Bruce Van Dusen is one of the funniest people we’ve had on the program. And, if you doubt our word here in the Bunker, check out his bio. Scratch that. Check out this episode.
Bruce is the author of—deep breath—60 STORIES ABOUT 30 SECONDS: How I Got Away with Becoming a Pretty Big Commercial Director without Losing My Soul (Or Maybe Just Part of It). He stopped by the Bunker to talk with Brad about writing bios, Jim Morrison, failure, films, and the joy of finding yourself.
About Bruce Van Dusen
Bruce Van Dusen has had a more than four-decade long career as a successful director of commercials. Whether you wanted to or not, you’ve seen his work. Tons of it. And he wrote a memoir about it: 60 STORIES ABOUT 30 SECONDS: How I Got Away with Becoming a Pretty Big Commercial Director without Losing My Soul (Or Maybe Just Part of It).
After graduating from Boston University’s School of Public Communication, Van Dusen moved to New York in hopes of making documentary films. A week before he ran out of money, he got hired to work on a commercial and discovered a business he never knew existed. Within two years, he was directing commercials. Over the next four decades, he became one of the industry’s busiest directors. His work with movie stars, athletes, politicians, child actors and semi-trained animals took him from New York to Los Angeles, Milan to Manila, Rio to Rome, and Miami to Montevideo.
His commercials have won many awards, but since all commercials win some kind of award, that’s not much of an accomplishment. He’s also directed three feature films and a documentary. The first film, Cold Feet, was a Sundance finalist, a critical failure, but a commercial success. The other films didn’t do so well. Proof that commercials were right where he belonged.
Bruce Van Dusen was born in Detroit and lives in New York City.
