Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and anybody who ever wanted to cruise with a caravan. There are stories to be told, and wonders to behold and we’re here to do just that.
We’re Gypsy Chicago Productions and we’ve put together a band with an intercultural plan to document histories of the told and untold variety. We’re storytellers with advertising degrees from the life school of the narrative arts and we want to take you down roads less roamed and times less traveled as we explore diversity, adversity, happenstance, circumstance and the meaning of life. All done in the theatre of documentary filmmaking.
So beginning now, we start telling a story near you.
CHANNELS CHANGERS – A DOCUMENTARY
Channels Changers tells the story of the Black advertising professionals in Chicago who started the transformation of the most powerful influences of American culture, advertising, marketing and media.
It’s the story of how “colored” folks first cracked the monolithic white walls of American communications and how that led to the full-color spectrum of creative influences that we see today. The story that Black professionals in Chicago from the late 60’s through the mid 80’ did some of the most successful work of the time has never been told… until now.
Channels Changers shines a spotlight on that work and those creators and celebrates their success. The documentary gets their most personal perspectives on the challenges they dealt with then as Black professionals; a most valuable perspective today within a business constantly seeking to increase the presence, and influence, of Black talent.
We’re hoping you’ll please join others in contributing to our Go Fund Me site at, Channels Changers Documentary so we can get complete funding for distribution and remaining production costs.
Cotton Stevenson, Co-Executive Producer – Channels Changers
Cotton has over forty years of experience with Multinational Advertising Agencies both in the United States and Canada starting at McCann Erickson with time spent at Leo Burnett and FCB, all in Chicago. After that he was Senior Vice President, Executive Creative Director at FCB Canada.
During that time he created campaigns for some of the world’s biggest brands including: Coors, Colgate, General Mills, Mazda, Nestle, Pizza Hut, Seagram’s and many more.
Today he is a filmmaker whose documentaries include: STAND, the story behind the making of the statue of Tommie Smith and John Carlos in their iconic raised fist pose from the 1968 Olympics, Good Brothers, the history of African American San Jose State athletes in the early 1960’s and what it was like for them at the time, and Diversity University, the history of diversity at San Jose State University.
In addition he has been recognized for his efforts in the fields of diversity and inclusion by San Jose State University and with a Joint Resolution by both Houses of the Tennessee State Legislature.
Lowell Thompson, Co-Executive Producer – Channels Changers
Lowell is a Chicago-born, bred and based artist/writer/creative catalyst. He calls himself a “recovering adman” because he spent the first 35 years of his adulthood creating ads and commercials for many of the nation’s biggest ad agencies, companies and brands, including McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Taster’s Choice, United Airlines, Leo Burnett, Young & Rubicam, J. Walter Thompson, and many more.
He was one of the first Blacks hired in a top ten advertising agency when corporate America finally opened itself up to “unwhites” after the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the urban riots that followed.
Today, his photo-journalistic paintings are part of many Chicago art collections, his pictorial history book, African Americans in Chicago, is in every branch of the Chicago Public Library and his Uptown’s Colored Wheel has become a must-see site in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood.
Mr.Thompson is no longer affiliated or involved with Gypsy Chicago Productions. He can be reached at lowelltho@gmail.com.
Terry Peigh, Co-Executive Producer – Channels Changers
Following a career of over 40 years in the advertising and marketing communications business, leading the programs of some of the world’s largest and most successful companies, Terry has recently retired and now devotes his time to consulting and Board service. His professional experience includes over 20 years serving as Senior Vice President/Managing Director of Interpublic Group, a global marketing communications firm. Prior to that, he was Executive Vice President of True North Communications and FCB Advertising. For most of his career, Terry has also utilized his marketing skills to advise governmental and NGOs on how best to use modern day marketing principles and practices to advance health and livelihood goals in the developing world.
Bill Youmans, Director/Cinematographer – Channels Changers
Bill has been a Director/Cinematographer for over forty years, working in television, advertising, and commercial production before opening his own commercial production company in 1980.
