For this week’s special report on New York, SHOOT canvassed leading players in Big Apple production and post to get their opinions about the state of the industry. Questions asked were: What trends and developments are you seeing in New York as of late? How would you assess the business landscape in the area? What new projects or ideas planned for New York have piqued your interest? What projects have you recently completed in the New York area? Here are their answers:
Lou Addesso
President
Creative Film
Management International, New York
I don’t see any new, significant trends or developments in New York. What I do recognize is the consistency of agencies trying to get conceptual work approved by clients, getting good performances from actors and utilizing the latest, greatest visual techniques, all for the "tightest" price possible. It is a very challenging process, but it’s what keeps the game fresh.
The beauty of New York’s business landscape is that it is always changing. It is a city of constant growth, development, expansion and repositioning. I am very excited for the completion of Steiner Studios at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. It will be nice for New York to have a full-service movie studio that looks and feels similar to the "old-fashioned" lots in Los Angeles with countless modern amenities.
Creative Film Management did a package for RadioShack featuring John Leguizamo in and around the Chelsea area. It’s always an adventure shooting in the streets of Manhattan—battling rush hour traffic, keeping spectators at bay, and everything else that happens in a New York minute; the excitement never ends.
Stephanie Apt
Managing director
Final Cut, New York and London
I live and work in New York City. My observation is that the economy is growing stronger in the city. I see Wall Street and real estate as prime indicators in this regard. While the market is down right now, last year was a very good year for Wall Street. This has a very positive effect upon the economy of the city. Restaurants do better, stores sell more, more people are working—the trickle-down effect is not to be denied. Additionally, rents are going up again, and contractors are very busy working on new buildings and renovations. Residential sales are at an all-time high. Film production is up in New York; you see film crews all over the city again.
Downtown is rebounding from the devastation of 9/11. The wonderful events at the Winter Garden [in the World Financial Center] and the strength of the Downtown Alliance are indicators that things are turning around. The Republican Convention will bring a lot of revenue and visitors to the city—this is also a great thing for the economy here. Tourism is up. New York is back to being the hub it always was.
Final Cut has an office in Chelsea. In the three years since we moved in, the block that we are on has changed dramatically. Three residential buildings have gone up. The building that we are in is full to capacity for the first time. We have had an exceptionally busy first quarter, working on projects ranging from Levi’s and Smirnoff to MasterCard, Verizon, SBC and Sprite. Because we have an office in London as well, we are able to work with clients who see New York as a partner city to the marketing they are doing globally. I have a measured optimism for this year. Certainly the first quarter has gotten us off to a good start. What the growing impact of the war will be remains to be seen.
Nancy Axthelm
Executive VP/director of
broadcast production
Grey, New York
The editorial and post work in New York is amazing—lots of talent and wonderful resources. And this is such a music hub that almost anything is possible. The new DJ mash-up phenomenon is very fresh and can quickly give an idea (or product) context and innovation (imagine that!).
It’s great that so many people are weighing in on the future of the advertising business—branded content, embedded messages, longform, media alternatives—I wish more people were actually doing some of it! The ideas we’ve seen are just the beginning—our creative and production talents need to lead the way.
I’ve heard that some people are a bit slow, but I just quickly did a re-cap of what we’ve done in New York in the last three months, and it seems to be quite busy. We are currently looking to do a project for the New York City Host Committee that should be fun. (I hear there is a convention coming to town.)
As for interest piqued? There is always the idea of cocktails at the new Mandarin Hotel (for the view, of course). The Frogs, the new musical "even more freely adapted" by Nathan Lane should be a winner. And I do love that those big ocean liners are coming in and out of New York again (talk about a production!). And then there is A-Rod and a road trip to the Bronx. Should be a great summer.
We always have and will continue to do tons of work for many of our local and global clients here in the Big Apple. In the past three months, we’ve shot 17 different projects here. We just finished a Panasonic D-Snap spot with Russell Simmons, and a Slim Fast spot with Whoopi Goldberg.
