Today we’d like to introduce you to Warren Cook.
Hi Warren, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
I’ve been in the creative world ever since I can remember—designing, filming, writing, composing—anything and everything- and I have never stopped. I worked as a creative director for an ad agency in San Diego for 20 years until I found my passion and what I believe in—authenticity. I started filming people that I was totally inspired by in the city of Fort Worth and called it Fort Worth Funky.
I get excited to meet people and tell their stories and see them look at the piece I created and see how beautiful they truly are. I let people tell their story with no agenda, just to be honest and share their voice. Is was also my passion to find the thing that they lit up about and talk about that—it did not have to fit into any box or push an agenda.
That led to winning many American Advertising Awards for the Fort Worth Funky series and ultimately, we started filming this style of storytelling for Visit Fort Worth calling it, Fort Worth Stories. It met with huge success and I’m tremendously proud of. The FW Story we did on Jonathon Morris which caught the attention of Chip and Joanna Gaines. We did the proof of concept with Red Productions for the series that became Self Employed.
In 2017 My wife Jules and I started our company called Make Something Beautiful- it was more than a name it was our all, our passion, our vision. We have worked with many companies, universities, and non-profits over the years. This year we won Best of Show at The American Advertising Federation for our series produced for Texas A&M called Where You Belong.
I truly love what we do and this is just the beginning of showing the beautiful around us, the amazing parts of life and living.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I think the biggest challenge has been structuring our days. There are periods that we are producing and filming huge projects and it can be all-consuming. It can take over time with family and friends. There are also down periods of time. When you’ve just finished a big production and going from 7 days a week 16-hour days it can be hard to remember how to operate in the slower rhythms of life.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
We are known as storytellers. From big brands to small brands, they trust us to tell their story authentically and magically. There is that thing, that you can’t describe when magic happens and that is what we strive for. I’m most proud of the projects we did for Texas A&M and Visit Fort Worth—both trusted us to do what we believed and both campaigns won best of show at The American Advertising Awards. Both projects were all consuming and we put our heart out there. We never stopped smiling and count it a privilege that we met and got to tell so many amazing stories. The awesome human beings that we meet as we film fill our work, and our lives with goodness.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
I grew up in sunny Southern California—actually El Cajon, not as sexy as saying San Diego for sure. I was always creating something—from my own comic book series in elementary school, to creating cassette covers for my bands—yup I said cassettes. Also, I was hired and paid to illustrate my elementary yearbook—some of my finest work looking back.
My teen years were filled with Gibson Les Paul guitars, The Cars, Sixteen Candles, and a love for anything creative.
After college, marriage, and a few kids I migrated to the great state of Texas.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.msb-creative.com
- Instagram: makesomethingbeautifulfw
