America Scope 360 profiles Rick Wayne's journey from teenage hustler to global creative leader. The feature traces his path from filming Cha-Cha Slide videos at 16 to founding Underscore Films in Chicago, building production companies across a decade in LA, and ultimately landing in New York to co-found Brand Imagination Group.

The article highlights his unique position as a director who came through the creative chair, not film school, giving him an edge that most directors don't have. Wayne's story is one of relentless self-invention: learning the business side of production through trial and necessity, building a client roster from nothing, and ultimately translating that ground-level hustle into a leadership role at the intersection of strategy, creative direction, and cinematic production.

"In an era where creativity is often diluted into trends and templates, Rick Wayne stands as a powerful reminder that true storytelling still wins."

In LBB's ongoing "The Work That Made Me" series, Rick Wayne traces the formative projects that shaped his creative instincts and directing philosophy. The feature opens with an unlikely origin: at 16, Wayne shot a viral Cha-Cha Slide video that would be judged by Alanis Morissette — and later become one of the first YouTube videos to hit a million views. That early brush with viral culture, before viral was even a concept, planted the seed of what he would spend the next two decades refining: the ability to make something that travels.

From there, Wayne describes the gravitational pull of Apple's "Think Different" campaign — not as a piece of advertising he made, but as the piece of advertising that made him. It taught him, in his words, that "emotion wins every time." That lesson became the organizing principle behind his entire approach to brand storytelling, from his early spec work through to the Sharpie x Mufasa campaign and the launch of Brand Imagination Group.

The feature also covers "The Millennial's Guide to Making It," a digital series Wayne created that was picked up by the producers of HBO's Project Greenlight — a validation of his instinct that original IP and commercial work could coexist within the same creative identity. The LBB profile is a clear-eyed portrait of how a director builds a point of view, one formative project at a time, and what it means to carry those influences forward into a career defined by both creative leadership and directorial craft.

Brand Imagination Group launched as a new kind of independent creative agency — one built from the inside out, by people who know both the boardroom and the production set. Founded by Barry Krause, former CEO of Publicis agencies, and Rick Wayne, Executive Creative Director and founder of Underscore Films, BiG is based in DUMBO, Brooklyn. The agency was conceived as a direct answer to what holding company networks struggle to deliver: strategic rigor fused with cinematic production craft, under one roof.

LBBOnline's coverage framed the launch as a significant entry into the independent agency space, noting the founding team's combined history at the highest levels of advertising and production. Krause brings decades of large-scale brand leadership; Wayne brings a proven record directing major campaigns for Sharpie, Graco, Warner Bros., Paper Mate, NUK, and Intel. Together they represent a partnership that closes the gap between brand strategy and brand execution.

BiG's founding philosophy centers on what the agency calls emotional advertising — work designed to connect with audiences on a human level before it persuades them commercially. The agency operates at the overlap of strategic intelligence, emotional truth, and production realism. LBBOnline positioned BiG as a model for what a next-generation independent agency can look like when it's built around talent and taste rather than size.

MediaPost covered Brand Imagination Group's public debut with a focus on SweetSpotter, the agency's proprietary emotional AI tool. SweetSpotter analyzes creative content to identify emotional resonance and predict audience response — giving BiG a measurable, data-informed edge in developing work that connects. It represents a direct integration of creative intuition and scientific rigor at the production stage, not as an afterthought.

BiG was founded by Rick Wayne alongside Barry Krause with a mandate to build a full-service creative agency that does not separate strategy from production. The launch was a direct challenge to the model of agencies that outsource execution or treat media and creative as separate disciplines. BiG operates from DUMBO, Brooklyn, with Underscore Films as its production engine and SweetSpotter as its intelligence layer.

MediaPost noted that BiG's positioning around emotional advertising and AI-informed creative development put it at the leading edge of a broader industry shift. Agencies that understand both the science of audience response and the art of storytelling are best positioned to compete in a landscape where attention is scarce and authenticity is the differentiator. BiG was built for exactly that moment.

