By TO411Daily Columnist
Linda Chandler

Last week, The Brief addressed Martin Shewchuk, ECD of J. Walter Thompson-Toronto, with his charge that Toronto creative directors discriminated against Canadian commercial directors. The Brief spoke to many of the top CDs to get their take on this and came away with the opinion that Shewchuk had a particularly multinational POV concerning 100% Canadian content. This week, The Brief reports on some of the top Canadian directors’ reaction to Shewchuk’s claim. 

Are they feeling discriminated against for being Canadian? According to many top Canadian directors, if you can make it here you can make it anywhere. In addition…

Canada loves you when you leave. James Davis, Partner at Untitled Films, represents some of Canada’s hardest-working directors including: Steve Gordon, Hubert Davis, Tom Feiler, John Matromonaco, and Curtis Wehrfritz. Davis knows better than anyone the importance of promoting Canadian directors and getting them outta here to succeed. Canadian born director, Michael Downing, who now lives in Los Angeles, credits Davis with “having the balls to stick by Canadian directors” and says it’s basically because of him that Canadian commercial directors are taken seriously around the world. 

Downing describes Davis as the “smartest guy in the business.” And the “smartest guy in the business” doesn’t believe there’s any discrimination going on as far as hiring Canadians. “90% of the work is done by 10% of the directors. Most of whom are Canadian,” says Davis. If more than 10% had star-power – something Canadians love to hate – more Canadian directors would be shooting boards.

It’s not because you’re Canadian, it’s because you’re good. The Brief spoke to directors who shoot everywhere in the world, and what they all agreed on was that Canadian directors are some of the best. Best with interpretation. Best with budgets and timelines. Best with clients. And respected outside of Canada as such. Steve Gordon, who recently brought a Pencil and Clio home on a Canadian brand, says that when he works here in Canada it’s not because he lives here, it’s because he’s a director who can compete on an international level. Downing believes it’s not about geography, it’s about who’s best for the job!

The impossibly busy Perlorian Brothers, Lazlo and Bruce,* known for bringing home a Lion or Gold say, “At the end of the day, we’d like to think that the only discrimination is against staid and uninspired thinking. And that it’s not really about where the director is from.”

The Perlorian Brothers, like so many directors The Brief turned to, don’t believe there’s discrimination against Canadian directors. To the contrary, they think that Canadian directors get a lot of work in Canada simply because they’re Canadian. And therein lies a certain danger. The Perlorian’s caution, “Any director who builds his reel in Canada and only shows Canadian work on this reel might lack a certain sexiness. His or her work will likely seem less exotic and his or her scope might seem more limited than someone from across the border or from overseas. So a Canadian director (with only Canadian work on his reel) might have to work harder to portray himself as someone with a unique vision.”

The work according to Shewchuk. Shewchuck says that “…hiring foreigners for Canadian projects can only have an adverse effect on the native directorial talent, as well as on the specific projects.” The Perlorian Brothers response to that is, “We shouldn’t forget that it’s the creative director’s job to search out the best talent to execute their script. And good for any agency creative who writes a script that elicits interest from the finest talent from around the world.”

Do we have an advertising market guilty of discriminating against Canadian directors as Shewchuk claims? The Brief thinks to the contrary. We have directors who have to leave home to be viable here.

And why is that, eh? Gary Holme, Creative Director, describes our national neurosis as a Canadian self-loathing-character-flaw. Related to the Hero Not Welcome In His Own Country syndrome.” And perhaps that’s some small justification for Shewchuk’s “protectionism.” And for the caprice of geography, which forces our identity to crash into our national nemesis – America – we suffer, like a stepchild, from profound and unfounded rivalry and low self-esteem – and we have to get over it.

Sources

• Michael Downing 

• Steve Gordon

• The Perlorian Brothers

—–

Comment to Linda at this address: thebrief@to411.com.
LinkedIn // Facebook // Twitter

By TO411Daily Columnist
Linda Chandler

Several weeks ago, Martin Shewchuk, EVP, ECD of JWT– Toronto* asked The Brief to probe into why “Canadian advertising agencies don’t hire Canadian directors for their scripts.”

Could this be true? Could Shewchuk, who has maintained a passionate career creating and directing award-winning commercials first as CD of Leo Burnett, and then as an independent Canadian director with Radke Films and now at JWT, be correct about Canadian creatives discriminating against our home grown directors? Or, in taking on Canadian agencies, is Shewchuk seeing through a glass eye darkly? Or, through the eyes of someone who runs a Canadian multinational.

