5 Minutes with… Josh Fell

Josh> Hah, well this question definitely makes me feel like an imposter. They say no one is from LA. I’m sort of no one. I was born in Long Beach then spent until I was 10 bouncing around the state from Southern California to the Bay Area and back. My father was a pastor. A good one I think. But we moved a lot in that time, so you be the judge. Halfway through 7th grade I landed in the High Desert outside Los Angeles. It’s about 90 minutes away from the city (we talk in minutes not miles). But basically Alabama. Small town. Tumbleweeds and Joshua trees. And also the place I met my wife when we were tweens and made lifelong friends. So not all bad. 

Josh> As I said, my dad was a pastor. A youth pastor actually. Which means I grew up watching him and my mom dedicate themselves to providing a space for a bunch of young weirdos to feel at home. To feel part of a crew. Something bigger than themselves. Looking back, pretty much everything I’ve done since then has been chasing that - building places for weirdos to come together and express themselves and be a part of something. We did it at 72andSunny, launching video games. And I’ve spent the past five years building my favourite version of it yet at Anomaly LA. It’s the biggest creative act of my career. 

The other thing that comes to mind after watching my father give about a million sermons is the value of using stories and comedy to make your point.  Whether it’s to help someone grapple with existence or sell a tasty fresh-made sandwich, there’s few things better than a nice story and a better punchline. 

Josh> I was a marketing major in college, and was convinced I was going to go into music industry marketing. And then I interviewed at the iconic Capitol Records in Hollywood (which is two miles away from the new Anomaly offices… because fate is funny) and discovered that, thanks to Napster eviscerating the music industry, I missed my window by about 20 years. So I switched to advertising. But I had no idea what that meant beyond what I saw in B-grade rom-coms. I just knew I wanted to be in account management and use my marketing degree. 

My first advertising job turned out to be a door-to-door salesman scam. I quit by lunch on day one. Then I lucked my way into DDB in Los Angeles. This was November 2001. Two months after 9/11. There were no proper jobs, but I wanted in. So I started as an office assistant. I pushed the mail cart. Answered phones. Set up sodas. Picked up every piece of paper I could, and about a dozen amazing people were so giving with their time and talent that they taught me about the industry. What it is. What it isn’t. I became an account person and immediately discovered that I hated it. But I loved to write. So I made friends with the creatives. Again, generous people who changed my life. They taught me to play poker and let me help them with home equity line of credit newspaper ads for the North Dakota Gazette. I loved it. Eventually I wrote enough funny job-number emails that the ECD Mark Monteiro let me be his assistant and a junior writer. There’s 40 other stories of generosity and kindness from people who had nothing to gain other than to help an ambitious kid, but suffice it to say there was very little planned and nearly everything given and I’m forever grateful for every one of them and my time there. 

Josh> I think the thing we do best is that we don’t have a thing we do best. From the beginning we had a principle of ‘No house tone. A house ambition.’ Which meant that we didn’t want to be the comedy place or the emotional place or the design place. We wanted to do it all. In a way that was united by an ambition for audacity. Big swings. Big risks. Big reactions. And looking back at the work, I think we’re living up to that a little bit more every day. The one thing I think we do find that unites all the work is a dedication to bringing a ridiculous amount of care and craft to the most ridiculous of situations. With work that actually works. For better or worse, we have a hearty disdain for awards culture and have never made anything for awards judges. We make it for ourselves. It just has to excite us, scratch our creative itches and help answer business challenges. That’s it. 

Josh> Honestly, is there anything better than production? 1000 problems a day, solved by the smartest and most talented people in the world. I love it. Pure inspiration on an IV drip. ‘Cause it is never easy. The hard stuff is hard and the easy stuff is hard. So we solve it together. Maybe my favourite part about production is the change of perspective that happens in creative people. They suddenly get so much more open. The industry has poisoned creatives into being protective from jump - protecting the work from clients and accounts and frankly any suggestion. That paranoia has its role. But mostly it just leads to unhappiness. But you get into production and suddenly the director’s ideas and the editor’s thoughts and the DP’s vision are all welcome and we see what a piece can become when we let go and instead build. I always walk away craving more of that attitude from the beginning. 

Josh> Oh, so much. Like I said, I’m mostly proud of how different everything is from the industry and from the other things we make. But off the top of my head, I’d point to the Hoka work - big and visual and emotional and a VFX spectacle that stumped the best in the world until we actually pulled it off. Then our work with Buffalo Wild Wings and Jimmy John’s. Hank the talking buffalo with wings for BWW, and Tony Bolognavich for Jimmy John’s. Two totally different characters with some of the best dialogue writing in the industry, and a cinematic visual lens that elevates the dumbest of concepts. And I love the worlds they are allowing us to make and play in over time. Finally, I’d point to our work for Reese’s Puffs - in particular the newest ‘Cereal Orb’ we released with AMBUSH. Fun, fashion, high-craft on silly premises, and something Vogue said would make Andy Warhol proud! 

They’re all so different, but I know the excitement that each creative poured into it. When I see the work I see them. And I’m so glad the whole world gets to see them in it too.

Josh> Hmm, I pride myself on the variety of the type of work I like to make, but if I have a happy place, it was probably what I found with the Kevin Butler, ‘VP of Everything’ campaign we created for PlayStation. Played by the king of unusable gold improv, Jerry Lambert. It was my first character campaign. And I was hooked. He looked the exact opposite of what you’d think you’d do for a campaign aimed at gamer kids. And they loved him for it. Getting to play with the character over time, in countless ads, an outrageously popular Twitter account, and taking him to the stage at E3, I loved every second of it. And it planted a love for writing characters that I find myself continually drawn back to over the years - ‘The Replacer’, ‘Codnapped’, The Killcameraman, Carl Sr. and Junior, Randy Watkins, Tony Bolognavich, now a talking buffalo with wings named Hank. All dramatically different constructs and writing challenges. But all have a special place in my heart. 

Josh> I’d probably describe my leadership style as ‘stolen’. I’ve been so lucky to work with some of the best leaders in this industry, and man have I taken everything I possibly can from all of them. I’ve taken their optimism and transparency and enthusiasm and quick decision making and willingness to be wrong and willingness to look dumb. Or at least I’ve tried to. More than anything, I’ve tried to embody a phrase shared with me by my old boss-turned-friend and client, Eric Hirshberg: ‘Care the most’. About the work. About the people. This business is hard and the only solution is to care as much as you can and watch that care spread. 

The thing I most try to impart on my team is a sense of safety. I was once told ‘leadership is when people feel less full of fear and more full of possibility when in your presence’. So I stole that too. That’s all it is. Create fearless safety however you can so they can thrive and discover the possible. 

Josh> I could make up an answer, but the real one is Kellie, Holden, and Lillie (my wife and kids) and making pizza. But that’s a story for another five minutes.