The scene is familiar to anyone who has ever worked in an ad agency. Two men and a woman are sitting around a table in a sleek office, talking into a speakerphone. "Hi Jim," says the woman. "On this side, we have Mike, the senior creative director"—she indicates a balding man with sunglasses—"and Paul, the senior art director"—she looks toward a nervously shifting man in glasses—"and I’m Pam, the producer." Mike adds that they’re happy to be coming down to Florida to shoot the commercial, and wants to give an overview to Jim, who’s apparently the director. Jim says he is eager to help.
Then comes the twist: The scene shifts to Jim at the other end of the line, and it turns out that he’s actually the pilot who’s flying the agency creatives to Florida.
"We’re looking for a break from the past," says Mike. "How do you see the flight?"
"Well, I see the flight as smooth, but at the same time exciting," replies Jim, who’s at an airport and talking to the creatives on his cell phone.
"I don’t want to lose the calm side of flying," Mike warns.
"Yes, absolutely," responds Jim. "Exciting doesn’t necessarily mean stressful. We’re looking for a sensation between exhilaration and serenity."
The sequence is from Conference Call, and it is one of a trio of unusual, three-minute-long Internet films all directed by Massimo Martinotti of Mia Films and Mia Next, both headquartered in Miami. The package also includes Back to One, which features the creative director asking a cab driver to do several "takes" of turning a corner, and Revisions, which shows the creative director complaining about his burger to a waiter. Apparently, this ad team deals with everyone the same way they’d deal with a director.
The project, called "Outside the Box" (a.k.a. "Florida Shorts"), is a joint production between the Miami-Dade County Mayor’s Office of Film & Entertainment; the Florida chapter of the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP), of which Martinotti is president; the Greater Miami Convention and Visitor’s Bureau (GMCVB); Film Florida; and Mia. The producers of the Internet package hope that the short films will entice agencies and directors to the Sunshine State by highlighting the crew, facilities, talent and locations of Florida.
The trio of Internet movies present, in Martinotti’s words, "the adventures of an egocentric creative director, a panicked producer, an insecure art director and a hypocrite director. Our objective is to produce entertaining content that our clients will want to watch," he relates.
Taking its inspiration from "The Hire," the Internet-based shorts for BMW created by Fallon, Minneapolis, "Florida Shorts" uses the longer format to poke fun at the production process. Martinotti, who came up with the concepts and directed, produced the project through Mia Next, a new division of Mia that launched earlier this year for the sole purpose of producing branded content.
"We started thinking about the possibility of doing something different in order to reach our target, which is basically advertising agencies and production companies in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Asia, and Latin America," explains Martinotti. "Our target is composed of people who spend most of their working day online. We thought that perhaps humor would be a good way of doing it. We wanted to present normal situations and take them to different directions. Instead of the agency and the director, it’s a conference call between the agency and the pilot."
Martinotti is very keen on branded content pieces like this one, which is what led him to launch Mia Next. He notes that Mia Next is currently working on two other branded content projects: a Web-based game and a feature-length film. "We definitely think that there is a growing market for [branded content] films," he says. "We’ve been talking about it for the last two or three years. Branded content will be a big part of our business in the next year. We believe that for specific projects, specific products, and specific targets, branded content is the way to go. It’s a good way of displaying the brand values."
Greater Reach
After devising the concept, Martinotti talked with Jeff Peel, director of the Miami-Dade County Mayor’s Office of Film & Entertainment, who was enthusiastic about the idea because the film commission was looking for more ways to stretch its increasingly tight dollars. "We’re looking for the best bang for the buck that we can get," Peel says.
"We thought this was another way to get that message out," he adds. "In our estimation, it was an avenue we had not explored before. We do a lot of traditional things—we go to trade shows, we do some advertising and we do a lot of direct mail and things like that. Some of those methods, particularly the trade shows, have diminished in their effectiveness over the last few years, so we were looking for new ways to get that message out. We will not abandon trade shows in favor of doing little Internet movies, but I think the Internet movies are a nice complement to the other strategies we have going on."
Through the auspices of Film Florida, a trade association comprising several film commissions in the state, and through general word of mouth, Martinotti and Peel lined up local crew, talent, technical resources and postproduction facilities, all of whom donated their efforts to the project. According to Peel, his office and the GMCVB split a $10,000 grant to pay for some of the expenses.
"When you can do this kind of production for ten thousand dollars, that’s the cost of a couple of ads in trade magazines or probably one venture out to a trade show," he points out. "I think it’s a pretty good bargain. The local production community was unbelievable—they came through and donated equipment and time. [The project] had the full support of the IATSE locals, the camera locals and the Screen Actors Guild. We got waivers from all those locals and paid them minimum wage. It was really a team effort. At the end of the day, for our ten thousand dollars, we got about a half-million dollars of product."
Shot entirely in Miami-Dade County over three days, the locations, all in Miami, included Brickell Avenue, the Biltmore Hotel, Nikki Studios, South Beach, and the Rickenbacker Causeway. Mia Next subsequently developed the Web site (www.floridashorts.com), where viewers can log on to view the shorts, which premiered on Oct. 31. In the weeks since, the response has been phenomenal, according to Martinotti. "We had more than three-thousand visits in the first four days from fifty-two countries," he says.
Next Wave
The plan is to produce three more films in February for debut in April. Martinotti, who may or may not direct, admits that he helmed the first three out of convenience. "We are interested in having people from other parts of the state—perhaps Orlando or Jacksonville or Key West—work on the next three," he says. "We are also trying to involve the agency community here. They have expressed some interest in helping us, perhaps supplying scripts."
"Our hope is that people around the state will be really excited about this and want to jump on board," adds Peel. "I don’t even think that ten thousand dollars is necessary to finish one of these things. The three we did had big production values. They don’t have to be done that elaborately. The acting and the scripts are the key, and I do think that humor is a way to get people interested. They can be shot on video, they can be done with one actor on a stage—as long as the script and the acting is good."
Peel sees the shorts as the first step in a larger plan. "It clearly has to be part of a bigger strategy. It’s an interesting and unique component to the marketing mix that we already have," he notes. "The Internet is becoming increasingly important … to get these kinds of messages out. Just in the first week, we’ve seen some fairly impressive numbers without having done a whole lot of promotion of this thing. It’s incredible.
"Any time you try and do something new, it’s a little challenging. I give Massimo a great deal of credit for pushing this idea through," continues Peel. "Hopefully, people will click on the Web site and get more interested in shooting in Florida. The ultimate test of how successful this is will be when someone actually decides to come down here and spend some money. I’m very encouraged by the number of people tuning in and hearing the word ‘Florida.’ That’s what it’s about. Tune in, have a little laugh, and associate Florida with the idea of production."