Bold Journey Magazine's profile of Rick Wayne traces the arc from childhood filmmaker to founder of one of New York's most distinctive independent production companies. Wayne grew up with a camera in hand, drawn to storytelling before he had the vocabulary to describe why it mattered. He studied film at Columbia College Chicago, where he developed the technical foundation and artistic discipline that would define his career. After graduating he moved to Los Angeles before relocating to New York, where he founded Underscore Films.

Underscore was built on a conviction: that commercial work and meaningful storytelling are not in conflict. The company grew into a nationally recognized production company with a roster of major brand clients including Sharpie, Graco, Warner Bros., Paper Mate, NUK, and Intel. The piece tracks the years of groundwork that preceded that recognition — cold outreach, spec work, passion projects, and a relentless focus on developing a singular directing voice.

The Bold Journey piece captures what Wayne has learned building a business in a highly competitive, relationship-driven industry. The value of persistence. The importance of having a strong point of view. The difference between directing for hire and directing with intention. It's a candid look at the real cost and genuine reward of building something from nothing — and keeping it yours.

Voyage LA's interview with Rick Wayne focuses on his path from emerging filmmaker to working director with a roster of major brand clients. The conversation covers the years of groundwork that preceded national commercial work — cold outreach, spec production, and the unglamorous reality of building a reputation in a city where access is everything and relationships take years to earn. Wayne speaks about that period with clarity rather than nostalgia: it was the foundation, not the story.

Wayne talks openly about the tension between artistic ambition and commercial reality, and about how directing for brands like Sharpie, Graco, and Warner Bros. has shaped rather than constrained his creative voice. The discipline of serving a client brief — of making work that solves a business problem while remaining worth watching — is something he describes as a craft in itself. The profile captures how that discipline pushed his directing into sharper focus.

The Voyage LA piece captures a moment of real transition in Wayne's career: from talented emerging director to established filmmaker with a body of work and a clear point of view. It's a ground-level look at what it actually takes to build a directing career outside the traditional infrastructure — without a major agency representation deal, without a Hollywood legacy, and without a shortcut.

ShoutOut LA's profile of Rick Wayne opens with his affirmations practice — a daily ritual he credits as central to maintaining focus under the pressure of running a production company while simultaneously directing. That detail is deliberate: it frames the profile not as a career summary but as an examination of the person behind the work. Wayne talks about what it takes to stay creatively alive and professionally consistent when the industry's default setting is chaos.

Wayne discusses directing commercials for major brands alongside his passion for documentary work, describing how the two disciplines feed each other in ways that aren't immediately obvious from the outside. His documentary sensibility — genuine interest in real people, real stories, authentic moments — shapes the way he approaches even highly produced commercial work. The profile captures that cross-pollination: a director who brings ethnographic curiosity to brand storytelling and cinematic ambition to documentary work.

ShoutOut LA frames Wayne as a model for creative entrepreneurs building careers on their own terms. Career longevity in directing, in his view, comes from genuine curiosity, continuous reinvention, and a willingness to take on work that challenges you rather than work that confirms what you already know how to do. The profile is a compelling document of what that philosophy looks like in practice.

ARTRPRNR's Member Spotlight on Rick Wayne focuses on his identity as a creative entrepreneur — a director who built a business, not just a reel. The profile examines how Underscore Films operates as both a production company and a creative development engine, and what it means to run a company in an industry that still mostly runs on relationships, reputation, and the willingness to outwork everyone in the room.

Wayne discusses the business side of building Underscore Films: developing client relationships, pitching competitive treatments, assembling a roster of collaborators, and running a company that operates at the scale of much larger organizations through strategic partnerships and a lean, high-trust team. The profile is candid about the difficulty of that work — the years of building before the break, the discipline required to keep going when the deals don't materialize and the timeline stretches.

ARTRPRNR positions Wayne as part of a generation of creative entrepreneurs who reject the false choice between artistic integrity and commercial viability. His ability to move between worlds — brand advertising, documentary, campaign strategy, agency leadership — is framed not as a compromise but as a competitive advantage. It's a profile built around a simple, hard-won idea: that the best creative work and the best business outcomes are not in opposition.

