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Mary Davenport: An Element of Success

By Rebecca Richards


In just four short years, Element Productions has become one of Boston's fastest growing production companies. Element's expanding roster of talented and diverse directors includes Rudi Schwab, Leif Husted-Jensen, Sam Weisman and Kohl Norville. While Element's main focus is on producing commercials, they have also produce music videos, promos, corporate films, interactive CD's and DVD's, as well as independent films and TV projects. There's a definite "buzz" around the company and for executive producer Mary Davenport that's just the way she wants it to be.
A Cape Cod resident, Mary Davenport has always known what she's wanted. Intrigued by the world of advertising while only in grade school, she developed an ad campaign for a bar of bath soap as part of her second grade's after school-enrichment program. And that was just the beginning. While in high school, one of Mary's friends' dads worked in marketing for the Thom McCann Shoe Company. "He encouraged my interest," she says. "He would pass along his read-through copies of AdWeek muses Davenport. "I would go through them cover to cover." As it so happens, the Thom McCann Shoe Company's ad campaign was developed by Boston's Arnold and Company, then as now, one of the city's most successful ad agencies.
While majoring in communications at suburban Fitchburg State College, Davenport set her sights on a full-time internship at none other than Arnold and Company, the very agency she had learned about in high school. She was assigned to the traffic department at Arnold where she thrived. "It was a good match," she recalls. "In the traffic department you get to work with all the other departments in the agency. You're responsible for print scheduling, tracking the job, and making sure everyone has what he or she needs. You are able to understand everyone's position in the agency." It was a great experience that would prove helpful to Davenport after graduation when she ended up navigating back at Arnold Worldwide as Traffic Manager.
Davenport eventually found herself as an Art Buyer at Arnold, a job she had coveted and sought out during a re-organization of the company. As Davenport describes it, an art buyer is essentially a "producer for stills. You work with an art director, choose the photographer and produce a photo shoot." Davenport quickly realized she really enjoyed the producing aspects of her work. After leaving Arnold, Mary was hired by Boston's Holland, Mark, and Martin Agency. There she further developed her producing skills as Vice
President and Director of Creative Services. Before long, Davenport's reputation for hard work and great
results landed her on the two-person team starting up Modernista!, Boston's soon-to-be hottest agency, with innovative, groundbreaking campaigns for clients like Volkswagen, Gap and MTV- clients that Davenport helped bring on board as Chief Operating Officer.




A year and a half after joining Modernista!, Davenport felt the need for a real vacation-her first since high school. After a quick hiatus, she realized her working life was taking her in a whole new and different direction. Throughout her career in Boston's advertising community, Davenport had been fortunate to make good friends with a number of other individuals in the city's creative community. One of those friends was producer Eran Lobel, founder of Element Productions. Little did Davenport know that the friendship struck up on a commercial set years earlier with producer Lobel, would one day lead to their working side by side.



Davenport first met Lobel in the mid-nineties, while he was working as Head of Production for September Productions. They had a mutual professional respect for one another and when Lobel contacted Davenport and asked her to come on board as an Executive Producer at Element, she didn't hesitate. First founded in 1998, Element had been building up its reputation and client base and was now looking to expand. Eran says "Mary's producing skills, her strong agency background, and her success in helping companies solve problems and grow, was the perfect match for Element."

Element had planned to expand in the fall of 2002, but put those plans on hold after the September 11th terrorists' attacks. As of January 1, 2003, Element Productions will officially open its second office in New York City. They've already hired Manhattan-based director Kohl Norville, and Davenport is energized thinking about the possibilities for Element in that city. Element director/cinematographer Leif Husted-Jensen has also relocated to New York in order to help lay the groundwork for relationships with New York agencies. "I predict we will be successful in New York and will eventually open an office in LA," she offers.
Davenport's role as Executive Producer at Element includes developing the careers of the directors at the company, bringing in new business and also overseeing commercial production. Element has a small permanent staff and a group of local freelancers they use for many of their jobs. "It's a very talented group of people we enjoy working with," enthuses Davenport. Even in light of the current economic slowdown, Element has managed to keep busy. "We've been fortunate to keep working," she says. "It's about being smart about how to produce the jobs," she says. Eran and Mary share the same philosophy about business and being smart about expenses-knowing when to spend and when to save. "We're flexible and strategic," says Davenport. "There's no other company quite like us in Boston."



Being female in the male-driven advertising world has not presented any particular challenges for Davenport. She said that she has found that if you work hard, look for opportunities, and treat people the way you'd like to be treated, you're a success. "It's not always about money or prestige. Success is how you define it," states Davenport. That's quite possibly an attitude that has allowed her to achieve so much.
To learn more about Element Productions, visit their website at www.element.cc. Mary Davenport can be contacted at MaryD@element.cc.

Rebecca Richards has a history of work in the Boston area's arts and film communities. She was the first Executive Director of Women in Film and Video/New England and co-producer of the Image Awards for Excellence and Vision. She is currently producing the international animation program for the Belmont World Film series and continues to look for an actor to portray the painter Degas in her film about artist Suzanne Valadon. She can be reached at recrich@aol.com