It’s been a thrilling ride, this last decade or so, in terms of the sweeping changes in our industry. And yet, as far as we’ve come, we can see the future beckoning with even more changes—changes that will be even more influential in terms of where we’re going and how we’re going to get there.
And all of this is happening smoothly and seamlessly in an evolutionary rather than an abrupt and revolutionary manner. Let me explain, in personal terms.
I started out some 10 or 11 years ago, just as the then-state-of-the-art Harry hit the marketplace. Harry was a high-end device that enabled artists to do multiple-level compositing, manipulation and effects without having to go through multiple mixed passes on switchers. Those switchers, unfortunately, were never particularly good because the picture would degrade to such a degree that it made for poor viewing. Harry opened up a whole new arena for producers and creatives, allowing them to create effects that previously weren’t technically feasible or financially viable.
As we started out using these new machines in the late 1980s, there was an explosion in the use of effects, to use an appropriate description. Basically almost every single movie and commercial, it seemed, employed some form of effects—some type of compositing, or visual candy, if you like.
What’s happening now, though, is that people finally are starting to move away from these continuous effects, and we’re now looking at a marketplace that is dominated by what I consider to be "invisible effects," which are composited images created with the intention of looking completely real and feasible. We’re not creating incredible explosions any more, with peoples’ heads spinning off and things flying through the ether. Visual effects still are very prevalent, but now there’s a trend more toward reality. Shots previously were done with fish wires, which you couldn’t see; since then the norm has been to use regular wires that were simply painted out. We’re just beautifying the existing mode of operation.
This is similar to playing with a toy—for the first 10 years we did everything we possibly could to create something wild and exciting with our tools. Then we settled into a rhythm and started using them on a regular basis, more to finish a project than to embellish images to the point of exhaustion. Initially we created ego-driven, in-your-face advertising, with consumers expected to buy products after basing their decisions on how loud a spot could be or how many times we could cram the product’s name into 30 seconds. Then advertisers started looking for new ways to get buyers to remember their campaigns, and we made a transition to more "coercive" effects. But you’d never see those visual effects-driven commercials now. Today we’re looking for commercials that are more subtle, more designed. The visual effects are created to enhance the commercial, not to overpower us into a state of frenzied buying.
A lot of this has to do with the arrival of the Internet. Many young companies are advertising products that aren’t really "real"—they’re not selling you a candy bar; they’re selling an address to the candy store. This makes it more difficult for us—we need to find ways to enhance this evanescent product to the point where it becomes real. So it’s not so much visual effects that are called for; rather, more detailed and clever writing comes into play. Turn on the TV and see how many Internet-based spots there are—all extremely clever, all very different. They draw attention without special effects or huge budgets.
This is to be expected. Our industry is constantly changing, twisting and turning, in different—and often unexpected—directions. Our company has been successful because we’ve had to diversify. We’ll continue to modify our business so we can deliver whatever the client wants. The one thing that will never change is that we’ll always change.
In the past, our main challenge was the magnitude of the project. Today it’s diversity—a different challenge, but one just as big. And this is just the latest in a continuing series of evolutionary shifts. There will be many more changes in the near future with the full-force arrival of the Internet and with broadband looming on the horizon.
Soon, I believe, the majority of advertising will run on the Internet and not on the TV screen. Commercials will exist in a very enhanced, interactive form, and technically will be presented in a modified format. They’ll have to be produced and post-produced in a very different way. They’ll be region specific, even viewer specific, so we’ll have a very diversified marketplace.
This still represents an evolutionary switch—we remain in the business of making pitches. All we’re doing is making the medium change. And forcing ourselves to be more creative. We will have new tools—there are some in R&D now that represent leaps in evolution.
But it all comes back to keeping up with change, which means constantly honing our creative skills. The big challenge here is to remember that this costs a lot of money, and I don’t believe advertisers are spending as much per commercial for TV now as they were five years ago.
As change continues, the challenges will be different but ever present.
I can’t wait.
