You've probably seen more movies directed by Bruce Van Dusen than any other director alive.

1977. New York City. Cool and crime-ridden, cheap and wild. Bruce Van Dusen shows up in town with a film degree and $150 to his name. He wants to make movies. So he does. The only ones anyone will pay him to make? Little ones. Thirty seconds long. Commercials. He has no idea what he’s doing and the money sucks. But he’s a director.

 He quickly learns he has the two things he needs to succeed in the fickle world of commercial-making: a talent for telling short, emotional stories, and the hustle to fight for every job no matter how small. He still has no idea what he’s doing—not that anyone needs to know that. He just keeps making it up as he goes along.

 He gets hired by a client on life support in the most depressing hospital in New York. Gets peed on by a lion. Abused by Charles Bronson. Explains peristalsis to a Tony winner. Makes a movie and goes to Sundance. Goes back to little movies when it bombs. Keeps hustling, shooting anything. Gets married, has kids. Pushes, shoves, survives. Gets divorced. Survives some more. Is an asshole, pays the price, finally learns when and how to be an asshole and becomes one of the industry’s stars. It’s not what he expected. It’s harder, weirder and funnier. But it worked out. It worked out great, actually.

What happens when you work in a business you never knew existed? How do you learn the rules when no one shows you the ropes? You make it up as you go along. 60 Stories About 30 Seconds is the story of taking forty years to learn how to do what you’re doing.

Chapter 1: I know he’s crazy. Is he alive?

  Crazy Eddie was the first person to hire me to direct a commercial. Crazy Eddie himself. He didn’t actually say “you’re hired” because his jaw was broken and he was attached to some life support machines. His ad manager translated his grunts. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

            In the late seventies, his commercials were everywhere. And terrible. They featured an actor named Jerry Carroll, who spent all thirty seconds screaming into the camera about low prices. Spittle actually flew from his mouth during some of the spots. Viewers thought Carroll was Crazy Eddie. Not true.

            Crazy Eddie was really a guy named Eddie Antar. A Syrian Jew who, through a combination of chutzpah and what would later be revealed as illegal bookkeeping of epic proportions, created an enormous electronics retail chain. And, as I said, Eddie made a lot of commercials.

            I had graduated from Boston University with a degree in Film and Television Production a year ago and moved to New York. I understood the basics of how to use a camera and edit but I’d learned nothing about getting paid for it. My friends think I’m just fucking around, having fun, chasing girls, one day away from realizing I should do whatever it is real people do. My parents think “the film business” is some marginal, seedy, vaguely illegal industry that is dominated by people who changed their names to sound either less Jewish or less Italian.

My career path was weird. I never worked in a restaurant or a bookstore or a movie theater. I never looked for that kind of job because I thought anything like that would be a detour to being a director.  After two production assistant jobs, a wannabe producer hired me as a director/producer/salesman at his wannabe commercial production company. I should write the job titles in reverse order because all I really do is sell. Me. I’m hustling all the time. I’ve learned that getting work is all about contacts and connecting the dots. A year ago,  I had zero contacts and no dots. But I’ve figured out how to be an operator, always listening, watching, plotting. One thing is working great for me: the dress code. Or lack of. I live in blue jeans, t-shirts and cowboy boots. My hair is down to my shoulders. I smoke Camels. I go to work in a scuzzy building on 45th Street just off Sixth Avenue. My new friends are photographer’s assistants, secretaries, wannabe actors, roller skaters and bartenders. I am struck by how none of them have any idea how they’re going to turn whatever they’re doing into something big and real and rewarding. No plan. I’m all about the plan. Maybe too all about it. I’m living What Makes Sammy Run but John Updike’s version.  

