The help. This week: Enrique Escobar, film producer, Vietnam vet, air traffic controller, pilot, medic.

By Gonzalo López Martí  – LMMIAMI.COM

In the ad business we rarely ask the opinion of the artists-for-hire who help us bring to life our lofty, world-changing, award-winning ideas. Namely film directors, photographers, web developers and so on. These folks turn our PowerPoint® psychobabble into real, tangible executions yet we expect for them to hit the ground running, give us exactly what we want, when we want it, at the price we set, no questions asked. This series of articles will humbly attempt to right this wrong.

If you thought being an advertising film producer is a high pressure job, read on. From California to South Florida via Mississippi, Vietnam, Oregon & New York. Now that’s a life journey.

Q: When and how did you start in the business? Did someone mentor you or give you your break?

Enrique Escobar: It is a long story. I was born in Sacramento, Ca. I lived on a farm, initially with my maternal grandma. I was the love child of the chief of police of Tijuana. My dad was a colorful character. He had graduated in law magna cum laude from the University of Mexico, in Mexico City. But he never practiced law, his thing was law enforcement. He convinced my mom to move us down to San Ysidro, on the outskirts of San Diego, right north of the border. We were not well off, to put it mildly. Still, my mom made sure I didn’t stray from the straight & narrow. I had no shortage of opportunities to drift but she always kept me and my siblings headed in the right direction. Her comments still ring in my ears. Look with your eyes, not with your mouth. If it comes fast it won’t last. Work is a gift, treat it that way. Speaking of which, my first job was selling day-old newspapers to folks who crossed the border to attend the Caliente racetrack on the Mexican side. The booking regulations were more lenient there, to put it somehow, so it was a big draw for the gambling crowd. The trick was simple: day-old newspapers carried the program for the following day’s races, hence attendees furnished with my merchandise didn’t have to buy the booklet at the racetrack, which carried a higher cover price than my crumpled inventory. The spread allowed me to make a little profit. Cut to my late teens. I decided to join the armed forces and was admitted. There was a few months’ downtime before Uncle Sam required my presence. I was unemployed and penniless. I needed a job. There was a tuna cannery in San Diego hiring day laborers. It was not easy to get hired. You had to prove you were willing to work hard. Somebody told me to show up at the washing area at the entrance of the factory and just stand there: “… they will ignore you for a few days. Eventually, they will see you’re committed and plenty resilient and they will hire you…” This was exactly what happened. I had to gaff and haul tuna like a madman. Women staffed the filleting station. They were upset, knives in hand, because I was too slow passing them fish to fillet (they were paid by the unit). Finally, I joined the Air Force. After basic training they told me I was gonna be an air traffic controller. They essentially imposed it upon me, I wanted to be a medic! I was dispatched to an air traffic academy in Biloxi, Ms. From there I was sent to Columbus, in Mississippi too, to get certified. Looks like I proved to be equal to the task because a few months later, 1969, I was sent to, you guessed it, Vietnam. I was stationed in Da Nang for two months. After that: Pleiku airbase in the central highlands. Anybody who’s been in Vietnam knows these were the hot places to be close to the action. You bet it was quite the eye-opening experience for a poor Mexican American kid who had stepped out of Southern California for the first time in his life only a few months before. Race relations were slightly different in those days. I remember once, while trying to rent a place in Mississippi, a potential landlord told me, casually and with spotless manners: “Son, I know you’re not black. But I ain’t too sure you’re white either.” After my tour serving in Vietnam, the FAA offered me a job as a civil air traffic controller in San Diego. Two weeks later the Nixon administration established a federal hiring freeze. I was in limbo. Again. Employed but salary-less. I became an aircraft assembler in the local DC10 factory. After a year-long wait, the hiring freeze ended and I was finally admitted as ATC, a job I held until 81. Little did I know that this had not been my last labor contention with a GOP administration. By then I had been transferred to Oregon. I was there when the then called and now defunct union PATCO (Professional Air Traffic Controller Organization) decided to square off with the newly appointed Reagan crew. The usual reasons: working conditions, days off, retirement conditions. It’s a very stressful job. Huge washout rate. Very few people reach retirement age in this line of business. At least this was the case back in the day. Many an ATC stopped working at a fairly early age due medical disability. You could say I learned an awful lot of discipline and focus working as an ATC, which helped me a LOT in my film production days. We communicate horribly in the communications biz. A paradox. In the ATC line of work, if you don’t communicate properly people die. Back to the strike: negotiations were stuck. We were given 48 hours to return to work. Next thing you know, the government decided to fire pretty much everyone involved in the strike: I’d say 8 out of 10 ATCs in the country were let go. President Reagan didn’t seem to mind that we had been one of only two unions to endorse him for president just eight months earlier. I was named one of the six principal people leading the strike in my region. During the strike, when we were on the picket lines, I was an impromptu spokesperson several times. I appeared on TV a few times so they identified me as a troublemaker. I got blackballed for life from practicing the profession in the US. And I became very important to the IRS, which has showed a keen interest in my personal accounts ever since. Not that I see any coincidence. So here I was: very young, highly trained, but the only employer who could hire me was an airport, which was out of the question. I was a certified weather observer by the National Weather Service. I was a pilot and an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician). You can tell these items on my resume were very helpful when I changed careers and became a producer. By the way, 80% of fired ATCs were Vietnam vets. It’s common to hear conservatives talking about honoring our veterans but the truth tends to be different. During the strike I met a reporter from the local CBS affiliate KOIN named Sandy James, who was covering the picket lines. After I was fired she pointed me in the direction of a slide tape production company called Creative Media Development. They hired me to sell a set of safety training videos they were producing. They figured I would be able to talk to their clients in the field of safety engineering on pretty equal terms. They were right: I was able to convince Cooper Industries to create a complete customized safety series. It was my break: I was involved in the full development of the videos so I ended up with the producer title. The project ended up winning a bronze Cindy Award. They had video cameras and an A/B editing system. I would stay up at night learning how to shoot and edit. I started to get involved with the local media community. I shot my first short film, “MIA Refund”. I was approached by some leaders of the Portland, Oregon, Hispanic community looking for access to the media biz. We founded the Hispanic Media Project. We were able to train many Hispanics and multicultural folks in the ropes of a business which at the time was highly underrepresented by Latinos and people of color. We ended up producing two television shows. One was a magazine-style show in Spanish called Sin Fronteras. Being the only TV show in Spanish in the Pacific Northwest at the time, we were able to attract a lot of high profile guests. César Chávez was on our show a number of times. We highlighted all the Hispanic events and became the political podium for Hispanic local politics. This period of my career lasted through the mid 80s. In 87 an HBO movie production came to Oregon from LA. “The last innocent man” was the name of the movie. One thing took to the other and soon after I moved to LA, initially to work on the movie “Confessions of a hit man”, starring James Remar. I got a first assistant director credit on the movie. It gave me exposure and got me busy. By now I had become a serious nomad. I moved to NYC after a choreographer girlfriend I had had moved there. The relationship didn’t last but I liked my life in NYC. I volunteered at the Latino Broadcasting Program in Spanish Harlem. I got a job with National Geographic. They hired me to join a four-person crew and shoot a documentary of the tunnels of the city, with acclaimed director & cinematographer James Libscomb. It gave me considerable street cred in NYC. I ended up as a staff producer with Pictures International. Eventually, in 89, I opened my own company: Estrellas, based in NYC to pursue international work, and Estrellas Film, based in Dallas to cater to the Hispanic market). Plus, I was running Studio 53 to develop general market work. We did lots of stuff for Pedigree, Excedrin, Toyota, ConEd, Nynex, Mountain Dew, the NYTimes. Saatchi, DellaFemina and Ted Bates sent a lot of projects our way. We shot the Westminster dog show three years in a row with huge crews. In those days I became involved in HAMAS.  No, I was not a jihadist:  HAMAS stood for Hispanic Academy of Media Arts & Science. I was on the national board of directors and president of the NY chapter. A great group of colleagues and friends were involved in the initiative: Judith Escalona, Angel Gil Orrios, Luis Hernández. Through them I met Raúl Juliá. Raúl and I became good friends. He wanted to create a Hispanic rat pack of sorts. We founded Fuego Films together, the five of us. We had great projects. Unfortunately, Raúl got this terrible illness and died. He was a great artist, extremely talented and generous. He could sing opera. He would break into song in the middle of a dinner at a restaurant and delight patrons and staff with a full aria. One of the most charismatic individuals I’ve ever met. After Raúl and my mom died in a very short period of time, I decided to leave NY and seek new horizons. So I moved to Miami in 96, out of sheer impulse. I started to look around. Madison Avenue beckoned. I kept getting calls from friends in Ogilvy NY offering me a job as agency producer. I took the job and worked for Ogilvy Miami/Latin America on the AmEx account for several years. These days, I am a free-lance producer -Leo Burnett, La Comunidad, SCPF, Scoppechio- and production consultant for Kraft Foods.