PR Newswire announced Sharpie's landmark campaign celebrating the theatrical release of Disney's Mufasa: The Lion King — titled "Everything the Light Touches Is Your Canvas." The campaign, directed by Rick Wayne through Underscore Films, extends the film's central themes of legacy, creativity, and generational self-expression directly into Sharpie's brand universe. The line is a perfect collision: Mufasa's promise to Simba about possibility, reframed as an invitation to pick up a Sharpie and make your mark.

The campaign built on Sharpie's long-standing identity as the marker of artists, athletes, and everyday makers — drawing a direct line between the film's message about inherited creative vision and the act of creation itself. The work brought together cinematic production values with a brand message grounded in genuine emotional truth. It was designed to feel like it belonged inside the film's world, not bolted onto its promotional cycle.

The Mufasa campaign was one of the most high-profile brand collaborations in Sharpie's recent history, combining the scale of a Disney theatrical release with Sharpie's cultural authority as a tool of self-expression. The PR Newswire release announced the campaign's rollout to national media, reaching audiences across broadcast, digital, and social platforms timed to the film's theatrical debut.

Rick Wayne's IMDb page documents his career as a commercial and documentary director, with credits spanning national advertising campaigns, branded documentary series, and brand film work. The filmography reflects a career built across major brand clients including Sharpie, Graco, Warner Bros., Paper Mate, NUK, and Intel — work that has run nationally across broadcast, streaming, and digital platforms. IMDb serves as the authoritative public record of his production history and directorial credits.

Notable credits include the Sharpie x Disney Mufasa campaign "Everything the Light Touches Is Your Canvas," the Warner Bros. 100 Years documentary series produced in collaboration with Underscore Films, and long-form documentary profiles for Sharpie S-Gel featuring athletes and entrepreneurs including Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. His commercial credits include campaigns for Graco ("I Got You Babe"), Paper Mate ("Feel the Joy"), Android, Intel, and Ball Corporation.

Wayne founded Underscore Films, the New York-based production company under which most of his directorial work is produced. The IMDb listing provides a complete and continuously updated record of his credits — from major national campaigns to branded documentary series — and serves as a point of reference for casting directors, agency producers, and brand clients evaluating his body of work.

In March 2024, Rick Wayne took the SXSW stage in Austin, Texas alongside Mindy Kaling for a panel on creativity, brand storytelling, and what it means to build a creative career on your own terms. The panel was held in conjunction with the launch of Sharpie's new "Creative Corner" social series, which Wayne directed — a campaign that positioned Kaling as the face of Sharpie's Creative Marker and used SXSW as the global launch platform.

The conversation drew on Kaling's experience as a writer, actress, producer, and entrepreneur, and on Wayne's perspective as a director and ECD who has built a career at the intersection of brand strategy and cinematic production. The panel explored how creative confidence is built, how creative leaders maintain a point of view under commercial pressure, and why authenticity — not trend-chasing — is what makes brand campaigns resonate with real audiences.

SXSW served as both the setting and the statement: bringing a major brand campaign to one of the world's most influential creative conferences signaled Sharpie's continued commitment to positioning itself as a tool of serious creative people, not just a product. Wayne's presence on stage alongside Kaling reflected his growing role as a creative industry voice as well as a director.

Rick Wayne directed Sharpie's "Creative Corner" — a social media series starring Mindy Kaling, built around the launch of Sharpie's Creative Marker line and unveiled at SXSW 2024. The series positioned Kaling not as a traditional celebrity endorser but as a genuine creative voice, with each episode framing creativity as an accessible, everyday act of self-expression.

The creative brief was rooted in Sharpie's brand truth: that the marker has always been a tool of people who make things. From athletes signing autographs, to artists working on canvas, to kids drawing on lunch bags — the Sharpie has always meant something more than utility. "Creative Corner" extended that idea into a serialized format, with Kaling as both host and participant, sharing her perspective on what it means to be creative in a world that doesn't always make space for it.

