where he says, “Where am I? I didn’t know we were going here!”

Derek: Maybe he’s forcing that five-star review.

Jesse: Yeah. So, the third one actually is that you’re allergic to shellfish. That’s the third possible lie.

Hunter: Sure.

Jesse: OK. And the first one was that you have an identical twin.

Hunter: Sure.

Jesse: I think he does have an identical twin. And I think if one of them’s the evil one, it’s him.

Derek: [laughing] There we go.

Jesse: Based on what we’ve heard so far, I don’t think he has a perfect five-star Lyft and Uber rating. I think he is allergic to shellfish and he has a twin.

Derek: Well, I feel like Hunter would absolutely have a perfect five-star Lyft and Uber rating. I think his lie is that he’s allergic to shellfish.

Jesse: Do you want to reveal to us?

Hunter: My lie is that I’m allergic to shellfish.

Jesse: Mannn …

Derek: Got it.

Jesse: Perfect five-star rating!

Derek: He tried to bury that into a thing about a confession. So, you know …

Jesse: Was that the whole game there? Was it, “Let me try to bury this with this whole crazy story so nobody guesses it?”

Hunter: Yeah.

Derek: [laughs]

Jesse: OK. So, you do picture stuff right now?

Hunter: Picture stuff.

Jesse: OK. What got you into picture stuff?

Hunter: I think a lot of art directors might have the same comeuppance of, “I wanted to be an artist.” And I didn’t go to art school, but yeah, I was taking a lot of art classes in high school and I got kind of burned out. And then everyone I talked to, when I said I want to go to art school, they were like, “You’ll never get a job. Why would you wanna do that?” Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, I was like, “OK, maybe I don’t do that.” And I looked at things that were close to art school in terms of degrees, and one of them was mass communications – sort of this whole grouping of PR, journalism and advertising. And creative advertising was my major. Then I got kind of FOMO, I guess, because some of my peers went to art school and they’re like, “This is great. You should transfer in.” Because I went to a school called Virginia Commonwealth University, and their art program is extremely good. I already had a portfolio. So, I gathered it up. I went and emailed the guy who was in charge of the transfer program or whatever. I go into his office; he gives me this dead fish, wet, limp handshake. Sits down. I put my portfolio on the desk, slide it across to him and he goes, “You know, there’s only like, two people who get to transfer in, and that’s from everyone in the country and international students. So, you’ll never get in.” And he slides my portfolio back across the desk to me and walks out. I go, “OK. I guess I’m in advertising now.”

Derek: Wow, that’s cold.

Jesse: Quite the origin story, though.

Hunter: Yeah.

Jesse: So, then it was all … What brought you to Marcus Thomas?

Hunter: Before, I was working at an agency in Los Angeles and it was OK … I was not making any money after rent and bills and everything. In my bank account, I had like $40 a month and then the pandemic happened, and everything just went downhill and you know, for a lot of people, it did. And all of my co-workers started leaving, and so I was picking up their jobs and working 11-hour days to try and keep up and it was a lot. And then I was just like, “I need to find something else, preferably remote.” And I was talking to a recruiter and he’s like, “Hey, there’s a remote position at this place called Marcus Thomas. They’re not that well known, but they’re good people. They do good work.” And so I was like, “All right. Here’s my book. Let’s see what happens.” And I had an interview with Gillen and I had an interview with Steph Burris, and they were super chill interviews … it was just a vibe check at that point. I think that’s one of the benefits of being a creative is, you have your book and your résumé there. It’s like, you either like me or you don’t. “Would I like working with this person? Yes or no.” And the answer was yes, and I got the job.

Jesse: You’ve been here two years, so still relatively new. Could you share anything about what’s your favorite part of working here so far or maybe something you don’t like about working here so far?

Hunter: The people is the worst part.

Derek: Right, yeah.

Hunter: Every one of you. Horrible. No. The people are the best part. I think everyone says this on this podcast, but it’s the truth. And for me personally, I like that Marcus Thomas is a little bit smaller. Previously, I had interned at FCB Chicago. That is, they’re in the John Hancock building. There’s four stories and 400 people. And you just feel like a cog in the machine. And you … it doesn’t really matter what you say or what you do, you just do your work and you don’t really have agency or input. And that is an awful feeling. You want to feel like you matter in the things that you’re doing, and being in a smaller office or a smaller group of creatives is really nice in that regard – of feeling like if I wasn’t doing my job, there would be repercussions. Whereas if you’re in a 400-person office, it’s like, “Do I matter?”

Jesse: It sounds like, if I understood right, you started as a mass communications major in college. Kind of found your way into advertising. There are so many different disciplines in advertising. I think you found a love for design, it sounds like, but do you ever ask yourself, “Maybe there’s somewhere else in advertising I’d like to go?”