Bill’s expertise has been sought after by major brands such as AT&T, Sprint, Sears, and Procter & Gamble. He has also worked with several non-profit organizations, such as the National Park Foundation, Chicago Children’s Choir, and the Arthritis Foundation Greater Chicago Chapter, creating empathetic and inspiring stories for better outcomes.
His passion for long-form film is evident in his work on projects like “Prairie Tides,” “Water at an Oasis,” “March on Makalu,” “India-Land of Mystery and Mystic,” and most recently, “Channels Changers.”
Bill has a bachelor’s degree in Radio/Television/Film. He loves movies, music, cooking, and motorcycling in the Swiss Alps
Alaric C. Martin, Consulting Producer/Editor/Motion Graphics – Channels Changers
Alaric Martin is a 6 time Telly Award winner, one time Emmy winner and two time Addy winner for his work over the past 35 years. He began his career doing independent film projects and then transitioning to advertising, first as an employee of Burrell Advertising and then working as a creative film editor at Skyview Film and Video. He left Skyview shortly after to become an editor at Postique/Griot Editorial in Detroit/LA working on many national campaigns.
Laurel Dobose, Producer – Channels Changers
Laurel Dobose, currently curator of creative production resource, Gypsy, is a Chicago native and an advertising brat. Hanging out at her Dad’s production company as a kid, she enjoyed experiencing the production process. She started her advertising career as an admin in the creative department at Leo Burnett, moved to Account Management at AdCom, and then finally landed at FCB where she would finally work with her first love… production. She spent many, many happy years at FCB until it was time to leave the corporate world behind. Her next move was to get involved with representation of directorial talent to the agencies.
She now enjoys running her own company, and a job that offers the opportunity to make connections between agency creative teams and director talent with the end result being shared creativity and lifelong friendships. She gets crazy about collaboration, sunsets on the beach, a good power ballad, and is completely jazzed to be working on the Channels Changers documentary film.
We’re proud to announce that WTTW in association with Gypsy Chicago Productions will be presenting our documentary Channnels Changers during Black History Month. the dates are: Thursday Feb 20 at 9:00 pm, Friday Feb 21 at 11:00 am, and Sunday Feb 23 at 1:30 am. Please feel free to pass this along to your collegues, family and friends.
THE BLACK AD COMMUNITY CELEBRATES THE PREMIERE OF CHANNELS CHANGERS
by Barbara Roche, July 3, 2024
Members of the advertising community gathered at the Gene Siskel Center on Monday evening to honor the veterans and icons of Chicago’s Black ad agencies, whose legacies are now documented in the heartfelt film Channels Changers.
Produced by Gypsy Chicago Productions, Channels Changers introduces viewers to the largely unseen world of African American ad professionals of the 60s, 70s, and 80s.
The film highlights the pioneering Black advertising executives in Chicago’s top agencies, who significantly transformed the landscape of advertising and media during that era and beyond.
Lowell Thompson, an expert on the subject who introduces the film, collaborated with fellow veteran admen Cotton Stevenson and Terry Peigh, to create a documentary about this remarkable period and the Black ad trailblazers. Producer, Laurel Dobose brought in Editor, Alaric C. Martin, who throughout the evening was referred to as the Mastermind behind the film. Alaric had the enormous task of sifting through hours of footage to painstakingly create the template in which the story unfolds. Truly a labor of love by all involved.
Channels Changers illustrates how the Civil Rights movement and the riots following Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination prompted corporate America to finally open its doors to Black people.
Gypsy Chicago Productions interviewed over 20 Black ad professionals from that period, including industry giants Tom Burrell and Carol H. Williams, who went on to establish nationally renowned agencies. The stories of these trailblazers reveal the significant challenges they faced as they entered the predominantly white advertising world. The film also features a number of ads, commercials, and campaigns that many may not have realized were created by African Americans.
