Editor’s Note: Continuing our Future Speak coverage which started last week, additional industry artisans from the ad agency, post and visual effects sectors chime in on what they envision for 2007. Here’s their feedback:
Nathan Hunt, VP/group creative director, Deutsch NY
2007 will be the year when agencies and clients finally have to face up to the sticky issue of production values. Forced between paying a premium for content that will look good on today’s more advanced televisions and getting a bargain for content that will look good-enough on YouTube, many will make the wrong choice. After a series of high-profile brands run embarrassing, high-profile ads that look like they were created by a precocious six year old with an iMac and a video camera, everyone will resolve to pay more for quality.
In other news, a precocious six year old with an iMac and a video camera will win the Grand Prix at Cannes.
Todd Riddle, group creative director, Fallon Minneapolis
I think the biggest challenge we’re facing in 2007 is actually a continuation of the main challenge we faced in 2006. And that is finding ways to reach consumers in a dramatically shifting world. It sounds like a cliché, but the reality is that technology is changing our industry in unprecedented ways. Every day, more and more consumers can, at any time, seek out a brand’s message, edit it, filter it, compare it, share it, write about it to a global audience, expand on it, or dismiss it–in real time.
In 2007, if what you’re saying has no value to the consumer–if it isn’t relevant, interesting or entertaining–it will be dismissed even faster and more often than it would have been in 2006. The upside? If it is any of those things, technology can help multiply its effectiveness almost limitlessly. |
Andy Mendelsohn, VP/executive creative director, Erwin-Penland, Greenville, S.C.
In 2007, I expect commercials to get smaller and more intimate. With about a billion new advertising venues cropping up, audiences are getting more and more narrow. Instead of developing one blockbuster, high-budget spot, we’ll increasingly be developing several–perhaps a dozen or so– more personal spots that truly ingratiate us with smaller, more specific audiences.
The advent of venues like YouTube has lessened our expectation for glossy, million dollar productions. We’re okay looking at spots that don’t reek of Pytka, as long as they entertain.
And that’s the other part of my prediction for 2007: Advertising will, hear my prayers, become increasingly like that in Europe–entertaining and more intelligent. I think the lazy, “let’s let the consumer develop the advertising” trend that began in 2006 will die soon, as it should.
But what it proves is the hunger consumers have for funny, relevant, moving ideas that entertain. The decline of the hard sell will accelerate while subtlety, wit, and outright funny stuff takes its place. Hallelujah.
Siggy Ferstl, colorist, Riot, Santa Monica
In 2006 I started to see an in flood of commercials made for the Internet and other mediums such as cell phones, etc. Because this media is now becoming more common and accessible to the consumer, it only follows that we in postproduction and commercial finishing will create a workflow for these distribution streams. More and more commercials will be designed and made purely for the Internet/cell phone in 2007.
At Riot I have been very busy fine-tuning new commercial finishing workflow. With the introduction of our new non-linear software based color corrector, it allows us to offer alternatives to the traditional telecine suite. The workflow developed for feature films will start to creep into the commercial world creating the commercial DI. Riot’s Resolve commercial DI suite is well suited to deal with Internet commercials and offers many new color features taking it from just a color corrector to more of a cool color design tool.
Just recently I completed two exciting new advertising spots. First were some short films made just for cell phones and a commercial made just for the Internet. The cool thing about the commercial was its workflow. Shot on a high definition camera recording the images as data straight onto a memory card, this data was used for offline and then delivered to Riot on drives. Using our new Resolve commercial DI suite I was able to color correct the data and move it to the VFX suite over our network. This particular commercial was not only shot and finished as high definition data, it went straight to the Internet, never touching videotape or going to television. I’m not suggesting all jobs will be made this way but it’s certainly a look into the future.
Loni Peristere, creative director, Zoic Studios, Los Angeles
Towards the end of 2006 we noticed a significant increase in agency concepts with a significant if not entirely digital approach at the concept phase for broadcast, print, and interactive. Placing more “production” in the hands of companies like Zoic, Digital Domain, and Method than ever before. I see this trend continuing to grow in 2007 as digital environments, assets, and design offer an extraordinary amount of flexibility in production. As our ability to generate iterations more rapidly increases we are able to try different things more rapidly giving the creatives an enormous amount of flexibility. In addition, working digitally, allows the assets, environments, and designs to work in multiple areas which softens costs overall.
Another huge growth area will come from large scale interactive web based experiences which allow the user some participation in the product they might buy, whether they are configuring a car or adding a custom pocket to a pair of jeans.
Perhaps most importantly, the use of digital and filmed material on multiple platforms will become standard. Therefore companies like ours who can bridge the technology gap for other creative partners will play a larger management role in bringing projects together.
These concepts are part of Zoic’s big picture, followed only by it’s most important picture, which should remain unique, creative, and fun.
John Myers, executive producer/partner, Ring of Fire, West Hollywood, Calif.
2007 Predictions:
HiDef deliveries will outnumber StandardDef deliveries.
Everyone has a PDA and Attention Deficit Disorder cases (industry wide) will reach an all time high.
Viable companies continue to evolve, time and budgets will continue to shrink as we all do more with less.
Internet deliverable requirements continue to grow at a rapid rate, rivaling broadcast.
An 11-year-old visual effects company based in West Hollywood will finally succumb to peer pressure and move to the ultra groovy Westside–inside sources say by Mid-February.
Martin Scorsese On “The Saints,” Faith In Filmmaking and His Next Movie
When Martin Scorsese was a child growing up in New York's Little Italy, he would gaze up at the figures he saw around St. Patrick's Old Cathedral. "Who are these people? What is a saint?" Scorsese recalls. "The minute I walk out the door of the cathedral and I don't see any saints. I saw people trying to behave well within a world that was very primal and oppressed by organized crime. As a child, you wonder about the saints: Are they human?" For decades, Scorsese has pondered a project dedicated to the saints. Now, he's finally realized it in "Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints," an eight-part docudrama series debuting Sunday on Fox Nation, the streaming service from Fox News Media. The one-hour episodes, written by Kent Jones and directed by Elizabeth Chomko, each chronicle a saint: Joan of Arc, Francis of Assisi, John the Baptist, Thomas Becket, Mary Magdalene, Moses the Black, Sebastian and Maximillian Kolbe. Joan of Arc kicks off the series on Sunday, with three weekly installments to follow; the last four will stream closer to Easter next year. In naturalistic reenactments followed by brief Scorsese-led discussions with experts, "The Saints" emphasizes that, yes, the saints were very human. They were flawed, imperfect people, which, to Scorsese, only heightens their great sacrifices and gestures of compassion. The Polish priest Kolbe, for example, helped spread antisemitism before, during WWII, sheltering Jews and, ultimately, volunteering to die in the place of a man who had been condemned at Auschwitz. Scorsese, who turns 82 on Sunday, recently met for an interview not long after returning from a trip to his grandfather's hometown in Sicily. He was made an honorary citizen and the experience was still lingering in his mind. Remarks have... Read More