I never wasn’t looking for work. I treat any social event as desperation networking. Somebody put me in touch with the guy who buys the television time for Crazy Eddie. I ask him to set up a meeting for me with the Crazy Eddie people. He does.  Thank God. I need to make something happen. Now. I’ve only brought in one job in the last six months. A commercial that was basically a shot of a milk carton that we got paid $1500 to do. I proudly told people I directed that. I’m walking around like it’s all good, everything’s working out fine but I’m panicked. The guy I’m working for has to be thinking he’s wasting his $100 a week on me. I’m having a hard time taking myself seriously.

One day in late February, I take the subway out to Avenue U in Sheepshead Bay. It’s a section of Brooklyn that’s half Italian and half Middle Eastern. Half residential, half business. The Crazy Eddie empire is headquartered in a nondescript cinderblock building that looks like one of those garages near Shea Stadium where Dominicans pound dents out of your Buick. The place is totally unmarked. Telling. When I finally find it, I buzz a jury-rigged doorbell, it buzzes back and I go in.

            I’m in one large room filled with seventy-five beat up, battleship grey, government-issue desks. All of them are covered with leaning towers of papers and take out, glatt kosher food. Every stoop-shouldered clerk in the place looks nauseous because of the sickly green tint cast by the fluorescents overhead. The work force is mostly men. All dressed in various versions of Orthodox attire. Some with tzitzit. Some in black suits, white shirts and fedoras. Some with peyas. The random davening guy over by a cinderblock wall swaying back and forth. A goy like me walking in probably set off an alarm.

            A chubby little guy in an unbuttoned vest approaches.

            “Can I help?”

            “Yeah. I’m looking for Larry Miller.”

            “He’s expecting you?”

            “Yeah. I have a one thirty appointment.”

            The little guy beckons me to follow. He leads me through the mess of desks to Miller’s office and parks me at the door. Miller’s inside sitting at his own shitty desk also covered in crap.  He’s in his mid-thirties, kind of disheveled, with a put-upon, defensive posture. Which makes sense. If you have his job, when you go to a cocktail party and tell people you’re the ad manager for Crazy Eddie, they’ll think you’re a total asshole.

            It’s immediately clear he has no interest in me or this meeting.

            “What d’ya want to talk about?”

             For some reason, I have total confidence that he’s interested in the opinion of a 23 year-old long-haired kid. I hold forth like I’ve done this a million times before.

            “Your ads are kind of obnoxious.”

            I probably could have been subtler.

            “Who the fuck cares. They’re effective. We sell a ton of shit.”

            “Okay. But don’t you think it might be possible to be effective and less annoying?”

            “Like I said, who cares?”

            I actually have an idea of how to do this. But, in the real world, like on Earth, wannabe directors don’t stroll into your office and pitch you ideas. Ad agencies come up with the ideas. And agencies spend time developing the ideas, not thinking them up on the train ride out to Sheepshead Bay. I don’t know enough to know how many rules I’m breaking. So I plow ahead.

The idea’s simple and not at all original. Take scenes from famous movies with famous songs. “Follow the Yellow Brick Road” in “Wizard of Oz.” “As Time Goes By” in “Casablanca.” Recreate the scenes exactly. Then, instead of having them sing the famous song, have them sing the Crazy Eddie jingle re-arranged in the film’s musical style. Funny, maybe. Less obnoxious, definitely. More effective, we’ll see. I don’t even process the fact that these ideas don’t use Jerry Carroll. I’ve jettisoned their spokesperson without bothering to explain why.

            The ad guy reflects for less than five seconds.

            “Stupid. It’ll never work.”

            Compared to what they’re doing, it’s genius but I’m not going to correct him. He tells me he’ll pass it along to Eddie and be in touch. I know what that means. Fuck off. I leave through a parting sea of observant bookkeepers/embezzlers and hop the Q train back to Manhattan.

            Two weeks later, the ad manager calls.

            “Can you come over tomorrow and present those ideas to Eddie?”

            Shit, I’ll come right now if that works better for you.

            “Yeah. Sure. When?”

            “Two.”

            “Out to headquarters?”

            “No. At Roosevelt Hospital.”

            “What?”

