I know the whole concept of commercial production is supposed to change dramatically very soon, but I don’t really care. I don’t mean to sound ignorant and unprepared (although I probably am). It’s just that it doesn’t matter.
With the inevitable advent of broadband delivery, TiVo-like technology, an increasingly interactive television environment, and the availability of cheap, digital technology, commercialmaking will change in ways we can’t quite predict.
So what. Bring it on. Let’s go.
The same creative processes will apply. If you understand visual communication and have something to say, I can’t see how this next revolution will change the value of that. Once one realizes that things are going to change, the next question is: Are they going to change for the better? Will all the new technology make for better commercials if, after all, it’s the ideas that matter?
If the affordability of digital technology allows for greater creative exploration and allows more folks to try their hand at making moving pictures, then we might see better, fresher stuff. TiVo, Replay, Web TV and the like could mean the demise of commercialmaking altogether, or it could force a new era of more technically and creatively sophisticated commercials. Who knows? Who cares? I’m simply happy about the benefits we’ve already seen from the latest Internet and digital technologies.
First of all, we have all benefited from the dot-coms’ desperate need for exposure—specifically, the upswing in quality and quantity of commercials brought on by all the dot-com advertising. The dot-com clients haven’t fully caught on to the focus group-oriented method of commercialmaking, and they spend money like they’re on crack. These are two useful ingredients in quality commercialmaking, once you have a good concept. This, I’m sure, will be a short-lived phenomenon. But there is more.
It has been very nice simply using the latest Internet technology to facilitate the production of the current state-of-the-art commercial. We are more efficient than ever in the production process. A little over a year ago, one of our directors, Robin Willis, badgered us into creating a Web site for a job out of Europe. Now we create a Web site for virtually every production we do. This allows immediate access to pertinent information for each production. Locations, wardrobe, casting, shooting boards—and often, animatics edited from those shooting boards—all go up on the site. A client, agency or production with the right access code address can access this information at their leisure. They can be in any country, in any time zone, and get information at once. One- or two-day delays in shipping are no more. It’s great.
Via our own company’s Web site, agencies can access samples of our work whenever they want to. The quality of the images of course is not perfect, but it’s getting better all the time. The best part of having our own Web site is that we have greater control over how our company image is portrayed. We are not solely represented by the fl" tape played on a badly tuned, lame monitor by an independent sales representative, who may or may not fully appreciate who we are. I like our sales reps; it’s just that they aren’t us. Ironically, our Web site is a more personal representation of who we are and what our company aesthetic is.
There is more. Where’sSpots?—that dreadful and delightful pain in the ass where anyone can make a request, or ask a question related to spotmaking and then get a response—is a perfect application of the Internet. I’m sure you can all think of many other examples. My point is that everything has already changed, and is changing as I write this—and things couldn’t be better. As Buddha once said, "I am abiding for one night near the banks of the Mahi river, my house is uncovered, the fire of craving is extinguished: Therefore, if thou like, rain, O sky!"
Anybody buy that?
