Shooting for Multi-Platform: Tips from B-Reel Films' David Gaddie
The director, who's represented on the B-Reel Films roster with the production collective The Colony, outlines ways to approach producing integrated content.
Shooting for Multiple Platforms: B-Reel Film's
David Gaddie Offers Lessons Learned
The director, founder of the production collective The Colony,
outlines how producers and agency creatives can best
approach the challenge of producing integrated content.
By David Gaddie
After years of hype, the advertising industry is on the cusp of embracing the integrated production model as the best way to ensure a smooth production. However among agencies and brand marketers alike, fear, uncertainty and doubt still surround some areas of multi-platform campaign-making.
There's a lot of confusion and misinformation out there about the new production pipeline for the creation of all media in the integrated campaign. I don't profess to have all the answers, and have learnt from mistakes as I've tinkered and improved the process for directing integrated initiatives. Following are some insights from my colleagues on the integrated process, as well as what I consider are a few 'best practices' in this area.
Pelle Nilsson, the co-founder and EP at B-Reel Films, has this to say about multi-platform marketing: "We believe much of the advertising industry has yet to fully grasp the implications of the integrated production model, and in the process of adapting, many clients have not yet taken advantage of this new production model. There are exciting possibilities that benefit everyone, particularly the client who benefits from the single-minded creative approach of a cross platform production."
I agree - a truly integrated production model means creating advertising content that manages to integrate the various formats and modes of advertising presentation. The media isn't limited to broadcast and online. Ideally an integrated production is broader and takes in installations and online staged experiences - such as in B-Reel's "Mitsubishi Test Drive," where the online experience included TV spots and filmed coverage of the live event.
B-Reel Films has produced numerous other integrated campaigns, sometimes working in concert with B-Reel, our digital creative shop, and other times working with outside agencies, like we did for BBDO and its launch of the HBO Go service. Here are some of the things we've learned about how best to approach integrated production.
How Integrated Does (And Doesn't) Work
Integrated is most unlike traditional broadcast advertising in one key respect: On a commercial, the director has a leadership role during the very brief production period. An integrated director, on the other hand, needs to be able to work very closely with the interactive creative director. This means that on an integrated production there are effectively two creative leaders – which is a challenge for a lot of traditional directors.
B-Reel Films EP Susan Rued Anderson points out that "part of the success of an integrated campaign is the ability to be groundbreaking – to utilize never before seen technologies or concepts that can amaze consumers. This means that there is a R&D process on every project. The integrated production company needs to engage its full creative team, including its director and developers, early on to collaborate with the advertising agency and client. This requires a director with a unique skill-set who can develop a project with a team, honing the approach around technology and technical requirements."
On a multi-platform integrated project, just like on any broadcast project, an A-list director is essential. This director oversees the entire project. He or she designs the overall look of the film, sets the tone, creates the reference for the team and then directs all elements needed to ensure quality and consistency of the project.
This can be an issue because the traditional TVC director charges a day rate that can be equivalent to the budget of an interactive shoot. This has meant that many digital productions have missed out on gaining access to the pool of top directors. The new integrated model needs to address this issue and provide a way for senior oversight of all aspects of the production. It is for this reason that the integrated production company and director have had to rethink the conventional model.
For example, The Colony was established as a more flexible way to generate all the assets required for an integrated production. While I come from a very traditional broadcast background, I realized there needed to be a clever way to put the same production values into all the elements of an integrated production as you have on a traditional television commercial. We deal with this issue by breaking down the project into an acquisitions list. Material is designated as A unit or B unit or even C unit. A different member of the directing team is assigned to each section, but all directors collaborate on the overall project. The lead director selected by the agency and client leads the project, working alongside the digital creative director while other supporting directors look after individual parts of the overall project.
In this model, a DP/director might go out and shoot visual elements, a VFX director might go out and shoot elements, and an animation/design director might create design elements, but throughout, the one lead director manages the project and the entire team is involved in thinking through the process with our clients. This approach allows the senior director to oversee all aspects of the production, just as the digital creative director oversees the output of his whole digital team, or the agency creative director oversees a team of creatives.
A Good Integrated Case Study
The Colony and B-Reel Films have worked on many interesting integrated projects. I'm going to describe here a 'perfect' integrated job as a case study. This project involved shooting a launch TV commercial that not only worked as a standalone piece, but also directed consumers to a micro-site. On the site, consumers were invited to participate in a competition that allowed them to join into the story of the commercial.
As the competition progressed, the entrants witnessed the entries on the website and ultimately voted to select the winner in what felt like an online "American Idol." Meanwhile, the participants watched the film continuing in a series of online episodic shorts. These films took the story of the commercial and fleshed them out for the consumer.
Our approach was focused on maximizing production value across all platforms and making sure every element interconnected in the most exciting and cohesive way possible. So instead of having separate shoots for interactive and broadcast, we built a longer shoot, with two teams scheduled into the same locations and sets. A set built for broadcast was lit by the broadcast DP and shot, and then the digital team stepped in to shoot. The 1st AD coordinated the teams in the same way that multiple units are scheduled on a feature film around locations, actors etc. The unified shoot saved the client money on the production and also ensured that the web films were made on the same sets and with the same production values as the commercial.
A coordinated approach like this is crucial for integrated advertising, because it is not only a linear story that's being shot. Along with the story there's usually a need to shoot multiple choice elements, bridging shots, staging scenes, etc. All these elements need to form a cohesive piece of communication.
