The producers at Fallon Minneapolis, were so busy this year that they hardly got to catch their breath between jobs. But no one’s complaining. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to convince anyone in the production department that there are greener pastures elsewhere. In the last year alone, the staffers—who generally aren’t assigned to specific brands but rotate from job to job—have produced everything from commercials for clients such as United Airlines, Citibank, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Timex and Lee Jeans to Web-based short films for BMW directed by the likes of Ang Lee and Guy Ritchie.
And it seems as if just about everything that Fallon’s production staff touched this year turned to gold. What is the secret to the firm’s success? "The difference here—and I think it’s been the secret to our success the last couple of years production-wise—is that the production department is involved in everything right from the beginning," explains Mark Sitley, Fallon’s head of production for both the Minneapolis and New York offices of the agency. "The production department here is the engine of, and is truly part of, the creative department."
As Sitley notes, it isn’t uncommon at many agencies for a job to be thrown into a producer’s lap after it has gone through the creative assembly line. However, that doesn’t happen at Fallon, he maintains. Early involvement in the process allows Fallon’s producers to stay up to speed from the start and gives them the time and knowledge needed to select everything from the appropriate director to the best visual effects house for a job. "The creative department recognizes that it’s always good to get opinions from the broadcast department or from a producer who may be working on that project early on," concurs senior producer Brian DiLorenzo, who has worked on campaigns for such Fallon clients as PBS, Lee Jeans and Citibank. "Especially in these times where it seems things happen so quickly."
Meanwhile, the fact that so many jobs include some sort of visual effects also raises issues. "Oftentimes, as a producer, you’ll see an idea," relates DiLorenzo, "and it’s like, ‘Where are the land mines?’ "
When they’re involved early on, producers are more than capable of helping the creatives avoid those landmines, he continues. He was able to do just that when creatives consulted him about a PBS spot. Titled "Big Bird," the spot has the popular character from Sesame Street appearing in a variety of contemporary and historical settings. DiLorenzo was able to help the creatives—copywriter Michael Hart and art director Chris Lange—figure out how best to tackle the situations. (For example, would it be better to go the blue screen route?) After helping map out a proper strategy, DiLorenzo found the right director for the assignment: Mike Mills of The Directors Bureau, Hollywood.
Of course, choosing directors is among the producer’s most crucial responsibilities. After all, the director is the person who will ultimately be responsible for bringing the agency’s creative vision to life. Fallon is known for working with A-list helmers such as Errol Morris of bicoastal/international @radical.media, Traktor of bicoastal/international Partizan and John O’Hagan of bicoastal/international hungry man, as well as with up-and-comers. "What do we really look for? In most agencies, producers look for directors who have done the idea before or worked in that genre before," Sitley asserts. "If I can dare say this without sounding presumptuous, to us it’s not a matter of whether they’re A-players or flavors of the month. We look for people who have really good conceptual brains."
Likening the process to casting, Sitley says that he and his staff like to go against type. Senior producer Rob van de Weteringe Buys, whose credits include ads for such clients as United Airlines, Lee Jeans, Citibank and Holiday Inn, notes that there was a time when it was tough to sell Traktor—the directing team represented by Partizan—on anything but fraternity-style humor. "But we saw other things in their reel," van de Weteringe Buys recalls. Ultimately, Traktor was called on by Fallon to helm a campaign for Nordstromshoes.com, and later did spots for Lee Jeans.
"One of our goals is not to see [the concept] on the reel, but to feel [the concept] in the reel," explains DiLorenzo. "That’s a fun way to go. In the best sense, you’ve found somebody that shows wonderful potential and, hopefully, is a little off type."
It’s also important to find a director who will gel with the creative team, and that takes some investigative work. "We are trying to make sure there is a compatible sensibility amongst all of the personalities, which means talking to people who have worked with directors and knowing your creative team’s personalities and what their little quirks could be," van de Weteringe Buys relates.