Hunter: In advertising specifically? I don’t know. I’d like Mikey’s job. Editing.

Jesse: Wow. Did you hear that, Mikey?

Mikey: Oh, nooo!

Derek: Are you worried over there, Mikey?

Hunter: I’m coming for Mikey’s job.

Jesse: Mikey’s sweating right now.

Hunter: Well, that was one of the things that I did a lot in school is, you know, you have a 0- dollar budget … I was shooting things and editing things myself, and that was something that I really enjoyed doing. And if I wasn’t doing this, maybe I’d start doing something like that. That’s the most rewarding part for me in all of this, like, “Let’s do a shoot.” And making and executing the thing, that is the dessert at the end of the meetings, at the end of brainstorming and just putting in the hours of trying to come up with ideas. The dessert is getting to make it. That’s why I do it. And if I wouldn’t be able to do that, I would be like, “All right, goodbye.”

Derek: So, you live for dessert.

Hunter: Mhmm. Don’t we all? I guess if you don’t have a sweet tooth …

Derek: A nice flan …

Jesse: Did that stem from a love of film or a love of video?

Hunter: Yeah, I used to shoot things when I was a kid all the time. I would make, you know, stop-motion animation with LEGO, and skits with my neighbors, and animating things on the computer and After Effects … and that was something that I really enjoyed. And, you know, it’s just something that you do less and less of because you don’t have time or you have no reason to. Or you grow up.

Jesse: Well, you came in today with an idea of, “Let me have Derek read this shocking statement” and then direction to “Let me have Jesse act shocked by it.” So, it’s not crazy to assume you had a love for directing. And it seems like you still have a little bit of a passion for it, but you can’t see yourself getting back into that at some point?

Hunter: I think my job as an art director, I still have that opportunity to have that influence on something we’re shooting, something we’re making, what this thing looks like. And, “What if we shot it this way?” and being descriptive and shooting boards and storyboards. And I still have those opportunities within the shoots themselves, but it really depends on the director too, of who we’re working with. Some people are just like, “I’m going to do everything myself.” And some people ask me for my opinion, and I will gladly give it. Because I have a lot of opinions on things, and I have a vision in my head of how something should look. You know, I’m still afforded some of those opportunities without having to have the whole rigamarole of corralling production companies or any of that noise. And so for now it’s … the dessert is still satisfying. I’m not sick of it yet.

Jesse: Yeah. You talk about loving the process and how much, how many steps there are in the process of coming up with an idea. If it’s a production, you’re doing storyboards … do you have a favorite part of it for you, or the whole journey is great?

Hunter: My favorite part is writing scripts. And that’s not my … I’m not a copywriter, but that’s my favorite thing. It’s like, “Let’s just get on … figure out the outline for something. Let’s write something funny, dialogue-wise, and see where we can go with it.” And being in that process with a writer and just writing out a commercial is so much fun; that’s what I really enjoy because it’s the ground level for making something enjoyable and, you know, dictating what the visual is, what the piece of dialogue is. “How can we make this funnier? Does this make sense? Will this read in 30 seconds?” That sort of thing. There’s a challenge behind it, and just being open and free with your writer. And it also just gives me an opportunity to do something that I don’t do every day, right, because, you know, I’m sort of stuck in Photoshop land or making a PowerPoint or whatever a lot of days. And so, being able to write is a fun reprieve.

Derek: Do you have anything that you do outside of work to keep yourself energized?

Hunter: I love to read. That’s usually my routine, is, every night disconnect from some sort of screen and just read a book. I don’t know if it gets me energized, but it definitely helps me think better of, “How would I convey something?” One of my favorite authors is Terry Pratchett. He writes a series of novels called Discworld, and they’re like satirical fantasy. But a lot of it is written out like the dialogue could be a play, kind of. Because the descriptions are so metaphorical and fourth-wall-breaking in a sense, you know, talking about an astronaut metaphor. But they’re in a fantasy world just to convey something to the reader. And I think that’s super helpful in my job of, like, I have to convey an idea, right? How do I do that as best I can in the simplest terms to someone, a creative director or a client, who has no idea beforehand what I’m talking about or what I’m going to talk about, right? “I have an idea. Here’s the concept, and here’s where it can go.” And being able to take different ways of conveying an idea is very helpful and, you know, reading books makes you a better writer, and when you’re a better writer, you can better put into words what you’re trying to say. And in a simpler way so that people get it instantly because that’s the job: You have 30 seconds, you have 15 seconds, you have 10 seconds, you have six second to say something. To convey an idea. To get people to do something. You need to say that quickly and easily and get people to understand it, and so, being able to keep up with trends, movies, songs, being on top of pop culture, being in the zeitgeist of things around you, knowing memes … all of that is so essential to advertising. Because the moment you don’t know what someone’s talking about, like, “I don’t get that reference,” then you’re done. You need to get every reference. And so, if you can either absorb everything you can or talk with people who know more things than you know – be it age, be it a different gender, be it a different race – having different perspectives is super important to advertising. I had a creative director and he was an encyclopedia of everything. And I was like, “How do you know what that is?” He’s like, “I just absorb it all. Like, I’ll watch ‘The Bachelor.’ I hate it, but I’ll watch it because it’s in pop culture. I need to know what’s happening. I’ll listen to the albums that are in the top 100 even though I don’t like that song because I need to know what those songs are.” Right? And he is a phenomenal creative director and a phenomenal writer. And it’s, I think it’s those things that made him good … he knows a little about everything. And that’s what makes you strong.