Stevenson assembled a team of top-level filmmakers, many of whom were old friends from his days as a Chicago creative executive. The film’s initial funding came from the Field Foundation of Chicago and Chicago ad agencies FCB, Ogilvy, Leo Burnett, and DDB, with additional financial support from a GoFundMe campaign.
A reception followed the screening, where old friends exchanged hugs, laughs, and memories… lots of memories. It was much like a family reunion. There were no strangers in the room. Everyone’s paths had crossed at some time during their career.
Click the image above to see a slideshow from the premiere reception.
Black Advertising Titans Team Up for ‘Channels Changers’ Doc
– Daniel Patton
Channels Changers is a documentary about the advent of the African American Ad-Maker. Starting in the mid-1960s, the film celebrates Chicago-based industry leaders and innovators who were largely shut out of mainstream advertising until the Civil Rights Movement opened the doors a little wider.
The Ad-Makers themselves — a group that includes Emma Young, Jim Glover, Al Hawkins and Lowell Thompson (pictured at top) — boast a legacy of renowned work for brands like Budweiser, Coca-Cola, Ford, McDonald’s and Pillsbury, compiled while working in shops like DDB, FCB and Leo Burnett.
The ads and commercials they created are familiar, but the stories behind them have never been told.
“Our Black hands and minds are behind some of America’s whitest ads,” says Thompson. “The beauty is that we colorized them from the inside.”
Thompson introduces the journey with outspoken charm and natural charisma before joining his fellow Ad-Makers to trade stories about campaigns, coworkers and creative efforts. Along the way, they often share intimate personal details about toil and success.
In Chicago post-production boutique Utopic, Glover describes the challenge of making McDonald’s legendary Morning Glory campaign — the one that introduced the breakfast menu — while he was “the only Black person in the creative department.” In a booth at Shaw’s Crabhouse, Young tells the story about McDonald’s groundbreaking Mama’s Date commercial starring a single mother, her daughter and a suitor.
The action moves to a soundtrack composed by Darryl Duncan featuring lyrics written by Thompson.
Behind the Scenes
Channels Changers’ intimate vibe is a hallmark of filmmaker Cotton Stevenson (SJSU: Diversity University [2014], Stand [2016], The Good Brothers [2019]) who guides the conversations off-camera.
A Chicago ad veteran turned documentarian, Stevenson is teaming up with Thompson to co-executive produce Channels Changers. He has tapped a number of contemporaries to appear in the film, including former FCB Executive Creative Director Mike Rogers and industry legend Bruce Bendinger.
Reinvigorating their persuasive finesse, Stevenson and Thompson secured a substantial leadership contribution from FCB Chicago after making a pitch to President Kelly Graves at the agency’s office in the Hancock Center.
The Conceptual Evolution
Stevenson says the whole thing started with an inspiration that came to him on a park bench during a visit to his mother-in-law in Safety Harbor, Florida.
“I had been chomping at the bit to make something and I thought, ‘wait a minute, what if we did a documentary on Lowell’s book?’” he recalls. “Lowell was very interested, but he said, ‘no no no: let’s make it about all of us.’”
The book he refers to is a work in progress titled, Mad Invisible Man, soon to become part of a literary canon that includes African Americans in Chicago (2012), RaceMan Answers (2014) and Branding Humans (2018) which Thompson has built since leaving the ad industry to focus on his artistic and writing career in the 1980s. It is also one more thing that makes Thompson a thriving example of the meaning behind the film’s title, Channels Changers.
Born and raised on a Chicago street named in honor of an African American soldier, Lt. George L. Giles, Thompson spent his teenage years in the Robert Taylor Homes and entered the professional world as an office assistant with the Chicago Tribune on Michigan Ave. He proceeded to work at some of the biggest agencies in town including FCB, McCann Erickson and Leo Burnett.
“The Civil Rights Movement was about changing channels,” he says. “Most people were born on one channel and never even think to change it, but some people say ‘wait a moment, I don’t like this channel.’”
