What’s the impact of the pandemic on you, your company, your approach to doing business in the future? What practices emerged that you will continue even as restrictions are loosening?
We’ve always placed a strong emphasis on communication and organization as well as internal and external team building; however, like everyone, COVID has had a significant impact, and being fully remote has led us to evolve and advance our process. Production itself will always be as much an art as a science, and its success requires a balance of trust, confidence and support alongside experience, knowledge and ambition. Ensuring we maintain clear and accessible communication inspires connectivity, and keeping consistent and organized processes gives us greater flexibility to pursue creative production solutions. Equally important, we’re focused on scaling our processes to ensure we continue to advocate and implement diversity, inclusion and sustainability within the industry.
What’s the biggest takeaway or lessons learned from work (please identify the project) you were involved in that was or is in the running for current awards season consideration (i.e., Emmys, Cannes Lions, etc.)?
Several of our projects have been recognized this year, including work for The New York Times, Facebook, Huggies and Paramount+. Core to our success, but also true across all our work, has been an overall emphasis on collaboration and flexibility. By interrogating our production approaches and digging deep into each production strategy prior to award, we’re able to adapt and evolve to any circumstance and environment without losing any creative ambition or production momentum.
While gazing into the crystal ball is a tricky proposition, we nonetheless ask you for any forecast you have relative to content creation and/or the creative and/or business climate for the second half of 2021 and beyond.
While difficult to forecast forward, requests to concept and produce new content have increased dramatically. And as the workload across the industry continues to increase, a growing emphasis within clients, agencies and the production community now includes a louder voice asking for details behind the “how” and “why” projects are made. Diversity, inclusion and sustainability will continue to be discussed across all productions, and audiences will expect authenticity and accountability as much as they do captivating and engaging storytelling.
What trends, developments or issues would you point to thus far in 2021 as being most significant, perhaps carrying implications for the rest of the year and beyond?
As creative strategies have evolved, clients and agencies have grown more comfortable adapting their budgets, timelines and overall production approaches. Audiences have an insatiable hunger and, especially due to the proliferation of devices, are now consuming content at rates we haven’t seen before. Keeping up with the demand requires discipline and ingenuity, and both aspects carry opportunities to increase diversity and inclusion as well as manage sustainable productions. Producing work in times of COVID has given everyone greater insight into production management, and it’s our responsibility to keep the momentum and hold each other accountable.