Like his colleagues, DiLorenzo takes great joy in introducing his agency’s creatives to fresh talent. Case in point: He introduced Fallon to Laurence Dunmore, who recently wrapped another BMW spot, called "Focus," for the agency. (He previously directed the BMW ads "Spring Skiing" and "Woods.") DiLorenzo had never heard of Dunmore before reading about him in a European trade magazine. Intrigued, the producer called for the London-based director’s reel—he’s represented by RSA London and in the U.S. by bicoastal RSA USA—and wound up asking him to work on BMW.
"We take our biggest pride in discovering people and cultivating new directors," notes Sitley. "This goes all the way back to Tarsem of @radical.media doing his first spots here."
The agency—which Sitley describes as familial in nature—has established close ties with several directors. The aforementioned Morris, who has worked on spots for United Airlines and Citibank among others, and O’Hagan, who has helmed three EDS spots, including "Cat Herders," over the last couple of years, are among those who have done quite a bit of repeat business with Fallon.
These are two directors who get what Fallon is about, according to Sitley. And that is: serving the client’s needs. "We want whatever we do to be ultimately appropriate to that brand," Sitley says, "and we want all the people that are engaged on it to have bought into what the mission’s going to be."
Directors who are out simply to create eye candy for their reels won’t get work out of Fallon. "I’m the most anti-production production head you could ever find," stresses Sitley. "Production should not be noticed. It should get out of the way of what the idea is."
Sitley also credits Morris and O’Hagan with doing their homework and being team players. While the agency had worked with Morris extensively, senior producer Robyn Boardman hadn’t collaborated with the director until recently, when he helmed a campaign for United Airlines in which employees discussed their jobs in the wake of the tragic events of Sept. 11, and to reassure passengers that air travel is safe. (See separate story, p. 32.)
Morris made time to do the spots even though he was in the middle of prepping another job, according to Boardman. "He felt that the campaign was important to do, and he was extremely enthusiastic," she recalls.
It is rare that a person uses the word "honored" to describe how he or she feels about working on a commercial, but Boardman states that she is honored to have worked on the post-Sept. 11 United Airlines package with Morris.
And she recently wrapped up the job of a lifetime: Boardman was in charge of producing the five Web-based BMW short films. Grouped under the banner The Hire, the series, which was available only on the luxury carmaker’s Web site, featured five shorts helmed by such noted feature directors as Guy Ritchie and Wong Kar-Wai, and produced through bicoastal Anonymous Content. (See separate story, p. 30.) "I hope that BMW is going to continue [with the short films]," says Boardman. "I think they will at some point. It’s a matter of when."
Certainly, The Hire posed new challenges for Boardman, who was lured to the agency by the prospect of producing the groundbreaking project. "It was a great learning experience for me because I had never produced anything, especially for the Internet," she relates. "There are things that you need to take into account—particularly compression—and it’s not an exact science."
The BMW job gave Boardman new skills that she may use in the future—depending, of course, on whether advertisers remain interested in promoting their products on the Internet.
Sitley believes they will. In fact, he thinks advertisers will continue to look to the Internet, as well as to other media, and that will affect his production department. "Production is moving into a more all-media, technology-driven play here," he theorizes. "In all the hype of the last couple of years, it’s all been about technology, but not appropriate usage of technology—which is what I think Fallon is really going to make great strides in and excel at."
So exactly where is advertising going? "I think it’s more about ideas and more about entertainment and more about brands in the context of the culture than it is about full-service advertising plans," explains Sitley. "To that end, I think that producers more than likely within half a year will be working in programming, in development of shows—beyond BMW—sort of Internet or viral campaigns. I think we’re moving more into realizing we can better utilize our assets at hand in a far, far, far broader scope than they’ve ever been used just given the conventions of the advertising world. [Therefore] the producers here are being asked to gain expertise and to be very prolific in regard to all media."