Gregg Carlesimo
Executive producer
@radical.media, bicoastal/
international
One of the biggest trends we’re seeing is how competitive shooting in New York has become lately. Given the global nature of our company, I rarely used to be able to bid New York against shooting in Canada, Europe, South America or South Africa. Today, when we factor in all the people who need to travel (clients, the agency team and the production staff), along with the search for authentic locations, the money spent on art department and the rising cost of overseas buyouts, New York is affordable. We’re aggressively bidding New York against other markets because we have the directors, the talent, the locations and the crew already here.
We’re very excited about the prospect of landing the 2012 Summer Olympic Games. We’re up against London, Madrid, Paris and Moscow. The city has established a commission, called NYC2012, to mount our effort to win the games. This commission has aligned all of our film unions, along with vendors and equipment houses, to work on this on a pro-bono basis, and has enlisted top celebrity talent to star in commercials promoting the games in New York. We’re shooting two of these spots right now, and I could not be happier with the level of cooperation everyone is giving. These are people in our industry looking out for the future of our city. If we land the games here, it will be a huge boon for New York businesses all around, not just the production industry.
In addition to the two NYC2012 jobs we’re working on, which are out of Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH), New York, and DDB New York, we’ve recently finished New York-based projects for Motorola, Nike and Campbell’s (the latter being a job that was split between New York and Philadelphia). We’ve also done some new PSAs for the Ad Council, we’ve shot for the Subway fast food chain, and of course there was the "Seinfeld & Superman" series, which we did for American Express.
Charlie Curran
Executive producer
Crossroads Films, bicoastal and
Chicago
The best is that we’ve been shooting in and around New York a lot more for the past two years or so. We’ve also packaged more jobs through postproduction so we’ve experienced more involved collaboration with agencies.
The business landscape is paradoxical. In the town of the $1,000 omelet, the $32 martini, and the quarter of a billion dollar third baseman, budgets are tighter, the competition is fiercer and the hours are longer.
What has been interesting is the growing number of agencies and clients choosing to come to New York from all over to shoot and finish here. Every experience has been positive on all fronts. New York is just a fantastic place to work. Recently we’ve shot commercials in New York for American Express, Coca-Cola, Acura, Cingular Wireless, H&R Block, Mervyn’s, The Army and New York Lottery. We’ve produced TV promos and music videos here as well.
Connie Griffin
Managing director
R!OT Manhattan
The major trend we’ve seen is the need for HD finishing—necessary for multiple mastering, cinema release and archival purposes. R!OT has recently hosted several seminars on HD, and the response has been very positive from both agency and editorial clients such as [New York shops] Deutsch, Grey, J. Walter Thompson, [and the New York offices of] The Whitehouse and Cosmo Street Editorial.
The landscape in New York City is highly competitive, with the import of more shops both large and small from Los Angeles, as well as the U.K. We have to keep our edge.
We anticipate that the HD trend will continue to grow. We are particularly well suited to providing this method of finishing, and look forward to engaging a whole new crop of clients that we can guide through the process.
We recently completed a high-profile Revlon campaign from Deutsch, New York, featuring Julianne Moore, Halle Barry, Eva Mendes and Jaime King. We also handled effects and finishing for NASCAR’s "Timeless" campaign through The Martin Agency, Richmond, Va. Other recent work includes campaigns for Burger King through Crispin Porter+Bogusky, Miami; Virgin Mobile and Citibank through Fallon, New York and Minneapolis; and Verizon Wireless through McGarry Bowen, New York.
Bill Gross
CEO
Convergence, New York
I think the best trend and development that we’ve noticed here at Convergence is a major increase in overall business in New York. It seems that the "ad recession" is truly coming to an end, and happily it’s resulting in lots of activity in New York. We’re hearing more from out-of-town clients who want to come to our fair city to work—not too long ago it seemed that fewer people wanted to make the trip. Interestingly, more and more people are talking about alternate formats for advertising. We are finishing lots of our spots in high definition, theatrical release is coming more into play, and the demand for Internet advertising is growing.
We continue to hear a lot about branded entertainment and longer format projects as companions to traditional advertising. I guess the point is that the digital world has enabled New York to be as much a part of longer format branded entertainment/programming as Hollywood is. As much as we think of it as a new breakthrough, the fact is that much of this sort of programming was done here in the ’50s, but then again that was before cable was even a thought.
