Golden Time with Carolyn Hill of Carolyn Reps

If you’ve been on the advertising and commercial production scene for any length of time, you probably know Carolyn Hill. Whether it’s from her frequent social media posts (and movie reviews, too!) to her presence at AICP events (she’s a former East Chapter board member) to her far flung network of friends, clients, colleagues and peers, Carolyn is a perpetual motion machine who often trades on information, insight and plain old wisdom. 

A Connecticut native with a fascinating personal history (you can learn more about that here), she got her start in the business working as a reporter at SHOOT, but quickly left the trade press to join the repping corps. By the early aughts she had her own company, now known as Carolyn Reps, where she manages board flow and provides strategic consultation for a range of production and post companies, aided by her associate, Amanda Rosenberg. 

Golden Time caught up with her recently to find out how she spends those precious 48 hours called the weekend.

Where do you live? And how long have you lived there? 

Carolyn: I live in Weston, Connecticut, down the hill from Keith Richards. Yes, really! I’ve lived here for eight years and count us as lucky that we moved way before Covid. We’d been on the Upper East Side of Manhattan before that, in the same building for 19 years.

How often do you end up working on the weekend? How much time do you spend on work-related stuff from Friday night to Sunday night?

Carolyn: I frequently work on advertising emergencies on nights and weekends. This is for two reasons. One is that I do consulting for production services all over the world in my role as US Liaison for Production Service Network. If I’m bidding something in Tokyo or Australia, they’ll be asking me questions late at night East Coast time. So I’ll frequently be in bed catching up on the “Price is Right,” and then have to run down to my computer to answer a production question.

The other reason is that I live near a lot of people in the business, so I’ll get work questions at the pool or at the coffee place. So I often get back and then have to make up a directors reel for a project. But I don’t mind. I grew up with my mom as a doctor and my uncle as a dentist. If someone broke a tooth over Thanksgiving, my uncle would have to go into the office and fix it after we had our turkey. And my mom had a pager and would have to do hospital rounds. I’m just working on advertising emergencies, which is a little less stressful.

What’s your favorite weekend decompression activity? How often do you get to pursue it?

Carolyn: Other than driving my 10-year old twins to their activities, my weekends are filled with running, Reiki, and writing. Sometimes I’m able to do all of those things, and sometimes not. When we lived in the city, I was in the New York Road Runners Club, and often raced in Central Park. When we moved to Connecticut, I joined the Westport Road Runners. I do their race series on Saturday mornings during the summer.

No matter what I do, I wake up around 6 AM. I’m the first one downstairs, which is good. I try to be quiet, especially if my daughter Paige is home from UConn. She’s a junior and her bedroom is on the first floor. I make coffee and, if I can motivate myself quickly enough, I’ll go to my computer and start my homework for my writing class. At the moment, the class I’m in is for my novel. It’s loosely based on my background, which I say is Oprah-level crazy. You can listen to a podcast I was on to find out more about that here.

After I work on my novel for a bit, I start breakfast for the twins. Once they’re settled, I go running. My best Saturdays are when I drive over to Compo Beach in Westport and run five miles. I’m not setting any speed records. I either listen to a podcast like “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” or to a playlist on Spotify. Right now, I’m listening to the soundtrack for “Wicked,” or heavy metal like Judas Priest. I was in a Chappell Roan phase, but I’m past that now. 

Frequently, I’ll get back from running and have someone coming to my house for a Reiki session. I’ve been a practicing healer for the last 14 years. Reiki is basically acupuncture without the needles. It’s good for anxiety and depression, and I work frequently with cancer patients. I’ve been working with my friend from NYC who is one of the chaplains at Yale New Haven Hospital. The sessions put advertising in perspective. I recently did a session with a nurse from the hospital who works in oncology radiology. That’s serious stuff. And sometimes I do neighbors suffering from stress and anxiety. It’s nice to help people calm down and it calms me down, too. So it’s good all around. 

What’s been your best weekend live experience of the past year: concert, sporting event, gallery visit, movie, class? What made it special? 

Carolyn: Every spring I study poetry with my teacher, Molly Peacock. She teaches through the 92^nd Street Y, and I was taking her class before I got into Columbia for my MFA. Poets from all over the country and Canada join the class, which is on Sundays. We try to out-do each other with sonnets and sestinas. It’s really stimulating. We also do close reads of poems, or study a particular subject. This past spring we were studying art history.

It’s a three-day weekend. How do you spend that bonus day?

Carolyn: Usually with more running, Reiki and writing. I’m always trying to squeeze everything in between playdates or basketball games for the twins. And sometimes I’m driving back and forth to UConn to drop off Paige. We’ve gone to a few UConn basketball games as a family at the XL Center in Hartford. We go to both men’s and women’s games. Those are really fun. I’m also the Chair of the Weston Marketing Committee, and report to the Board of Selectmen. I usually see if there are any events around town I’m supposed to be promoting or attending.

So it’s Sunday night already! How do you get ready for Monday morning? What’s your Sunday night routine?

Carolyn: I’m usually making dinner and trying to make sure I remember to plug in the twins’ computers for the next day. We check in with Paige at school to hear what’s going on at the campus. I know some people have issues sleeping, but by the time I get into bed, I’m ready to pass out.