Burt's Buzz

The documentary is about the bearded man on the label of a natural products brand sold around the world, Burt Shavitz. While Shavitz was living in Parkman, Maine, with none of the modern comforts, his name and his face became the emblem of a large company. When his partner bought him out in 1999 he was left with a house valued at a hundred and thirty thousand dollars; in 2007 the company changed hands for nine hundred and twenty five million. Jody Shapiro’s eighty eight minute production shows what it means for a person to be turned into an icon by setting the man’s own daily life beside the story told behind the logo. It was completed in 2014 and tells branding from the side of the person used rather than the side doing the selling.