1) Go make stuff. Anything. Find spec work, write your own script and shoot it. This happened recently with Eugen Merher, the German film student, who wrote, produced and directed a spec spot for Adidas. He showed his worth, built his portfolio and if he hasn’t already, will get signed somewhere. But how will producers discover your spec work? Make sure your reel is cultivated to match the script and push your two best pieces of content upfront. You have 60 seconds to impress.
2) Balance your career and work life with hobbies. Take a photography class, join a sports league, start meditating. Find something. We need dynamic solution-making from every level of producer, but we also need healthy humans.
Also, one skillset won’t do these days. You must be proficient in understanding things like VR, AR and AI, as well as being able to make things yourself. We cannot always rely on vendors to pull through in the clutch. The new producer is a hybrid maker and creator.
Lastly, cultivate every relationship out there, no matter how big or small. It will make everything better.
3) With CP+B expanding around the globe, we produced Yo-Now to connect our employees across offices. It’s a real-time visualization of behind-the-scenes stories from around the agency, playing on a giant screen in every office lobby. Think of it like Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook for what we are making at any given moment. It was built for us, by us, to connect, inspire, and celebrate what we do for our clients.
4) Recently, at 6pm the night before a one-day shoot with celebrity talent in NYC, l lost my location. It was a big deal because it was supposed to be free. Then, about 20 minutes later, the talent canceled. In summary, it’s 7pm, pre-pro has already happened, and we have no location and no talent.
Luckily, we had a backup location, but it was going to cost $50,000. This was not a great client conversation, but an easier than discussing that we still had no talent.
Cut to 10pm and our talent agent magically securing two more celebrities who could drive themselves to set, and be ready to go at 9am the next day. A solve of heroic nature.
So, what was the lesson learned? Limit the decision makers when time is of the essence. The entire team on the ground was five people, plus the director. Decisions came quickly and concisely. Otherwise, there was no chance of making it.