The Way I See It: Charlie Crompton

I grew up in Blackheath – in one of the Span house estates which were a 60s design experiment on compact, open plan, modern living, all built around communal gardens. It was a great place for kids.

I was boarding from the age of eight where you quickly learned to survive on your wits. Lights out in the 40-bed dorms was 6:30pm sharp – even in the summer. You barely saw your parents, but you could write to them – you just had to leave the envelope unstuck so that the teachers could proof-read everything for content approval.

My parents eventually sprung me out and sent me to the local comprehensive school in South London, which it turned out was more of a detention centre for juvenile offenders. Still, anything felt like an upgrade, so I was all-in.

It was a valuable lesson, not only because it was the first time I realised that I’ve got a very hittable face - but also in early negotiating.

I was literally the poshest person they’d ever met. On the first day, I was standing in a queue to get into the canteen. “You need a dinner-ticket,” said a huge boy with no front teeth wearing 12-hole Dr Martens. “Thanks - but I don’t think I’ll be staying for dinner,” I replied, before I was smashed in the face.

It was a valuable lesson, not only because it was the first time I realised that I’ve got a very hittable face - but also in early negotiating. We agreed that we’d get along very well if I let him copy all my work. I did, and I never had any trouble again.

I really got into character. A year in, my grades had gone through the floor - but I was one of the gang, sounded like a true South Londoner, had cow-horn bars on my Raleigh, Doc Marten boots and a massive attitude. My mother was appalled. 

Above: Charlie Crompton, Founding Partner of Rogue Films and slayer of bicycles. 

I should have been suspicious when my father started to learn German. He ran off with the German au pair when I was 12 and, astonishingly quickly, my mother drove down to Cornwall with my sisters to live with his best friend. Looking back, it was an odd arrangement for me and my brother to stay in London and the other half of the family to live in the West Country but ‘So ist das leben’, as they say in Frankfurt.

After a brief stint living with a previously unknown aunt in Hampstead, at 14 I was boarding again, down in Brighton, and sneaked out to see The Jam. They’d just released In The City, which was like being smashed in the face again (although this time in a good way).

I did loads of jobs to make ends meet; Being a DJ in a strip club was a memorable low point.

Punk changed music forever. To get involved, I escaped back to London for Sixth Form, picked up a guitar and, with three chords nailed, formed a band. 

I did loads of jobs to make ends meet; an apprentice butcher, selling shoes in Oxford Street, painting, decorating, barman. Being a DJ in a strip club was a memorable low point.

On the advice of my agent, I went to New York to be the next MTV presenter. I wasn’t. Meanwhile, The Marble Staircase – our new psychedelic band – nearly made it; but after releasing two records, we quit at the top. No one noticed.

Above: Punk rock's loss is advertising's gain.

My first job in advertising was as London’s worst motorcycle courier. I actually got lost on the way to the interview.

After a freezing winter of delivering artwork to the wrong place, dressed like Lloyd Christmas from Dumb & Dumber, I amazingly blagged a job in an agency.

I was a paste-up artist. Back in the day, when you designed press ads, you had to type out the thing – in the right typefaces – and then cut every different section out with a scalpel and stick it on a bit of board. I lived in a world of spray mount. But I loved TV ads and thought, ‘That’s what I want to do’. Time to find a way into a production company.

I started at the bottom again as a runner. Looking back, it was a bit slave-ish – driving the producer and director around, to endless long lunches and picking up their shopping, family and laundry at the weekends, in between my side-hustle as Peter Stringfellow’s third pick reserve DJ (don’t ask). But at the weekends I could live in the office in Marylebone, with a bar and a massive VHS movie collection to get through. Result.

[Peter Mayle] went off to France to write A Year in Provence and said his wife had a production company called Jennie & Co in Soho and I should go and work there.

I used to drive around an inspiring ad man called Peter Mayle, who always had time to talk to insignificant runners like me. He went off to France to write A Year in Provence and said his wife had a production company called Jennie & Co in Soho and I should go and work there.

Back then there were only a handful of directors to choose from, so when you wanted one to shoot your ad, you’d ask, and they’d probably say yes. Pitching was a conversation over lunch and budgeting was done with a pencil.

