A friend of mine knew I had an interest in directing at least two commercials in this lifetime. So, you can imagine my excitement when she told me Dove launched a commercial ad contest. The problem was that I found out about the contest 10 days before the deadline. Not a lot of time to prepare or even think about executing some of my elaborate ideas (insert chuckle here)

I was fairly new to Los Angeles at the time and I didn’t have a network of people to go to for help but I thought this last minute opportunity would be a great way to experiment with a concept I had floating in my mind at the time. All I had to do was simplify my concept by about 90 percent in order to make the deadline.

I remember watching young Latina spoken-word poet Gabriela Garcia Medina perform in east LA and thought, I should find her. Maybe we can collaborate on writing a message that we can be proud to share while still achieving the product’s marketing goals.

It was the first year Dove held this contest so I took it seriously. I knew the winning commercial was scheduled to air during the Oscars that year so I thought I should deliver a polished piece that would be worthy of such a debut.

In the end, DOVE selected Lindsay Miller’s commercial, Knowing Your Beautiful as the winner. I was really quite happy for Lindsay and the three other ladies that made it to the Oscars that evening.

In retrospect, I think FEELING DIVINE looked too finished for “user generated content.” Or maybe it was just my approach?

All I can tell you is that I was focused on crafting a message to help convey the “feeling” you get from using the product–only on multiple levels but also with a bit of an urban edge. It was really important to me to weave in some of what Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty is all about—loving yourself from the inside out.

At the time, we were all really shocked that “FEELING DIVINE” didn’t make it to the final top three.

Taking on this commercial ad as a last minute project would ultimately prove to be worth the trouble when it helped give birth to a short story, “THE AVIAN REVOLUTION” . . . the same story I adapted for the screen and submitted to the 2010 AFI Directing Workshop for Women. You will soon see the what I mean.