            “Long story. Let’s meet in the lobby. Two o’clock.”

            Roosevelt Hospital is in Hell’s Kitchen. And Hell’s Kitchen is a tough fucking neighborhood. This is not the kind of place you’re going into by choice or if you have insurance. I’m pretty confused as I get out of the cab and walk through a crowd of smokers dressed in hospital gowns, pushing IVs on rolling poles on my way toward the lobby.

            Miller’s waiting inside the revolving doors. As soon as he sees me, he turns and heads for the elevators. I follow.

            “What’re we doing here?”

            “Eddie’s upstairs.

            “What happened?”

            “He got stabbed.”

            “He did?”

            “Yeah. Like sixteen times. And a lot of broken bones.”

            “What?”

            “He was installing a sound system in a disco and got ambushed when he left.”

            “Maybe this isn’t a great time to do this presentation.”

            “It’s a great time. Eddie wants to stay busy and thought this would be entertaining.”

            Great. I’m the fucking clown who does balloon tricks for the terminally ill kid.

            We head through a portion of the ground floor where the emergency cases are clustered. People slumped in chairs. Lying on gurneys. There’s a lot of screaming and moaning. Much of it’s in Spanish, so I can only assume these people are saying something about being in indescribable pain. The blood soaked clothes and sheets would kind of speak to that too. We get in an elevator and Miller punches the button for the sixth floor.

            It’s slightly calmer up there. We go down a hallway and into a private room. Jesus.

            Eddie’s in the bed. At least Miller says it’s Eddie. What I see is a chubby, hairy as a bear guy attached to two IVs, his torso wrapped in gauze, wound seepage stains everywhere, one arm in traction, the top of his skull wrapped in more gauze, one leg in traction, inflatable cuffs on his ankles, two blackened eyes and an oxygen hose in his left nostril. The guy is totally fucked up. It doesn’t seem appropriate to try and shake hands. In fact, I’m scared to get too close to the guy for fear I’ll catch something. Like a stab wound.

            Miller makes a quick introduction then tells me to start.

            “Make it quick. He hasn’t got all day.”

            He doesn’t? Whatever. I try to figure out which of Eddie’s blackened eyes to aim my gaze at and dive in. I explain the movies, the scenes, the jingle. I state confidently, with no back-up, that the ads can be a little less intrusive, my euphemism for stone cold obnoxious, and still sell tons of stereos and televisions. I finish my spiel and Eddie grunts. Like three grunts. His mouth is all fucked up from the beating so it’s impossible to understand him. I’m pretty sure his jaw is broken too. Miller understands him. He turns to me with the translation.

            “How much to make one. Not all. Just one.”

            I’m not prepared for this question. I figured, if everything went great, I’d hear back in a few days and then we’d talk money. So I fumble and throw out a stupidly low number. A number so low, even if you didn’t make television commercials, you’d pay me to make one just to show your friends. Eddie grunts again. Miller seems to understand him.

            “Got it. When?”

            Grunt, grunt, slight arm gesture which stops abruptly when Eddie screams in pain. But he’s apparently just given us the go-ahead to make a spot.

            Two weeks later I make a take-off of “Casablanca.” That ridiculously low estimate I threw out on the fly has left me with such a tiny budget that I can only afford to build half an arch in the set which is supposed to be Rick’s Café Americain. I spend the biggest part of the budget on a famous Bogart impersonator. He makes more than me. Having never directed a commercial, I desperately try all sorts of things to make myself look experienced. I wear a suit and tie to the set, certain it’ll make people overlook the fact that I’m twenty-three. It probably makes them notice it more.

            The ad goes on the air a month later. The Village Voice writes an article about it. With a picture from the spot of Sam and the Bogart impersonator draped over the piano. The writer says Crazy Eddie has done something interesting with its advertising. Which is like saying the guy who always shows up for church drunk managed to grab a shower before this week’s services.

            Whatever. I’m now a New York commercial director.