1) Be open to working in other mediums and with artists with whom the agency might have involved in tangential ways in your project. We think the most successful commercial directors will be the ones who are amazing filmmakers but also ones who can be relied on to be the point person for all of the other artists, vendors or technology—some of whom might not be as versed in an agency’s process—to keep a holistic message and ascetic.
2) Look to feature-film producers as inspiration for what you can be as an agency producer. Jobs now require you to be able to be that point person who brings creative thinking with the right collaboration of people and artists, as much as jobs simply require you to guide a project. You are no longer just trying to match a director with a film. You need to be able to bring new thinking and artistic perspectives to a job seeing how outside influences might be able to collaborate with your creatives and clients.
3) Don’t be afraid to use vendors outside the commercial production community. It might challenge the “normal” creative/client/director workflow, but that can be overcome by an agency producer who can identify the gaps and plan for them. For example, sometimes the hardest executions to make successful are ones that are supposed to mimic a genre. With “Sausage Dome” for Johnsonville, we were able to make a series of reality shows that were not only good for our client, but entertaining in their own right. We did it by working outside the normal commercial-production world, with the agency producer being the conduit between an outside process and ours.
4) We’re especially proud of the recent New York Times work. We took the commercial advertising medium and gave it purpose and integrity within a social and cultural framework. People recognized it. Appreciated it. And it’s been something that has done well for the New York Times, and we’re extremely proud to be a part of it. The entire “Truth” execution was also done internally at Second Child, Droga5’s recently launched production studio, making us doubly proud.