All of our work is based in New York. Most recently, we finished two PSAs for The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), via agency Prime Access, New York, which aired at the GLAAD Awards in March, and an Ice Breakers spot which stars Jessica Simpson and her sister via Northcastle & Partners, Stamford, Conn. Our clearance division, Clear, has just completed "Portraits," a three-spot TV campaign for Mercedes-Benz via Merkley + Partners, New York.
JJ Lask
Editor
PS 260, New York
Nothing really changes, but boy, they sure get a whole lot different. I grew up in New York City and have been on commercial and movie sets since I was 11, back in ’81. Then when I turned 13, I started PAing during summer vacation for Richard Stone Productions, New York. I had to wake up at 5:30 in the morning to get the bagels and lox (the most important job of the morning). The only people out at that time were the joggers and the hookers. Then at the end of the day I took the film to the lab. All the labs are over in the Times Square area, and the only people out at that time of the night were the muggers and the hookers—I was almost mugged three times in one night.
That was the Democratic Koch era. And it seemed like there were only about 20 directors in all of New York. And only about five edit companies. People tell me that those were the good old days of production and editing.
Now, more than 20 years later in this Giuliani/Bloomberg, post-9/11 era, all the hookers are gone and Times Square is a mini Disney World. The agencies that I delivered packages to all have different names or no longer exist. And now there are more channels, more commercials. There’s Avid, Final Cut Pro, HD, DV. It seems everybody I know is now a director or an editor—I think all the hookers turned into directors and all the muggers turned into editors, or maybe it’s the other way around. But nothing has really changed. Now I’m still waking up at 5:30 to edit, and leaving after midnight. Looking back on the good old days, I think I should have made more mistakes—I was 13, I had a pocketful of petty cash and there were hookers all over the place. Yeah, those must have been the good old days.
Phil McIntyre
Partner/head of national sales and marketing
Click 3X, New York
We firmly believe that HD advertising is poised for a breakthrough, and we have backed up that belief by investing heavily in new technology to accommodate high-resolution work. We’ve made serious upgrades to our compositing, networking and storage systems and have become early adopters of Discreet’s Burn technology, which expedites hi-res work. The investment has already begun to pay off—we did the branding for the hi-def network INHD, and we have finished several cinema spots.
Without question, our biggest local project was creating animations and logo graphics for the Samsung SuperSign in Times Square. It was a creative and technical challenge for our staff to design elements that would work on a screen so large and stand out from all of the other signage in the area—and they succeeded very well. It was also fun to create something that is on display in our own backyard. Similarly, we were delighted to have the opportunity to design the opener for this year’s AICP Show, as well as the opener for the One Show Interactive Awards that also took place recently in New York.
Gabriella Mirabelli
Founder/managing director
Margee Hocking
Executive producer
Anatomy Media, New York
The promotion and advertising world is on the verge of a fundamental change. The highly coveted 18 to 34 male audience is continuing to slip away and, with the continued creation of channels, the audience that is watching television is increasingly fractured. Further, the proliferation of VOD and DVRs is changing how viewers experience television. It’s no longer a passive medium.
In order to survive, programmers and advertisers alike need to find new and better ways to reach viewers. We’ve seen an increase in "event" marketing with well-funded multi-layered campaigns designed for specific audiences. In an increasingly cluttered TV environment, the high visibility of these ‘events’ offer networks a unique tool for branding and increasing viewership. We believe that in addition to this trend we will begin to see growth in advertising and promotion specifically designed for the broadband space.
We’re also seeing more and more evidence that HD is finally beginning to grab gear. More HD sets are being purchased, and we’re beginning to see an increase in programming and services targeting those consumers."
It’s a global economy, so the general anxiety about the economy has translated into clients making increasingly selective and strategic investment in ‘outside’ sources of promotion. Technology has become more accessible, so there has been a leveling of the postproduction playing field. We’ve been excited by the new avenues networks are employing to reach viewers—the use of in-theater advertising or outdoor advertising in urban areas (e.g., Jumbotron). In theater advertising has been a trend in Europe for some time, but it is relatively new here. And, as fans of Blade Runner, how could we not get a thrill seeing our promos on the big screen in Times Square?"
Anatomy recently completed the entire campaign for USA Network’s Spartacus including an HD theatrical trailer and numerous TV spots. We also contributed to the actual movie by crafting special montages that opened each night of the miniseries.