Q: What’s the difference between working at the production department of a big agency and working for a production company that caters to big agencies?

EE: Working at a big agency provides a lot of depth to draw upon as the agency producer. You are always closer to the client’s vision and it really helps to bring to life very sophisticated creative executions. Working for different agencies from the production side is a really big guessing game. You really never know what the initial client brief for the job is. Balancing creative visions with the right director to reach a happy medium is the challenge.

Q: What’s the future of the advertising agency business model?

EE: The model is in trouble justifying its value to the clients. Social media is still a throw-everything-at-it-until-something-sticks. Problem is, that’s where the future lies and the clients know it.

Q: Do you see increasing crossover potential for Hispanic professionals? For example, are Hispanic directors being hired by mainstream agencies?

EE: Well I actually see Hispanic professionals as the big winners in all the chaos. The brands’ fear of missing out on this emerging diverse reality will lead them to the doorsteps of our professionals.

Q: What are the advantages & disadvantages of shooting in LA, NY, Miami, DF, Bogotá or Buenos Aires?

EE: Increasingly short agency and client schedules are taxing the ability to travel. Which sometimes is a great way to produce at lower costs. The infrastructure offshore is improving for sure

Q: What’s the future of the TV landscape?

EE: On what medium is my question. Viewing habits are drifting in different directions. News and entertainment content will always be desired. The big question is how where and when will the viewer be found.

Q: What’s your take on social media?

EE: This is a very comfortable way to communicate for whatever purpose. With more players more options will appear. Take it very seriously

Q: How are Latinas portrayed in the media today? Are we progressing?

EE: I would invite you to look at my presentation on Hispanics In The Media  (https://vimeo.com/40315508). I did it in 1985. The national reality of diversity and inclusion back then was disheartening. The progress has been enormous. Giant steps were made and the path is quite open.

Q: What about the self-image &/or projected image of Hispanic men? Are Latinos finally dropping their tough macho guard?

EE: The success of our Latina stars and the evolution of strong Latina business leaders is probably our greatest success. The byproduct is that often times the natural macho overreaction to daily situations is not really necessary.