1) I see a lot of young directors with reels showcasing a balanced variety of work; whereas I’m always more focused on discovering talent with a consistently unique point-of-view that speaks passionately through their work. Find your thing and be the best at it.
Also, directors have a huge opportunity now to leverage additional content from their shoots. Take advantage of that—it’s often the most fertile ground to take big risks and make breakthrough work.
2) Be relentlessly focused on solutions and remember that production is a team sport that starts at the creative concepting phase. Producers should also assemble a passionate team and help them make the idea better at every single step of the process. You can’t make anything great if you don’t start with the right ingredients first.
3) Our industry is demanding a massive adaptability of agency producer skillsets to deliver within multiple content models. In the past few years, we created Nike’s first VR experience, a real-time animation campaign, an episodic original scripted series, and more recently served as showrunners and creative consultants for a cross-platform live-stream event called “Breaking2” that allowed us to partner with Nike in new ways. Through the course of “Breaking2,” our team produced within various content models, including traditionally crafting all pre-event integrated campaign elements, creating the interstitial editorial content airing during the event, and producing the 2-hour global live-stream show. Meanwhile, the effort also required collaboration with external influencers, strategically working with our media partners to maximize the live audiences on every platform, and consulting on a tell-all documentary. And that’s all for one project! The learning here is to discover all the ways to flex far outside of our own ability to craft great content. As producers, we have to be resourceful leaders in discovering new opportunities for our brands.
4) The Nike Equality integrated campaign gave our team the opportunity to pour our hearts into something that we’re passionate about. I’m proud of our agency and client for their strong commitment to the project. Partnering with the incomparable Melina Matsoukas made every difficult day great, and every good day amazing.
