It was always a panic at the end of the day, cutting together 16mm sample reels before the FedEx guy came at 4 p.m. If we missed that deadline, someone would have to drive to the airport by 9 p.m. to get the package on the red-eye to New York for next day delivery. I’m sure in the panic a few spots got cut in upside down and backwards. Not only were the reels expensive, they were perishable. If you ran out of 16mm prints you ordered at the end of each shoot, you were finished! Meanwhile, as I was upstairs with splicer and hot glue, someone was downstairs typing a clean copy of the bid from my eraser-smeared working copy of the newly introduced AICP bid form.
This ritual was rooted in a process that went something like this–our rep, who was exclusive to our company, would send a board and try and sell me to sell the director to do the job, saying it would be good to get into a particular agency. The rep would say something like, “I know the board isn’t very good but it is a start.” If the reps sold the agency as hard as they sold the director and myself, the boards would never stop.
Then let’s say the director agrees to engage, I call the agency producer and the process begins. The producer and I discuss the merits of the board, where and how to shoot, technical stuff like cranes, helicopters, underwater. The director has told me how he would execute the project. A call between director and agency never comes up. Occasionally if it did, the director would say, “You expect me to get on the phone and give all of my creative input and then lose the job to someone else and see my ideas on TV in a month? No way!”
Let me qualify that I’m not advocating this procedure from yesteryear, just telling it like it was and that it was perfectly acceptable to agencies back then.
Continuing our breakdown of the process in the past, details of the shoot including but certainly not limited to money would be entirely up to the EP from the production company and the agency producer. The job got booked, the EP handed the package to the director, gave him the ground rules and away we went.
Keep in mind, in these days there was ample work, a lot fewer directors and agency/production company and agency/client relations were like partnerships, everyone working together for the common good. Very little skepticism existed.
THE TIDE TURNS
One day a board came in that the director REALLY wanted to do. He decided to get a leg up and call the agency directly to discuss. That was the start of a changing tide!!
Next a board came in that another director REALLY wanted to do, having heard another director called the agency. So not to be outdone, the director decided to make a video of himself and send it to the agency in an attempt to have them fall in love with him and award him the job. Now it really gets out of hand!
The next director decides to shoot a scene or two on spec to “wow” the agency. This escalated to the point where a director would sometimes shoot and finish an entire spot, hoping the agency would buy it. Thank God, that last practice seems to be drawing to a close. But now, everyone knows where it has settled in. First an agreement between agency and director to engage in the project; this happens after many calls and emails between sales rep, EP and agency producer. Also multiple Wiredrives are exchanged; obviously Wiredrive has replaced 16mm reels, much more efficient but far less romantic and eliminates an entire film department at the agency and production house.
The commitment to engage is made by all parties and the fun begins. An initial call involving the director, EP, and bidder from the production house side and an agency crew, CD, art director, writer, and producer, maybe a business manager. This call is just to get acquainted and for the agency to explain what is between the lines of the script. The director absorbs this information and goes away to think about it. A couple of days later the same folks gather for another call–this time it’s the director call where he gives his interpretation of what’s between the lines, some common ground is met and the director is sent off to create his vision of the project, taking into account the original script and storyboard, and the multiple conversations that have been had.
Immediately the production company engages a writer and visualist guided by the director’s input. In a brief period of time, a presentation is created that rivals any art book at Barnes and Noble. The production company transfers the work to some sort of digital delivery system and it is sent to the agency.
The EP and agency producer discuss the project, the original boards and scripts, the director’s treatment, and finances. It is then determined that the original board was approved by legal and the client, and changes would have to go back to the client and the legal department and there is no time for that. The proposed changes in the script are brilliant but really not on message nor were they approved by legal or the client.
The agency producer then informs the production company EP that the project will have to be shot as boarded within the parameters they originally discussed but thanks so much for your efforts. I guess in that respect things really haven’t changed all that much, except of course for the 16mm sample reels.