Anatomy also created the upfront promotion for Fuse. We’ve also just wrapped shooting spots for the launch of Lifetime’s newest reality program How Clean is Your House?, and are currently working on creative consulting engagements with several networks.
Katherine Oliver
Commissioner
New York City Mayor’s Office of
Film, Theatre & Broadcasting
In 2003, the number of commercial production shooting days in New York City rose to 2,630, a 22 percent increase over 2002. New York City continues to serve as an ideal location for commercial production, and the types of commercials currently shooting in the city are as diverse as they are numerous.
Steiner Studios [at the Brooklyn Navy Yard] should be operational by late summer or early fall. This significantly raises New York City’s competitive position by enabling us to offer more large, flexible studio space with storage and other amenities that will make it more attractive to shoot interiors alongside the city’s unparalleled exteriors. The opening of additional facilities such as Post Logic and Outpost Digital’s new postproduction site in the West Village speaks to the demand for commercial production work in New York City and the need for production companies to have a base in New York City in order to retain their competitive positions.
To attract commercial production, the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre & Broadcasting has developed a concierge service, which offers complimentary location advice, scouting services and budget analysis to producers interested in shooting in New York City. We have also arranged for discounted airfare, hotels and car rentals for members of the production industry bringing business to the city. We offer free online permits, public locations, and the sales tax on production goods and services is totally free. The free police assistance and parking that comes with the permit saves production up to $19,000 per week, and there’s even more good news—New York City continues to be the safest large city in the country.
Some of the most high-profile spots that have recently shot in New York City have included the New York Lottery’s Panda-Money-Um commercial [out of DDB New York], and Sierra Mist’s Super Bowl ad [out of BBDO New York], for which they simulated a parade downtown. Recently, we helped to arrange a mock San Gennaro street festival during filming of a Samsung commercial in which three friends travel to some of the city’s most high-profile locations, shooting photos and "moving pictures." Another commercial for the Irish National Lottery features numerous city icons and scenes of New York harbor taken from the waterfront. An Acura commercial currently in production will feature split screens with high-profile driving locations in both Manhattan and Los Angeles. Commercials such as these are taking advantage of the city’s incredible exteriors in addition to the outstanding local talent pool and production facilities.
Rob Ortiz
Principal/president
Creative Bubble, New York
Clients have raised the bar and are demanding better quality work, delivered on tighter schedules and budgets. Advertising and promo producers now expect the same quality of graphics and sound effects that were formerly limited to high-budget feature films. Thanks to digital technology, better mousetraps are being used to revolutionize the production process.
The trend is for clients to seamlessly collaborate with a team of creative editors, designers and sound mixers concurrently. The entire production process is now non-linear, and can take place in parallel, as clients, creatives and technicians work on the same scene at the same time in different rooms, frequently in different locations.
Client expectations make it virtually impossible for the large facilities of isolated individual rooms to survive. The best talent provides their unique skills to a project, and collaborates with their equals. Although technology has democratized production and made it available to more people who multi-task, high-end production like advertising and broadcast still requires specialists, instead of generalists. The trend is to have integrated full-service solutions provided by creative teams of talent who collaborate seamlessly using the technology.
The post-9/11 recession is over, and business is improving steadily. The economic Darwinism of survival of the fittest has forced the survivors to provide superior products and services. The demand from clients for the highest quality creative work that is cheaper and faster has resulted in the implementation of doing work smarter and more efficiently.
The volume and complexity of work is definitely increasing. However, the trend for efficient budgets is definitely being followed in production. The fat has been cut out of budgets and the margin for error between making a profit instead of a loss is much thinner. The excesses of the dot-com era are a distant memory, and clients are demanding more for less. This year has gotten off to a healthy start, and the prospects for the remainder of 2004 are quite good, with an election year and the Republican Convention in New York City. The increasing demand for new cable channels, DVDs and video on the Web are also indicators that the business landscape will continue to improve.
Whether you agree or disagree with Michael Moore’s opinion of George Bush, The Republican Convention will provide a spike to the production industry at the end of the summer. Local, national and international coverage will boost the demand for production and postproduction services in the city during a period of time that was always busy prior to 9/11.
