Perhaps the best way to assess the contributions of an agency producer is not to talk to the producer at all but instead gain the insights of the creatives he or she works with on jobs ranging from traditional broadcast spots to new forms of content. On the latter front, consider Farmer’s Daughter, a short film from Saatchi & Saatchi LA, Torrance, Calif., for client Toyota Tundra’s sponsorship of country music duo Brooks & Dunn’s international tour, which just kicked off. Directed by Peter Darley Miller of bicoastal/international @radical.media, the short is being screened for packed audiences at concert venues just prior to Ronnie Dunn and Kix Brooks taking the stage.
The film shows Dunn traveling cross country in his Tundra truck, presumably to make a concert date and venue. He grows weary from driving all day and stops at a farmhouse and asks its resident, an older man who recognizes him, for a place to bed down for the night. The farmer obliges, with the stipulation that Dunn stay away from his gorgeous daughter of whom we get an eyeful. Cut to the wee hours of the morning, the sound of a faucet dripping and then the still of the night broken with a gunshot blast. Clearly Dunn didn’t live up to his end of the bargain and is next seen bolting out of the farmhouse to his Tundra. The farmer fires off a couple of more shots yet Dunn makes good his escape. We see him hootin’ and hollerin’ in triumph, assuming he’s glad that he saved his skin. But the victorious laughter is for another reason as Dunn peels off his facial mask, revealing that he is Nix Brooks and the celebration is for getting his partner into hot water.
The core Saatchi creative team of art director Mike Czako and copywriter Bob Fremgen noted that in order to bring this project to fruition the way they had envisioned, they too got their partner, Saatchi senior producer Jamil Bardowell, into hot water. “We called on Jamil to do a lot,” related Czako. “We had a limited budget to begin with, needed to have feature filmmaking talent to make it play the way it should, and had the logistics of dealing with Brooks & Dunn who are a brand unto themselves. Jamil had to go through their tour managers, their immediate management to get through to them, to sell them the recommended concept and keep them all in the loop every step of the way.”
Fremgen noted it’s all part of the expanded role of an agency producer in today’s marketplace of new and different forms of content. “The idea of this was to create a mini-feature, meaning that this short had to have major movie caliber talent across the board and we relied heavily on Jamil for this as well. So he’s not only coordinating with Brooks and Dunn’s people, working under the constraints of a tight budget but also having to come up with world-class talent. Jamil delivered everything we needed. We wanted the creative talent that did the masks for the Mission Impossible films–he got us just that with Proteus FX. We wanted a feature DP so Jamil got us John Toll, a two-time Oscar winning cinematographer [Braveheart and Legends of the Fall].
Czako and Fremgen gravitated toward director Miller in that they had worked with him successfully before on Lexus back when they were creatives at Team One Advertising, El Segundo, Calif. “Peter had the right sensibilities for this project–he knows how to tell a story and he’s savvy to working with celebrities,” said Fremgen.
Saatchi’s comfort level also extended to @radical.media. “They have been a great partner to us in longer form content,” related Fremgen, citing such projects as Saatchi’s Toyota on-air documentary debut in January 2007 on the Speed Channel with Two Roads To Baja directed by @radical’s Jeff Zwart.
“Jamil built upon that comfort level, bringing great feature filmmaking talent on board,” said Fremgen. “He basically dealt with all the logistics that made this job possible. Let’s face it–as different forms of content evolve, nobody knows what the proper budget is for some of these new projects. All we knew was that our budget was challenged and Jamil was up to the challenge, enabling us to attain the level of entertainment value, mini-movie production we needed to make this film work for a concert audience.”
Guy Seese
Recently named executive creative director at Grey San Francisco, Guy Seese–this week’s SHOOT Chat Room interview–said simply that agency producers “are having as hard a time today as anybody with shrinking budgets, their time becoming even more fractured with broadcast, online and varied forms of content. It can be pretty brutal. At the same time, this makes producers more invaluable than ever as creative collaborators.”
As for what he values most from these collaborators, Seese observed, “A positive attitude and the expertise to say yes to making an idea happen while telling me what I might have to give up in order to make that yes a reality. Producers, whether freelance or on staff at an agency, have to be more nimble than ever.”
Grey San Francisco’s creative director affirmed, “Collaboration is crucial and you can be most successful if your collaborators and you share a basic commonality–the desire to do something great. And with that attitude, you can do just that–even in the face of shrinking budgets and less time.”
Blue Sky
Furthermore, music has become an increasingly challenging aspect for agency producers–both those who specialize in music and those who don’t have the luxury of having a resident agency music producer on staff. In last month’s Music & Sound Series (4/25), SHOOT reported on Clorox’s and DDB San Francisco’s recent release of The Blue Sky Project, a compilation CD of music tracks from select Clorox commercials. This CD sprung forth in response to consumer demand for the music, underscoring the producer’s expanded role on this front.
Three years ago, DDB San Francisco rolled out a new brand campaign for Clorox. The goal was not just to change the look, feel, tone and brand character for Clorox but to also develop something distinctly different in a packaged goods product category that is hardly known for stellar, engaging creative.
“It wasn’t just about great ideas, nor was it just about getting the best directors and photographers. We made an effort to break new ground in every aspect, with a particular emphasis on music because of its ability to emotionally connect with people,” related Lisa Bennett, chief creative officer/managing partner, DDB San Francisco.
Frank Brooks, DDB San Francisco’s director of production, observed that “music in commercials is now less about jingles and more about depth and storytelling.”
Bennett said that Brooks played a key role in ensuring the high quality of the music. Accordingly she entrusted him and DDB San Francisco associate creative director Jim Bosiljevac with sifting through all the Clorox music in recent years to determine which of those tracks would make the most sense for a CD compilation. It also had to be decided which tracks could be extended and still maintain their entertainment value in that the original ad music wasn’t created with the intent of longer play on a CD.
Bennett noted that across the board–with all the different elements, from visuals to music, for conventional spotmaking and new forms of content altogether–agency producers have become increasingly important in terms of helping to create meaningful brand equity for clients.
