Independent Film Festival Boston 2009

Director Doug Pray in attendance.

Advertising slogans like “Just Do It,” “Got Milk?,” and “Think Different” have become such a part of everyday life that it’s hard to remember a time when they didn’t exist. Though they seem as though they sprang fully formed from the collective unconscious, each had to be created by advertising professionals. Yet, for an industry that has such a profound effect on our culture, shockingly little is known about the people behind the messages. ART & COPY goes behind the scenes of some of the major campaigns of the modern era to demonstrate that truly great advertising can transcend its mission to sell. When it illuminates our hidden desires, it almost becomes art.

That’s not to say that director Doug Pray doesn’t acknowledge the commercial side of the equation, nor that he is indifferent to those viewers suspicious of advertising’s power. Interviews with these luminaries are intercut with statistics about how much advertising we see and how it may affect us.

As he did in his earlier films SCRATCH and INFAMY (IFFBoston 2006), Pray finds beauty where mainstream society missed it, ignored it, or perhaps was even somewhat hostile to it. The people behind the ads are artists to be sure, but they are also salesmen. Perhaps what they are best at selling is advertising itself.

- Brian Tamm