In 70, Chuck Sloan went to New York to open the East Coast division of now defunct commercial production company Wakeford/Orloff. In those days, agencies generally screened spots on 16mm film. Sloan recalled there was nothing worse. It was a horrible way of presenting your companys work.
If you wanted a quality screening, you had to show work on 35mm film-not exactly easy or inexpensive. Only the larger ad shops screened in that format. You really protected that reel with your life, said Sloan, who is now president of Plum Productions, Santa Monica, the production house he founded with director Eric Saarinen in 83. After the film age, the advertising world converted to 3/4-inch videotape.
Now, Sloan is betting that DVD will become the definitive way to present a directors work. In March, Plum sent out 2,000 copies of Saarinens reel to selected advertising agencies worldwide. While other companies have put out DVDs in relatively small runs, Sloan said he knows of no other shop that has sent out so many copies of one directors DVD.
Sloan and Saarinen began discussing the possibility of putting the directors reel on DVD six months ago. Sloan felt that burning a large number of copies was important: I went out big because I want it [DVD] to happen. Its a better presentation.
Sloan believes that DVD is going to be the medium of choice in the very near future, and predicts that it will be around for the next five years or so, after which it will most likely be supplanted by broadband. But for now, he thinks DVD is the only way to go. The formats advantages over traditional 3/4-inch tape are legion. Three-quarter inch is the Moviola of 2000, its obsolete now, he related. DVD is easier to store and to move around. … Theres no more rewinding. The architecture works very
easily, and anybody who cares for quality is going to want it for a lot of reasons.
A look at Saarinens new reel supports Sloans contentions. The menu page allows the viewer easy access to Saarinens bio, contact information, and his entire reel-or any single spot-at the touch of a button. The directors spot work has a visual style thats enhanced by the high-quality image of DVD. The commercials on the reel include recent highlights, such as Chevy Blazers Lighthouse, out of Campbell-Ewald Advertising, Warren, Mich. [That spot] has such a good combination of sound and visuals-and anything that has strong visual appeal is definitely at an advantage from a presentation point of view, said Sloan.
The reel also includes older ads, such as Mountain Dews Training for BBDO New York (which features tennis star Andre Agassi cross training in various extreme environments); Chevy Tahoes Drifts, for Campbell-Ewald; and Water for Life for Culligan via Grant/Jacoby, Chicago.
Bitmax, Hollywood, supplied Plums DVDs. We looked at three different companies, Sloan explained. Bitmax had the best understanding of the quality we wanted, and it really boiled down to that. They started the company just for the commercial industry; their long -range goal is to go into broadband. Bitmax really understood our problems, whereas the other two companies-who shall go nameless-were just duplication companies that are used to dealing with theatrical releases.
Lee Evans, a graphic designer at Bitmax, also worked with Plum to design the simple and attractive graphics for the menu page. Sloan noted that keeping the design spare was a top priority. The most work I put into it was working with Lee, trying to keep the architecture very simple, said Sloan. I wanted it to be something that if I didnt know anything about it, I could put it into my machine, take a look at it, and figure it out easily. If you complicate [a DVD], its a big mistake.
While putting out 2,000 DVDs may seem prohibitive cost-wise, Sloan assessed that a pressing of this magnitude really isnt so bad. The real cost is in the set-up, he said. But when I ran two thousand, it was like three dollars for each, which is really cheap. But if youre buying a hundred DVDs and you have to pay seventy-five dollars for each … thats a lot of money to put into a reel.
For his first foray into DVD, Sloan wanted to use a well-established director with a large body of work, so he chose Saarinen. We change his reel maybe once a year, said Sloan. Well make special reels, but we only make a major change once a year because his body of work is pretty strong. Were in a building process with our other directors, so you make more reels. With Eric, the investment will last a year.
Sloan hopes that the cost of smaller pressings will diminish in the coming months, when more people get into the business and the equipment costs begin to come down. So far, the investment seems to be paying off. If they didnt like it, they didnt call, I guess. But the ones who have called have been really, really complimentary.
Not a bad days work for a producer who started out in the technological dark ages, and who, by his own admission, is not usually of the digital vanguard. Saarinen is equally pleased. It made me happy that Chuck was involved in this, said the director. It was a big present.
