Marketing Firm Adds Direction

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Mike Wallen, a local marketing executive, found himself struggling with a difficult assignment: cutting compelling footage down to a 30-second spot.

That footage was of former gang members who had become interventionists. As such, they are now intermediaries who work with law enforcement and the community to help resolve conflicts and limit retaliation killings.

“There’s so much emotion within the story of these characters,” Wallen said, “and our job is to show their effort and sacrifice and get viewers to empathize.”

The answer he came up with was not to cut but to expand.

His company, Omelet LA, a Culver City marketing and branding firm, is co-producing a feature-length documentary, “LTO: License to Operate,” its first foray into the medium. It has just turned to Kickstarter to pull in the final $50,000 needed to complete postproduction. (Wallen would not disclose the overall budget for the project.)

Don Kurz, the firm’s chairman and chief executive, said the company devoted the same effort to the film as it does to its commercial clients’ projects.

“It’s no different than an important client and we resourced it just as any other, committing budgets and all the requirements to get this on time and on budget,” Kurz said.

The film’s director, James Lipetzky, is a co-founder of Foundation Content, another Culver City marketing firm.

Omelet’s client, A Better LA, is a non-profit founded by former USC and now Seattle Seahawks head football coach Pete Carroll to support community-based organizations looking to reduce gang violence. The group was looking for a 30-second promotional spot to be played at its annual fundraising gala earlier this year. That spot was produced in addition to the feature film.

The film might be shown in small theaters in limited release, but it is undecided where it will be screened.

The expansion to a full-blown film took Rowan Vansleve, chief executive of A Better LA, aback.

“It was a bit of a surprise all around,” Vansleve said. “I see it as an incredible moment for people to hear a story that’s not often told.”

For Wallen, who is executive vice president of content development at Omelet, the project was an opportunity to tell a story that in many ways closes a circle.

“I think L.A. gets a lot of credit for creating the gang problem,” he said. “This movement is creating the solution. The same people that defined the problem are now in the streets (to stop it) and there’s something poetic about it.”

– Subrina Hudson

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