You Should Know: Otto Bell

by Christie Grimm · August 29, 2016

Doesn't matter who you are, Otto Bell will bloody charm the pants off you. Perhaps that cheeky way of his is how he landed the seat as a Vice President at CNN? Or perhaps it was his experience as a former Creative Director at Ogilvy, coupled with his dead-on instincts with regards to producing interesting, probing branded content. Really, who's to say? Regardless of how he got there, he's been hard at work - most recently on "The Eagle Huntress," his critically loved and festival feted documentary you'll be hearing about for sure come awards season.

Name: Otto Bell
Occupation: Documentary Filmmaker and Vice President at CNN
Place of Birth: Northumberland, England.
Instagram / Twitter: Nah, not really.
Zodiac Sign: Scorpio

What do you actually do? I founded and run Courageous - CNN's brand studio based in Union Square. We've got around 20 Emmy and Murrow-winning directors and producers, teamed with cinematographers, designers, web developers and motion graphics artists - all focused on turning out beautiful, thought-provoking commercial work.

I also made my first feature documentary recently called "The Eagle Huntress" - it's on the festival circuit right now but out in cinemas this October.

My motto is: If you're not even a teensy bit scared, you're probably not moving forward.

5 Favorite Hamptons Places: Our house beach on Sandpiper Lane, Moby's, Book Hampton, Inner Sleeve Records and The Crow's Nest

The craziest thing I've done out East is... Years ago I leapt off the deck of the Surf Lodge into the lake below. I don't recommend it: I wasn't wearing much and there was a lot of broken glass down there...

Best kept Hamptons secret? Biking around the backroads of the Lazy Point area.

If you had one day left out East, what would you do? Float around in the ocean.

Who should we know? My incredibly talented fiancé Cayte Grieve - a deep digital thinker currently with WME/IMG.

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