Utilizing The Colony's team of VFX artists and facilities, this particular project was planned around the creation of assets, and these assets were built into a library of effects elements that were assembled "live" during the online project. As participants connected with the story through Facebook, Twitter, etc, the strategy was to change elements of the film so that the user's experience was actually affecting the larger film and ultimately the commercial. No element of the project - not even the broadcast spot - was locked, so that the experience felt truly interactive.
The Upside for Using Directors With Integrated Expertise
There are very clear advantages to working with an integrated production company that offers directors adept in both traditional and non-traditional directing. These advantages are obvious and are, as yet, underutilized. Our company provides a pretty good illustrative example. "A director at our production division, when working on a project with our digital creative shop, is able to engage with the experience and expertise that we have at B-Reel, which has been working in interactive since it all started," says Susan Rued Anderson, our EP. "A director working within the same company as the digital team has the creative advantage of being able to tap into the think tank that is B-Reel. Instead of each player working independently, the creative teams work together, navigating the project and creating from within the same house."
We formed The Colony to work within this new production model. I saw a gap between conventional broadcast directors working in the TVC realm who are used to working on large productions and digital directors trying make things work on much smaller budgets. The broadcast director has been trained to work within the larger scale of commercials and has experience dealing with senior clients and agency. This can be quite different to most digital directors, who've probably had to do everything themselves and work with small crews and budgets of $100,000 and under.
There is no question that working with an integrated production company has serious benefits. The director works jointly with the interactive team from the start, devising the concept and inventing. Ideas come from the entire team from the beginning. Neither the director nor the interactive team is trying to work around someone else's idea. Instead, the director and creative director work on a concept with the agency and develop the final outcome from a series of 'what if' scenarios. The tech guys can figure out what is possible and the directing team can figure out how to use those ideas –and everything is shared with the agency.
Things to Keep in Mind When Shooting
There are some technical 'dos and don'ts' when lensing a multi-platform campaign, particularly in the areas of shooting, editing, framing and casting. With multi platform production there is no 'one size fits all' model. The way a director shoots for interactive is often very different from how he or she shoots for broadcast. The integrated director needs to have the skills to create consistency across platforms even though many elements are challenging that.
For example, it is very common in interactive, augmented reality projects to allow the participant to look around the world they are in. To achieve this, images are shot at a very high resolution on wider lenses, so that the online application can zoom in the image and allow the viewer to frame the image themselves.
This is very different to a traditional film approach where the director's job is to "direct" the audience's attention, using the camera. A whole set of the director's regular tools are missing in the interactive world, and she or he must figure out how to create engaging films using an entirely new set of tools.
Digital Versus Broadcast
A common question I hear: Is there really any difference between directing high quality interactive and broadcast TV campaigns? Yes and no. Each medium requires a creative and emotionally appropriate response to a creative problem. So the requirement for both is a great filmmaker, but not all filmmakers are interested in interactive, and some find it frightening. For starters, filmmakers are interested in being storytellers. By definition, directors like to direct the story – they like to control how the audience views a story by presenting their clear perspective.
Interactive, at face value is the opposite. It takes control away from a control freak personality! But the medium also offers filmmakers a much more exciting palette to work with to tell stories that are even more complex and immersive. It's harder to direct the perspective, but not impossible. Directors working in interactive know that the new toolset is pretty exciting.
Some Common Integrated Production Problems
I believe there are some recurring and common potential problems an agency producer must address before embarking on an integrated production. First, ask 'who is your partner in this production?' With broadcast, it's okay to hire a director to deliver great pictures, because you know that if you cover the board, an editor will be able to work with the agency to finish the spot. With an integrated production, the agency producer needs a partner who can lead them through a long and complicated process involving many components, formats and usages.
If the film director doesn't fully understand how the material is being used, the process could become not only difficult, but very limited. The interactive side of things is only as good as the elements sourced for the project. Some great projects have been done when traditional directors and digital companies have worked together, but they have generally been great when the director has been involved in the development of the whole integrated production, not just hired to shoot the film.
If an integrated production is complex, the reliance on an integrated production company becomes more dramatically relevant. As soon as interactive, film and web film aspects need to be coordinated – which is more and more often the case – then having one partner becomes essential.
Integrated production is just like regular production only much more complex, with many more details to follow. You wouldn't embark on a large broadcast production and tell the production company that they should provide the director and handle the casting, but that you're going to hire a specialist production company to find the locations and put together the art department. That sort of double-handling would not only cost extra, because two production companies are involved, but it would also lead to a chaotic shoot, because parties that are not structured to work together as an integrated unit are forced to collaborate.
It's no different in an integrated production. A company like B-Reel has had to work hard to build an efficient structure to marry all the elements of production, design and development. This is particularly relevant because of the "live" aspect of integrated. Many web-based experiences that we've worked on fall into the category of "live theatre." As well as shooting the commercial, the director needs to remain involved to keep all aspects of the video of the live experience as visually interesting as the broadcast or online spots.
B-Reel and affiliated collectives like The Colony have built their whole businesses on this integrated production model. We're aware that integrated productions have a much longer timeline than conventional ones. A producer must make sure that any partner they choose for an integrated project is going to be keenly involved through the very long process.
About David Gaddie and The Colony
David Gaddie's work for clients as diverse as Mitsubishi, Heineken, Toyota Sony and The Daily Mail Group has been recognized at almost every major festival, including Cannes, the One Show and Clio. The Colony works out of offices in New York, Sydney and Shanghai, and has created spots for Sony, HBO, Vietnam Airlines, Hangar One Vodka and many other clients.
Published 21 November, 2011
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