Although it’s a number of years away, the 2012 Olympics and the expansion of the Javits Center would provide tremendous opportunities for the media capital of the world. Just like the Olympics helped Atlanta in the 1990s, 2012 will provide a major capital investment to improve the technical infrastructure of New York, culminating in a huge demand for production, postproduction and interactive services during the event.
Kenny Pedini
Executive producer
Breathe Editing, New York
We’ve been asked more often recently to work on HD projects. Some are being shot on HD, mainly due to production cost savings in the areas of equipment rentals, stock purchase, processing and dailies. We recently had one spot that was going to be theatrically released, and the director wanted to finish on HD to have the highest quality film out possible. However, I haven’t seen too many people using HD to its fullest extent yet.
As far as other trends, I think that it has gotten harder for the agencies to produce commercials lately. Because of the economic and political climate, people are taking fewer chances and clients are spending less money because everyone wants to keep their job. I am finding that due to the struggle to do good work, when the agencies get to the post stage of production, they really want to blow off some steam and have some fun. Personally, I’m all for it.
I think business across the board is picking up slowly. It’s still not where it was five years ago, but it appears to be creeping in the right direction.
Since we are a New York editorial company, all our projects are completed in New York. We have recently completed campaigns for Nicoderm and Dairy Queen, as well as two documentaries for Sony.
Thomas Rossano
Executive producer
Hungry Man, bicoastal/
international
We see many jobs awarding late. This is a trend that not only affects small jobs, but large multi-day shoots are also being awarded with very little prep time.
Some agencies are also attempting to pay late—this has definite cash flow implications for some companies. Also, clients are still jumpy about committing to big money.
There is no denying that business is picking up on both the national and local level. As the weather improves in New York, so do the chances of jobs shooting here. We have steady board flow across our entire roster. Overall, I think the summer is off to a good start.
We are producing a wide range of jobs—from small PSAs to a few large multiple-day stage shoots. We just finished a large BBDO New York project with Hank Perlman, Old Spice with David Shane, and a series of Verizon spots with Bennett Miller.
Frank Snider
Partner/editor
Ohio Edit, New York
New York has long been considered the redheaded stepchild of Los Angeles when it comes to postproduction, and thankfully, that is changing. Most exciting is the recent onslaught of talented effects and color transfer artists here, which gives me as an editor more finishing options, and gives agency creatives and producers the confidence to handle all post in New York, as opposed to outsourcing to Los Angeles or London.
I don’t think New York will ever come close to Southern California when it comes to production—not due to lack of talent, but rather the weather and locations California has to offer. Following 9/11, some folks were reticent about traveling to Los Angeles (and therefore produced here in New York), but that hesitance has long faded. In fact, I’m seeing fewer and fewer New York City-based productions.
Again, postproduction in New York is getting better and better. Directors and creatives are happy to work here and appreciate the talent and facilities the city has to offer. It is more competitive than it has ever been, but a lot of truly great work is done here.
We recently cut a great campaign for Rheingold Beer [out of Powell, New York], which was shot here in New York, specifically targeting the New York market. Julie Drazen, an editor here at Ohio, cut the spots in a way that emulated the fast-paced, gritty character of New York. It was a campaign that in a sense used the city as a primary character. We were able to exploit special parts of New York—quirky locations, talented actors, etc.—to make a very compelling New York campaign.
Alan Suna
CEO
Silvercup Studios,
Long Island City, N.Y.
The commercial industry in New York has skyrocketed this year, with increases for both in-studio and on-location production, as we’ve seen from the work being done at Silvercup Studios and with Silvertrucks, our affiliate location lighting equipment company. It’s a clear sign that the economy has rebounded in 2004.
With the renewed availability of the stages at Silvercup’s main lot since Sex and the City and The Sopranos have finished filming, combined with the recovering economy, we are seeing an increase in advertising productions compared to the last six months of 2003.
In order to accommodate the growing demand for our facilities, we are making large-scale investments in new equipment, dressing rooms, wardrobe and other support facilities, which are currently under construction at Silvercup Studios.
We believe our future is strong and growing both in the studios and on location. We’re building new production studios as part of our planned mixed-use development, Silvercup West. With our current facilities and the new studios at Silvercup West, we believe there will be enough production work to keep our studios busy. Silvercup West will have eight state-of-the-art studios, which will expand Silvercup’s inventory as the largest full-service production facility in the Northeast.
