Today we’d like to introduce you to Terry Ayrault.
Hi Terry, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I was born outside of Detroit and have lived around the city for the majority of my life. I grew up here, in the shadow of Detroit’s Renaissance Center. A city enriched by the Motown sound and the familiar rev of automobile engines. As a kid, it seemed every one of my friend’s parents had a job within the automotive ecosystem, and that still rings true today. We were a generation brought up to be familiar with union dues and day shifts and teamwork. We learned how to fend for ourselves as most of us came from large, two-income families. Part of that “latch key” mentality shaped us to be more self-sufficient, grittier and more independent than generations that came before and after. We had built-in friend groups called, “siblings.” Which meant, we also hung out with our brother’s and sister’s friends. The neighborhoods in the 1970s and 1980s were united. The kids played kickball in the streets until the streetlights came on. My mom used to ring a cowbell out the front door when dinner was ready. My independence made me more resilient. I did well in sports and played football in high school and college. It was in college where I started to develop my affinity for writing. I wrote beyond my classwork. Poetry, music, essays, fiction. Flowery love letters to girls I dated. I began to truly enjoy expressing myself through words. Upon college graduation, I took an entry-level job in a Detroit advertising firm where I too began to experience a career influenced by automotive. Most of the words I wrote were in regards to powerful engines and leather interiors. Somewhere along the way, during my 35-year career, I started to realize that, while the job provided me with sufficient income, writing to influence people to buy a car wasn’t my only passion. I also had a desire to write for me. I started to pour my heart into passion projects. I wrote for sports magazines, I wrote speeches, children’s books, cartoon shorts, screenplays, songs, a television show. Then, my first documentary. My list of writing credits is eclectic as I have really found writing to be a hobby that brings me a lot of joy.
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?
The road is never smooth for those who are successful. But the bumps and scars and failures are the things that make you more resilient. I had plenty of struggles along the way. I’ve had scripts turned down. I’ve had plenty of concepts–that seemed perfect to me, test poorly in front of audiences. In advertising, for instance, it’s very easy to fall in love with your own concept. Your ideas become your babies. It’s often difficult to get into the mind of the diverse, and often skeptical, viewer and try to figure out what would appeal to a mass audience. It’s impossible. Fortunately, many of my learnings in advertising have helped me outside of my career. I’ve learned that the written word is so heavily dependent on the overall concept. That’s the single-most important aspect of any storytelling. It’s not whether you know when to use a semi-colon or a colon. It’s the overall conceptual idea. I believe that a great concept writes itself.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
As an advertising professional, I’ve made a career of storytelling. Generally, that means appealing to an audience in sixty seconds or less. The typical radio spot used to be 60-seconds. I wrote hundreds of award-winning, nationally-run radio spots during the late 1990s and early 2000s. I excelled at producing what, in the business, they call “theatre of the mind.” That is, words that paint a picture and force the listener to envision what is being said. I was also responsible for many 30-second tv commercials in the 2000s, hawking everything from cars, to pizza, to utility companies, to over-the-counter ointments (and everything in between). I found great success in this medium as well. Then, in 2012, I was hired to help write a television show for an offshoot of the Discovery Network. It was a magazine show called ‘Vinsetta Garage,” about the deep affection (and affliction) that people have with the automobile. It was a very rewarding experience that introduced me to the genre of documentary-style storytelling. Then, in 2020, I produced a full-length documentary about my 8th Grade Catholic-League football team. I dug up most of the players from that team and, throughout the COVID epidemic, interviewed them about our time spent together as middle schoolers and what that particular team meant to them. It all came together in a beautiful snapshot called, “Last of the Lakers.” The film won numerous documentary awards and really gave me the bug to one-up myself. My newest documentary, “Jolly,” is about Santa Claus and his connection to Detroit (the city in which I was raised). Always a fan of Christmas, this documentary answers my personal need to find out more about what makes Santa, well, Santa. I think my need to uncover great concepts is what really sets me apart from others. I really like digging a bit deeper and finding untold tales. And I love to find ways of sharing those tales with others. I love being a storyteller.
Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
Christmas makes me happy. Because in our shortest days, it brings a certain light to people. And I’m not just talking about string lights hanging from the evergreens. Christmas puts a light in people’s hearts. There’s such an anticipation in the air as we get closer to the holiday. It’s a starting point of optimism, in my opinion. All the decorations, all the pageantry, all the excitement in the children. It’s so heart-warming. I love to see and hear the reaction of people and Christmastime provides so many instances where you can see people react positively to moments and to each other.
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