Jesse: It’s an interesting perspective because I think at some point you almost need to put your own preferences, and to some degree your own ego, aside to say, “This isn’t my genre. This isn’t something I like, but I wanna know more about it.” I think people have more of a tendency to say, “Yeah, that’s the top 100, but they don’t know good music,” like, “I have the right music.” And to actually put that aside and say, “I’m gonna give this a chance, I’m gonna learn about it so I can talk about it” … I think it’s not something everybody can do. Is that something you do as well?

Hunter: I try to. Like movies? I try to watch a lot of different movies for two reasons: the first is just so, you know, keeping up with things. But the second, in terms of my job, is – if you’re shooting a commercial, there are very specific scenes that you want to reference, like, “Oh, this would be great!” For example, I was talking with Alex MacLeod, my writing partner, and I referenced “Army of Darkness.” Sam Raimi has seen where the main character, Ash Williams, makes a robotic hand. And Sam Raimi has this technique that he uses a lot, where it’s quick cuts and zooms in a montage form. So, there’s this montage – you can look it up on YouTube or whatever – of him making his hand in this garage with like medieval weaponry, and there’s a specific part at the end where he crushes a beer glass with the hand. And there’s two people in the background, and the camera zooms in and they’re making a very surprised face, and that is a very specific moment. But, that’s a camera direction. That’s something that we can use in this commercial to convey something quickly of, like, “Here’s this shot, and it would be funny if we did it like that.” We zoom in. And it looks super surprised when we do quick cuts of a balloon flying up, a cat in a tree, people going, “Oh!” And you know, it’s that very quick reference of, “Here’s what I’m thinking. Here’s what it looks like.” And I only know that because I’ve seen that movie and I know what kind of vibe we’re going for. I know what kind of filmmaker Sam Raimi is, you know, and that sort of stuff is super helpful. If I had never seen that, I wouldn’t have that reference, right? I wouldn’t be able to know what I’m talking about, quickly find it, and quickly give it to someone else to say, “Hey, this is what I’m thinking in my head.” So, it’s all those little things that will pop up in the back of your head.

Jesse: But you say a good portion of art direction and the job itself is borrowing from things you’ve seen.

Hunter: Yeah, if you want, you know, what Picasso said: “Great artists steal,” you know? And I think the other …

Jesse: Mhmm. It was, “Good artists borrow. Great artists steal.”

Hunter: Yeah. And I think that’s true. You don’t wanna make it obvious, but you need to have those influences come from somewhere, right? And at least in terms of advertising, people like understanding things and getting things and relating to things, right? That’s why stand-up comedy works – you go, “Haha! That’s so funny. That’s totally true.”

Derek: “And I never noticed that before.”

Hunter: “That’s so relatable.” Yeah. And that’s what people like, that’s what gets people entertained and laughing, and that’s what you hope to do with an ad if you’re given the opportunity – entertain someone because no one really wants to be sold something. We have ad blockers, we pay for ad-free streaming services, right? No one wants to see an ad. So, you wanna give them something that at least doesn’t waste their time and maybe gives them a chuckle. Or makes them feel something other than annoyance.

Derek: Fast-forward.

Hunter: Right. Skip.

Jesse: OK. Well, we wanted to talk to you today, and one of the first things you said was that “I’m not that interesting,” but I gotta say, this is one of the most interesting ones we’ve had. So, we really appreciate you coming on.

Hunter: Thank you for having me. I don’t know if I agree with that. I hope I was an OK guest.

Jesse: No, I think you said a lot of great stuff. I think people are gonna love to hear it. A lot of good advice, but thank you, Hunter. Appreciate it.

Derek: Thanks a lot.

Hunter: Thank you.

[Outro music starts]

Derek: Today’s show is hosted by Jesse DiFranco and me, Derek Oyen. It was recorded and mixed by the man to my right, Mikey Nichols. Our theme was composed and recorded by David Bemer. Thanks, David. “Ask a Better Question” is produced in and by Marcus Thomas. The opinions on this show are not those of Marcus Thomas. You can take that up with Jesse and me.

[Outro music fades]