TV Commercial Production – Morty Dubin: My Favorite Executive Producer

• Posted on 6th January 2015
• in Entertainment, entertainment books, Film Production, Hollywood memoirs, TV Commercial Production
• by Ben

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During my years in

TV Commercial production

(and film production in general) I worked with several first rate executive producers, except for the subject of this post, most often David Johnson and Steve Colwell but this piece is about my favorite executive producer who left us in January 2015. In 1981 my director friend Ken Licata signed on with Iris Films which was owned by a wonderfully peculiar – and I mean that as a compliment – gentleman named Morty Dubin.

Morty receives the NY Production Alliance Award in 2007

After Ken brought me into Iris Mr. Dubin hired me to work with all of his other directors – including his most famous one, Richard Avedon. Once Morty learned to trust me he never interfered with the work. He asked short questions and liked short answers unlike some exec producers who always wanted a detailed blow by blow of anything untoward that ever happened on a shoot.

And Morty had on staff the very best staff producer with whom I ever worked: Ellen Rappaport but that’s another story.

That same year Mr. Dubin (nobody ever called him that. He was Morty to everyone.) signed an English director who, while quite brilliant, had a reputation for being difficult to work with. He had landed his first New York gig and Morty wanted it to go smoothly so the new guy would be pleased with the production support from Iris and that would cement his relationship with the company. For some reason Ellen was not available. Anyhow Mort hired me as the AD and de facto producer.

My instructions were to give this director complete support and anything he wanted. This turned out to be a tall order.

By 6 PM of the studio prep day his lighting plan had been executed to exact specifications but he decided that it had to be completely redone. I told the crew to get on it and then called Morty, and left a message that he should call me asap.

When Morty called back I told him what was going on and that the crew was gonna have at least two, maybe three or four hours of extra overtime. He said, “Is it necessary?” I told him it was what the director wanted and Mort said, “See you in the morning.”

This is a perfect example of why I loved working for Mr. Dubin. Most exec producers would have had me on the phone for half-an-hour explaining every detail of why we had to do what we had to do. Not Morty’s style.

The next summer the volatile Brit had two spots back to back: Avon and Leggs. Mark Siegal was line producer for both jobs. I was on for a week of prep because Avon was a four day shoot and Leggs was five including rehearsals with the Rockettes.

I spent my entire prep time trying to have the standard AD meeting with the director. I neither had that meeting nor saw a script or story boards for either job.

The Avon shoot was chaos from the first minute. Not only did I have no schedule and no shot list, I never even knew what the next setup was going to be.

For the next three days I was in AD hell and on Friday the relationship between me and the director had deteriorated to the point that he was hurling verbal abuse at me on the set. When he yelled that I was incompetent… all my fuses blew. This was the only time in my entire career that I ever had an on-set fight with a director. I have no idea what I actually said but I no doubt called him some unpleasant and colorful names. When he said that I was fired I replied that he couldn’t fire me since I was working for Morty Dubin … and anyhow I quit. The crew members, having heard all this, were standing like statues. I grabbed my bag and headed down the stairs.

I found a phone booth and called Morty, telling him that I was on my way home and he’d better get to the location as soon as he could. He asked what happened. I said we could discuss it later but he needed to get over there if he wanted to save the shoot.

I walked a few blocks to cool down then got a cab home. After a shower I made myself a sandwich and the phone rang. It was Morty. He simply said, “He is very sorry for the way he treated you and wants you to come back.”

I said, “Okay. Which location?” Morty replied, “The exterior.” “See you later,” I said and hung up.

A typical Morty Dubin conversation. Not a lot of words but plenty of meaning.

When I got to the rooftop location the guy muttered a minimal apology and, as though nothing had happened, said, “Here’s the shot.” I got on a walkie-talkie and told the crew what to bring up and work proceeded without further incident. When we wrapped the reformed director shook my hand and jauntily said, “See you Monday morning.”

Morty Dubin never said another word about the incident and our relationship did not change in any way. I continued to work with Iris Films for the next four or five years.

I loved that guy!

Read more about Morty, the crazy Brit and the details of these two shoots in Circumstances Beyond My Control.

Tags: Ellen Rappaport, Howard Guard, Ken Licata, Morty Dubin, Richard Avedon