I reached for the staplegun when a dishevelled man burst through the door one day, thinking he was one of the locals who used to use the mews as a urinal. Adrian Lyne – one of the first directors to rock ‘homeless chic’ – introduced himself.

Adrian’s film, 9 and a 1/2 Weeks, had just come out and he was prepping Fatal Attraction between making incredibly glamorous ads. I wanted to be part of the team turning the scripts – which I had to dig out of the ailing fax-machine with a fork – into the amazing ads that were on TV just a few weeks later.

Above: "Someone said that they’d always thought of me as being like a conductor. I think I do have an ability to guide, facilitate, counsel and support creative talent so they can get the best out of themselves."

I’d get agency mates to ask for director’s reels and binge-watch them on the 20 kilo U-Matic deck. I went to as many sets as I could and learned how to touch-type on a massive electric typewriter, which meant I could become a PA.

I worked hard, determined to make the jump from PA to production manager to producer in record time - and picked the very short straw at MPC’s fledgling production arm.

MPC had a director who I thought was unhinged when I met him, but realised later that it was because he was blind drunk. Every day. By 10am. He got away with it because he also a mathematical genius who was the first director to understand how to integrate post production into live-action ads.

The 100 a day smoking habit and hiding the gin before every meeting made me just want to Taser him in the nuts. 

We won a few awards together but the 100 a day smoking habit and hiding the gin before every meeting made me just want to Taser him in the nuts. Luckily for him, Tasers hadn’t been invented yet.

Fortunately, I met David van der Gaag at MPC and, in 1998, with a small gang of directors who we believed in, even if nobody else did, we started Rogue in Wardour Street, with the backing of David Jeffers, the legendary MD of MPC.

We bought Rogue from MPC as soon as we realised that we were onto something and began to build our roster from the ground up.

We were a great team, and I’m very proud to have had a part in building one of the most consistently successful production companies in the UK, that’s still going upwards of 27 years later.

Above: Crompton and David van der Gaag, who met at MPC and went on to found Rogue Films together. 

I love building a roster: Some directors you grow from seed and others from music videos, TV, films, or just on a hunch they’ve got that something. There’s such a thrill when you find a DP, a creative, a choreographer, an editor or a real left-field bet from the most unlikely background. To be a part of curating that journey, with a director who you always knew could do it, even if they didn’t themselves, is one of the things that makes the job so fun and rewarding.

It’s hard yards in production right now, but after 50 years of ads, this business has got a whole load of life left in it yet. It’s constantly evolving and reinventing itself, and is just getting its swagger back.

It’s hard yards in production right now, but after 50 years of ads, this business has got a whole load of life left in it yet.

There’s a whole new draft of talent coming up who don’t know any other way except hustling with not enough resources but a lot of confidence and attitude.

The best of the new directors now don’t even think about restricting themselves to just making ads when there’s so many other disciplines in which they can use their talents. And they’re winning long form awards as well as Arrows and D&AD’s.

There are way too many advertising awards but as a former Chair of The British Arrows, it’s great to see them getting more relevant each year - and they give a lot back. Arrows are non-profit, diverse and inclusive – and difficult to win. The Young Arrows is free to enter too, ensuring that all emerging talent can get noticed. They may only know three chords, but they’re just warming up to smash us all in the face.

Above: Crompton is a former Chairman of the British Arrows and still sits on the Board of Directors.  

The companies who’ll define the next era are the ones who become specialists in curating their directors’ output between all the disciplines in all the markets – not just advertising but long form, TV, music videos, photography, you name it. If you can genuinely pull that off, the world’s your lobster.

It was time to leave Rogue. I needed to go solo to start a new adventure. Someone said that they’d always thought of me as being like a conductor. I think I do have an ability to guide, facilitate, counsel and support creative talent so they can get the best out of themselves.

Coaching is something you get better at the longer you’ve been doing it, and I’ve developed a finely tuned antenna for good work and giving people confidence to trust their instincts.

Some people don’t realise that the best work comes from everyone being honest with each other.

It still amazes me that some people don’t realise that the best work comes from everyone being honest with each other, and defending that original idea that got you so excited with your lives – or at least with a very sharp stick.

I mean, tea helps. Wherever we travel in the world, I’ve always got Yorkshire Gold tea bags and a tea pot. If you’ve got that and a jar of Marmite in your trench, you can get through anything.