In defense of Shewchuk’s observation, The Brief suddenly flashed back to our most nationalistic commercial in recent memory – The Rant – from Molson’s I Am Canadian campaign. This highly acclaimed spot, created by Glen Hunt at Bensimon Byrne, set out to set to rest the distinction between Canadian and American. 

The Rant’s Canadian insights, which addressed the ignorance and stereotyping of our neighbors – those star worshiping, headline-grabbing, culture-invasive Americans – was, for all its Canadian-ness, directed by Kevin Donovan… an American director! Could you platz?

For Shewchuk, this ironic choice is (perhaps) quintessential evidence of discrimination. But creator, Hunt is unapologetic. He told The Brief, “Kevin Donovan, American or not, was right for The Rant. I won’t hire Canadian directors just because they’re Canadian. I hire them because they’re right for the job.”

Are agencies supposed to hire who’s right for the job or who’s Canadian? For Shewchuk, the mandate is to always use Canadians, or resident directors who pay income tax in Canada. He’s also okay with dual citizens, Canadian born, who reside in the U.S. “Canadian directors have a better sense of directing Canadian boards,” Shewchuk claims. The Brief asked him why? Is Canada so inexplicable that a great storyteller from anywhere can’t tell a Canadian story? The answer is “No.”

Because… what if? What if Shewchuk’s clients come to the conclusion that any “talented” foreigner can figure Canada out. “Clients might eventually conclude that if a U.S. director can do it, maybe a U.S. art director and copywriter can do it too. They might then decide that Canadian specific work can be done by creative teams in the New York office. And from there our clients might eventually decide that since the creative for Canada is done by U.S. teams, maybe it really doesn’t need to be (for Canada) after all. Let’s just pick-up the U.S. spot.” Clearly this is the multinational agency challenge.

Are Canadian multinationals guilty of discrimination?

Shewchuk claims that his multinational competitors give anywhere between 60-100% of their work to foreign directors… Really?

The Brief turned to Judy John, Managing Partner, CCO of Leo Burnett, Toronto to find out whether this kind of bias was true. “Not true!” says John. “We don’t want to work with crappy Canadian directors just like we don’t want to work with crappy American or British directors. Some of the best directors in the world are Canadian, and I’d work with them in a minute,” John says. 

Angus Tucker, Partner, CD of john st. says he uses Canadian directors all the time. He says that many top Canadian directors are so busy doing international jobs, such as the Perlorian Brothers and Tom Godsall, they can afford to be selective about the boards they shoot. “The scripts have to be awesome to keep these talents at home,” Tucker says. So perhaps the best Canadian directors cannot even be had.

The Brief found consensus from Creative Director’s of multinational and independent agencies on the following: It’s creative’s job to help bring the best director to the storyboard and then to sell that very subjective decision to the client. And without apology, the best director may or may not carry a foreign passport. Just like that new CEO who may come from your office in Brazil.. carries a foreign passport. 

Next week, The Brief will address whether Canadian directors carry a grudge against Toronto creatives. Naturally, The Brief welcomes your thoughts and baggage. 

Sources:

The Brief wishes to thank Martin Shewchuk for starting a controversial dialogue, which engaged some of our top industry creatives – many whose points of view informed this article. We hope you write in with your comments and read Part 2, wherein Canadian directors speak out.

• Martin Shewchuk

• The Rant

—–

Comment to Linda at this address: thebrief@to411.com.
LinkedIn // Facebook // Twitter

By TO411Daily Columnist
Linda Chandler

We’ll fix it in post. Remember that? We knew that the storyboard didn’t exactly jump off the page, but that’s because the client couldn’t envision what it would look like when you’d actually see… the old, mundane 4×4 blows up into tiny molecules that morph into a source of light which circles across the entire universe, until it beams down on the top of Mt. Everest where we see a Land Rover. The Land Rover drives down the mount. Cut to SUPER in a b/g of Matisse-like blue. 

But post now has its own blues. For empathy and a clear overview, The Brief spoke with Lesley Parrott of Lesley Parrott Consulting, who has forty years of Canadian commercial production under her belt. Parrott, who was ex-head of production at JWT and MacLaren McCann also helped create MacLaren’s in-house post company, Edge Productions. She currently consults with many of the top ad agencies and clients in Toronto. But today she’s with The Brief.

