Maui is the stuff dreams are made of—or at least where "Dreams" are screened. The 2004 series of Sony "Dreams" short films was shown at Young & Rubicam (Y&R)’s worldwide creative conference in Maui, Hawaii, last month. This was the first such Y&R creative confab in many years. It was also the first held under the regime of chairman/ CEO/worldwide creative director Michael Patti.
"It wasn’t about beating each other up about work," related Ken Yagoda, managing partner/ director of broadcast production and creative resources, Y&R, New York. "It was about developing a sense of community and looking at creativity in a nontraditional way. Bringing together creative directors from around the world—from Thailand to Mexico to Canada to Dubai—was a fantastic experience."
Yagoda, who’s served as Y&R’s point person on all three years of "Dreams," also brought his own speaker to the confab: director Jonathan Darby of bicoastal Original Film. Darby helmed The Angel of Chilside Road, a "Dreams" short based on a short story by David Almond from the book Counting Stars.
The story lent itself to the ’04 "Dreams" theme of "Magic," but that doesn’t mean that it was easy to reflect in the context of a short film. The story is based on a real event—the death of Almond’s sister when he was seven years old. "He put the story in a drawer for five years and didn’t dare show it to anyone because it was so personal and raw," related Darby.
"I felt a strong responsibility to this story and its personal real dimension," continued the director. "Visually you try to somehow render the poetry in his writing. Hi-def is not film. It’s not video. It has its own aesthetic, which I found perfect for this slightly supernatural notion of a boy who has a dream—but maybe it’s not a dream—that provides an emotional experience that begins to heal his bereavement. To suspend disbelief in four minutes to reflect a small remembered moment in a life was the charge for me."
Yagoda too felt creatively charged. "Having met Jonathan and spent some time with him talking about creativity and thought processes—and looking at his background involving the BBC, motion pictures and theater in different countries and cultures—I thought he’d be the perfect person to have at our worldwide creative conference," said Yagoda.
"I inflicted a prepared speech on those poor creative directors," quipped Darby, who found the dialogue afterwards particularly interesting. "There’s a lot of talent at advertising agencies and often it’s hard to find the right outlet for that. There are people who are painters in their spare time, musicians, writers. What do you do with that creativity in a form where it has to work in a business environment? … That’s some of what we explored. What I tried to throw out there was the notion that most creative processes are uncertain and spontaneous. Trust and serendipity play a big part. In most other forms you can re-write, re-score, re-paint, re-draft. But in film, typically you can’t because it’s just too expensive. Still, in our collaborations, we need to somehow make room for the unexpected."
The conference itself, which drew Y&R creatives from 19 countries, underscored the fact that exchanging ideas and getting the time to know each other isn’t a luxury—despite the Maui trappings—but rather a necessity. "You learn from and you build a trust in others," related Yagoda. "And ideally, you can take the time to build a trust with others outside the agency such as directors, editors, artists—a trust in them to help realize and complete the vision of the work."
