The Dailey Series...A Storyboard With Dennis Weaver.

Dennis Weaver Replaced John Wayne as GW Bank spokesperson

This was one of a series of storyboards featuring Dennis Weaver who spoke of the greatness of Southern California and Great Western Bank. Of course, this was a long time ago when all the frames were done in markers and paint. Guess you can say I had a style of rendering that eventually was banned by OSHA. I know you think that that sounds silly or nearly impossible, the details of which I can discuss later in this blog, but it was true... In a roundabout way!

There's always stories that accompany these concepts since so many people are involved in the production of a commercial. I really don't recall who the art director was on this piece. It might have been Don Gilles because he later told me a story about the location. Or it could have been Victoria Aenlle or Mike Faulkner. I really don't remember, though I must have worked on about a dozen full blown storyboards similar to this one over the period of a year or so. Usually, storyboards like this were either six, eight or ten frame concepts with the last frame being a logo or logo type frame. I do remember that there was more to this board then I have here. This concept was one that got bought and produced and aired in SoCal.

But, it almost didn't happen because the original concept, which I did draw up, was to have Mr. Weaver on top a noble SoCal steed. Dennis Weaver, being a horseman of some statue, did not want to sit atop a real horse on the roof of a twenty story building overlooking Wilshire Blvd. Horses do have a penchant for getting spooked and the thought of one "going lemming" with a Hollywood actor atop it, would be horrifying, as well as, being not good publicity. Eventually, I was told, in other commercials, he was put on a stuffed horse, shot wide and then, cut to a closeup of him in the saddle.

Regardless, it was a pretty impressively photographed commercial, and I feel, I had a large part in selling the concept. It was always exciting to see a commercial I worked on on television.