Produced through Underscore Films and launched at SXSW alongside a live panel, the campaign marked one of the more sophisticated integration of content, experiential marketing, and social distribution in Sharpie's recent history — and represented Wayne's continued position as the go-to director for Sharpie's most high-profile creative productions.

For GAP's 2023 Holiday campaign, Rick Wayne directed a live shopping experience starring Selma Blair — the actress and disability advocate whose public journey with multiple sclerosis had made her one of the most visible and compelling voices in American culture. The production was built around the intersection of live broadcast and e-commerce, streaming directly to GAP's audience with real-time shoppability built into the experience.

The choice of Selma Blair reflected GAP's continuing evolution as a brand interested in real stories and real people, not just trend-cycle aesthetics. Blair brought her characteristic combination of warmth, wit, and depth to the campaign, and Wayne's direction leaned into the authenticity of the live format rather than against it — creating something that felt more like a genuine conversation than a polished ad unit.

Produced through Underscore Films, the GAP x Selma Blair live shopping experience was an early signal of where brand entertainment is heading: toward formats that collapse the distance between content, commerce, and community in real time. It positioned GAP as a brand willing to move beyond traditional campaign structures and into the live-first, interactive space that audiences increasingly expect.

In October 2023, Warner Bros. marked its centennial — 100 years of storytelling, character, and cultural impact. Rick Wayne directed a documentary series produced through Underscore Films for the occasion, featuring diverse artists and reimaginings of iconic Warner Bros. characters. The series was designed to feel less like a corporate retrospective and more like a living celebration: contemporary voices in conversation with a legacy, not simply narrating it.

The project drew on Wayne's background as a documentary director with a strong point of view, and on Underscore Films' capacity to execute high-production-value content on tight timelines. Each piece in the series was built around a specific artist's perspective — giving the centennial campaign a mosaic quality that honored the breadth of Warner Bros.' cultural footprint without collapsing it into a single, monolithic narrative.

The 100 Years campaign was one of the higher-profile documentary commissions of Wayne's career, representing both the scale of project Underscore Films can execute and his growing reputation as a director who can handle legacy brands with the sensitivity and craft their histories demand.

People magazine featured Alexis Ohanian — Co-Founder of Reddit and venture capitalist — in Sharpie's S-Gel campaign directed by Rick Wayne through Underscore Films. The piece ran in conjunction with Sharpie's "Rookie of the Year" campaign positioning the S-Gel as the newest addition to the Sharpie family, and one worthy of association with one of tech entrepreneurship's most recognizable names.

The choice of Ohanian reflected a deliberate strategic move by Sharpie to position the S-Gel not just as a writing instrument, but as a tool of the kind of people who build things of consequence. Ohanian's background — founding Reddit at 22, now running his own VC fund and building alongside Serena Williams — made him a natural fit for a campaign about doing something new with conviction and a sense of style.

The People coverage amplified the campaign's reach into a consumer lifestyle context, extending beyond the trade and business press that typically covers brand campaigns of this kind. Wayne's direction gave the piece the warmth and personality of a genuine profile rather than a commercial, which was central to why it earned editorial attention from People's editors.

In May 2021, creators Alex Bentley and Rick Wayne led the red carpet of the world premiere of "On Deck" at the Sugar Factory Theatre Box in San Diego. The premiere marked the public debut of the series, bringing together its cast, crew, and creative team for the first public screening — a milestone moment for an independent production that had been built entirely outside the traditional Hollywood development system.

"On Deck" represented a chapter in Wayne's career defined by original IP: developing and directing a series concept from the ground up, navigating independent production financing, and bringing the project to a finished, screened state. The red carpet premiere was as much a statement about what the team had accomplished as it was an introduction of the work to a public audience.

The Sugar Factory Theatre Box provided an intimate, high-energy premiere setting — fitting for a project rooted in independent creative ambition. The San Diego premiere established "On Deck" as a completed work with an audience and an identity, and contributed to Wayne's track record as a creator capable of bringing long-form original projects to completion alongside his commercial directing work.