PROJECT NAME: Where's Bill
DATE: 2000

OUTLINE:

Design & Art Direction of the website of the photographic diary or American photographer Bill Owens. The website also features photographs and a series of videoclips I created to promote the project.

** WHERE'S BILL WEBSITE **

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Born in San Jose, California, at the tail end of the Depression years, the young Bill Owens witnessed the creation of suburbia in the 'Sunshine State'. Aware that he was in the midst of a social phenomenon, Owens began to photograph this latest wave of settlers in the West. Without cynicism, he used his camera to record the developing suburban environment, and to study the idiosyncratic interior decoration, optimistic occupants, and their social gatherings. Frank and uncontrived, his images avoid clichés to offer an insightful study of fledgling American dreams in the 70s.

Retrospectively, Owens was the right man in the right place, several factors in his life contributing to the conception of the 'Suburbia' photographic project. Raised on a farm, by parents who themselves had migrated from Oklahoma to flee the demise of farming in the Dustbowl, Owens was aware of both re-location, and the agricultural landscape. Furthermore, Owens possessed an aversion to photography as a fine art form. Indeed, he fared poorly at San Francisco State University, where he disagreed with his tutors, eschewing formal values for an attempt to practice visual anthropology. After a spell in the Peace Corps as a teacher, Owens returned to California, and in 1968 found work as a photographer for the Livermore Independent.

The Where's Bill? project is the photographer's photo diary of pictures he took on his travels. New pictures accompanied by captions were posted regularly on the website.

I was asked to create an email marketing campaign to promote the project. I directed and created series of short video clips with the objective to create curiosity about the project and get people to visit the website and come back regularly to see what Bill Owens had been upto.

Thanks to Zoe Papadopoulo for all the filming on location and video editing. And special thanks to Superstar Charlotte Cooper who stars in some of the videos

VISUALS: