Face to Face with... Passion RAW

When we spoke to new Passion Picture’s COO Penny Verbe a couple of weeks back she hinted there were changes afoot and oh my wasn’t she just right. Rumblings and rumours reached shots towers of a new live action commercials division, so we hunted down the man behind the new venture, Dan Scott-Croxford. Live from the set of UK TV series Hollyoaks (don’t ask!), we got the skinny on Passion RAW, chatted Oscars buzz and got introduced to a Single Ladies inspired parody of the Radiohead video we posted last week…

So tell us about Passion RAW – it's a live action division, right?
Well, technically Passion Pictures has had a live action division for 11 years in its Oscar winning documentary feature department. They have since set up a specialist Passion Wild (for wildlife films funnily enough) and then there's RAW. RAW differs from the rest of the group as we have a range of live action directors who are more commercially viable yet have individual angles on the industry.

And how will that sit alongside the animation side of Passion, which is what people know the company for?
Pretty well, we hope. The idea is to extend the mentality of Passion Pictures animation beyond the studio and into the group. Start tackling projects as creative collaborations using all the tools and talents at our disposal to create interesting work. Hopefully this means that we can keep more money on screen in these times of high expectation and challenging budgets.

Tell us about your new roster. Any new talent we should be keeping an eye on?
I admit that I am geek when it comes to new work and directors, and new talent excites me. But when you scratch the surface you realise that there's a hell of a lot of talented people out there. What we're trying to do at RAW is sign new or existing talents that are able to develop ideas and be smart about projects, and I believe my guys are all pushing in that direction. Willem Gerritsen's work for example still makes me laugh out loud, and I've watched it A LOT.

Everyone I have signed is developing their own projects and the next stage for RAW is to harness the format and writing skills of the directors. For the most part directors are creatively frustrated between projects and I want to use these periods of ‘downtime’ to develop and create original ideas and formats. It's this IP creation and inevitable split across involved parties that I think will break new platforms of branded content. People like free stuff, and I think audiences are mature enough to accept some branding if they're getting something pretty cool for free. The Fosters Alan Partridge episodes are a good example. 

And in other Passion news you guys are up for a couple of Oscars this year aren't you?
Yeah. There's a real buzz right now in the building. Passion Films are up for Best Doc for Restrepo, and Andrew Ruhemann (CEO) decided to direct his first animated short, The Lost Thing, which has been nominated for Best Animated Short Film, talented git.

So what have you got up your sleeves? Any specific projects you're working on that you can tell us about?
I am into the idea of developing apps for the artists we make promos for, so you can get an interactive version on your phone as well as pushing news etc. We just shot a promo that I want to roll the idea out with. I'll let you know if it works.

What inspiring things have you seen, read or watched recently?
I love this series of photos by Irena Werning, I would like to thank whoever is responsible for changing the music on the new Radiohead video for really making me smile. Tyler the Creator and Odd Future are blowing my mind right now. And the fact that Tyler also directed his new video too is testament to his creativity. Oh, and the new Nike spot by Robert Rodriguez is awesome.