1) I’ve seen a few interesting polarized trends, that are either colliding or assimilating, depending how you look at it.
Firstly, we are experiencing at times understandable production commoditization, from both a production discipline standpoint as well as the finished construct itself, at a time when distinguished craft and production skills— whether through creative, production or direction— couldn’t be more important. Creating distinguished work requires distinguished methods. And I’ll fall for just about any Federer YouTube/FB video, but I’m a stalker, not a robot.
Additionally, I think it’s important to bear more of a video mentality in the creation of our content. I see the industry at-large continue to start from a premium (bigger-budget) context and, with blazing attrition, work down. There’s a better path, as we evolve from “execution perfection” toward “execution occasion.” Big idea, big execution will always wow and motivate, but engagement works in steady streams, and we need to stock the stream. With an up-front video mindset, we’ve been working hard to carry off that work reasonably and effectively.
2) In production, we’ve been exploring baking-in more strategic thinking into production. As we move so much more quickly now— whether its tv compressed in to a few weeks schedule, or video in a matter of days— producers need to readily understand intuitively or through institutional knowledge (open floor seating, baby) the more strategic mechanics of the creative, the media or social purpose of the work.