New York industry executives are in it for the long haul. The more facilities that are available, the more competitive the prices. Advertising executives will find appealing offers to keep their productions in New York.
Recent commercial shoots at Silvercup include spots for: Olay, Pantene, Flonase, Kenmore, American Express, Olive Garden, Sears, AT&T and Verizon.
Krystn Wagenberg
President
Mad River Post, New York,
Detroit, Dallas, Los Angeles and
San Francisco
With offices on both coasts, we get to see the whole picture. New York is producing some of the best creative work we have seen in years. There is only one problem—along with the ambition and expectations, there is intense competition and no money. It’s a Catch-22; we need the strong creative work to maintain the spark that attracts great projects, but you also have to stay in business. Striking a balance between creative work and jobs that keep you in business is extremely difficult in the current market.
With New York pitching for the 2012 Olympics, there is an abundance of really great creative to support that cause. Mad River will participate in some of this work. The Ad Council and PSA work are much more abundant in New York than in Los Angeles right now. The ideas are great, but we are paying for the chance to work on these projects.
There are several new, small and very creative agencies in New York. Their ability to bring fresh ideas to a market that has been trying to play it safe has been exciting. We have been able to share in the new work Mother, New York, is doing for the NBA. There is a resurgence of creative leading the client, but this is not to say that it hasn’t been a challenge to get it on air.
The Tribeca Film Festival has been able to bring New York the very edgy creative documentary and feature work. Mad River was able to participate in the festival this year with a film that editor Michael Elliot cut for Andrew Douglas of bicoastal Anonymous Content called Searching for the Wrong Eyed Jesus. It gave us the ability to be involved in a totally different process of editorial work.
Rick Wagonheim
Partner/executive producer
Rhinofx, New York
New York is a project-oriented visual effects community and no longer simply a post and finishing community. There are more high-end digital artists living and working daily in New York than there are commercial directors living and shooting spots in New York.
New York suffers from the perception that the better effects talent lives in Los Angeles or London, and that New York effects talent is inferior. For those that still think this is true, take a look at the work being created in this town. Open your eyes. You’ll be amazed at the digital effects renaissance in Manhattan.
Since the opening of rhinofx in the summer of 2000, we have witnessed more high-end, photo-realistic visual effects work staying in New York. Out-of-town agencies are bringing their visual effects projects to New York. West Coast-based directors and directors living and working in Europe are no longer reluctant to have their vision executed by the top New York studios.
We opened the studio with the intention of proving that excellent artistic talent is available in New York. The concept behind our vision was to create a studio based on the talent, not on hardware and not on the hourly rate. Our goal was to prove you could work in New York and win awards. We wanted to provide the advertising community and the production community with options. And now there are numerous options. CG artistry excels. We are no longer a community depending on rotating pills, product replacement and demos to stay in business.
In the past four years, Imaginary Forces, The Mill, Smoke and Mirrors, Framestore CFC, CreoCollective, Brand New School and Sideshow have opened offices here, while Tröllback grows, Quiet Man continues to do great work, Charlex continues to evolve, Psyop has emerged as a visual design leader, and rhinofx keeps growing and doing great work.
Alex Weil
Partner/creative director
Charlex, New York
New York is an ever-changing blend of culture, technology and commerce. Maybe that’s why it continues to be the capital of advertising after so many generations.
Recently, I’ve had the privilege of working with some very talented and dedicated people who have brought more artistic and experimental projects to Charlex. The best example of this is the five-spot M&M’s campaign that we created with Susan Credle, Steve Rutter and Becky Friedman of BBDO. In each of the five pieces they commissioned, we collaborated with a successful guest artist who wasn’t necessarily a filmmaker. For us, this represents the return of purely creative, visceral advertising. Is this a trend? I don’t know, but somehow it feels like the kind of opportunity that only happens in this town.
From my point of view, the business landscape looks very fertile; in fact, it seems to be blossoming. Charlex has made substantial investments in artists, equipment and workspace, and it seems as though that will continue through 2004. The competitive environment in this city keeps us on our toes, and luckily our love for what we do keeps our enthusiasm high.