Keeping the Movement in Motion
Seeded in the 1955 murder of Emmett Till, who was falsely accused of whistling at a white woman, and accelerated by the 1964 murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, Thompson says that the Civil Rights Movement revealed a “gross, unrepentant lie of America.”
The advertising industry grew more diverse in the wake of these events, according to the Ad-Makers; but agencies still have a way of reminding African Americans that they are the only Black person in the room.
As a result, the success stories are occasionally dotted with moments of astonishing ignorance. A former Leo Burnett creative explains how an exec thought it would be okay to enhance a television commercial with the song, Dixie. A Needham staffer recalls hearing a coworker say, “there’s a Black guy working here, and he makes more than me.”
The Ad-Makers recall these moments with admirable fortitude and, in this respect, become even more impressive than the work itself. They touched millions of consumers with creative expression after growing up in a world where Black people could be murdered for allegedly making the wrong kind of sound.
Production on ‘Channels Changers’ will continue throughout the year, and the film is expected to premiere in Spring 2023.
CHICAGO DOC TELLS UNTOLD STORY OF CITY’S BLACK ADVERTISING LEGENDS
– Reel Chicago, June 23, 2024
They are legends in the advertising industry, but surprisingly (not really) the stories of the Black ad men and women who transformed the industry’s predominantly white landscape during the 60s, 70s and 80s remains largely untold. Now that is about to change with Gypsy Chicago Productions’ new documentary Channel Changers.
The documentary delves into how these pioneering African American professionals not only made significant contributions but also reshaped the face of advertising and media, leaving a lasting legacy .
Channels Changers features interviews with over 20 Black advertising pioneers, including industry legends Tom Burrell and Carol H. Williams, who later established nationally respected agencies. These trailblazers share their personal stories, highlighting the formidable challenges they faced as they entered an industry that didn’t look like, or represent, them.
The film also showcases numerous advertisements, commercials, and campaigns that were created and produced by African Americans, many of which were previously unrecognized.
Lowell Thompson, an acclaimed writer on the subject, introduces the film. He collaborated with veteran adman Cotton Stevenson to bring this remarkable era to life. The documentary explores how the Civil Rights movement and the aftermath of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination prompted corporate America to finally embrace diversity and inclusion.
Behind the Scenes
Stevenson assembled a team of top-tier filmmakers, many of whom were long-time friends from his days as a creative executive in Chicago. The Field Foundation of Chicago, along with prominent ad agencies such as FCB, Ogilvy, Leo Burnett, and DDB, provided initial funding for the project. Additional financial support was garnered through a Go Fund Me campaign.
Channels Changers is set to premiere at the Siskel Center on July 1 at 6 pm.
Credits:
- Executive Producers Cotton Stevenson, Lowell Thompson, Terry Peigh
- Producer Laurel Dobose
- Writers Lowell Thompson, Alaric C. Martin
- Consulting Producer Alaric C. Martin
- Director/ Cinematographer Bill Youmans
- Editor/Motion Graphics Alaric C. Martin
- Title Design Animation/ Webmaster Dani Dudovick, Double Dog Productions
- Videographers Dennis Thompson Joe Brooks Cal Evans
- Location Sound Dustin Berta, Case Chamberlain, Daniel Hernandez
- Main Title Music Darryl Duncan, GameBeat Studios
- Colorist Pete Jannotta, COLOR BY PETE, INC.
- Trailer Colorist Bob Sliga
- Sound Design /Editor Sidney Jones, Jr. BAM STUDIOS CHICAGO
- Hair and Makeup Marcus Geeter
- Wheel Man Michael J. Manhoff
- Legal Ellen Duff Ratcliffe, Duff & Peel LLC
- Transportation Coordinator Maura Donahue
- Special Project Consultant Bill Izzo
Lowell Thompson, Emma Young, Al Hawkins and Bruce Bendinger swap stories in a booth at Shaw’s Crabhouse