I ask Parrott about the lay of the land of post, and she tells me that since 2009, the shrinkage in post-production activity is around 10% per year.* There are several reasons why:

1. Duh! Economics.

2. Smaller budgets dictate less costly ideas – less big production. (I’m thinking that perhaps this is why ideas are making a comeback.).

3 Campaign dollars need to be stretched across a variety of platforms – siphoning from television.

4. Toronto is getting more adaptations from the U.S. and globally, and much of this type of work can be done by an agency’s in-house post facilities. (Which is partially why they built them.)

Who’s getting the most post? Once again, if you work for a large agency you may be saving the client money by posting in-house. (Though not necessarily the big brand commercials.) If you want onestop shopping you can bid the collective called Section 8 which are seven companies that offer production, editing and post. Or, you can send your bid to one of the top independents in Toronto… such as Rooster Post. And fortunately for The Brief, Richard Unruh, Partner and Senior Editor of Rooster, happens to be with us right now. 

The Brief: May I call you Rooster? It’s very “True Grit-ish.”

Rooster: Go for it. 

The Brief: Okay. Always wondered. You changed your name from Third Floor to Rooster, was that a re-branding, or about less stairs?

Rooster: Re-branding. Third Floor Editing was a company I owned for over a decade, and when we merged with another editing company called Flashcut we merged both companies under the name “Rooster.” Rooster now has a sister company called Track and Field for online.

The Brief: How would you position Rooster juxtaposed to your competition?

Rooster: I’d say we’re among the leading edge commercial editing and post production companies as far as understanding and implementing new technology. Rooster has established senior editors and highly skilled younger editors, and Track and Field is one of the best online companies in Toronto. They do compositing, design, graphics and 3D animation, and they’ve recently added the capability of full colour correction, which is a service we’re offering using top freelance colourists.

The Brief: I’ve been told that this is the trend, merging editing with online.

Rooster: Well, one of the advantages of having editing and online within one facility is the ability to integrate them creatively throughout the entire editorial process. Being in the same space saves our client’s time and it’s cost efficient for them. And though we often work independently of one another, combined we bring an extraordinary level of detail to our clients both during the rough cut and the finishing stage. 

The Brief: Okay. That was the crowing part of the interview. Now for some tougher stuff. 

Rooster: Bring it on.

The Brief: Have the new budgets been a killer?

Rooster: The budgets are challenging. No question about it, we’re working in a more competitive environment and clients are looking for the most they can get. 

The Brief: How competitive is it?

Rooster: There are a lot of independent post companies in Toronto, and fewer jobs to go around. There are also the phenomena of in-house post companies.

The Brief: Yes, I was speaking earlier with Lesley Parrott about JWT’s The Sauce, and BBD&O’s Ricochet and MacLaren’s Edge Productions. She says that they mostly do fast adaptations, revisions, supers, package changes – those things that can be handled so cost-effectively in-house. Also, creatives only have to go down the hall to make minor changes and that can save the time and cost of having people out of the office. 

Rooster: Yes, but imagine any amount of work staying inside the agency and no longer competitively available to outside creative suppliers. The absence of that work has impacted on all of us. That being said, there’s still a good amount of work that’s tendered out by agencies with in-house post.

The Brief: Very politic of you. Moving on, how have the changes in technology (film to digital) impacted editing and post?

Rooster: Our workflow has changed considerably. With many digital formats being introduced people shooting much more on the Red and Arri’s new Alexa camera, and these promising new Digital SLR formats we’re probably seeing a huge increase in the amount of jobs that are shot on digital as opposed to film, and we’ve had to react to that. Everything in our office is now High Definition. 

The Brief: Isn’t it costly just keeping up with technology? 

Rooster: You have to! Rooster is continuously upgrading our equipment and our workflow which is effected by those changes. And today with people shooting in digital formats the amount of footage shot is quite large as compared to the economics of shooting on film. So while it’s an exciting time for editors – having more visual options is powerful, but it impacts time. Time is money.

The Brief: Have the relationships between your clients and Rooster been strained by economics?

Rooster: Agencies are still looking for people who will execute their idea the best. That’s the team the agency wants to put together. They have a lot of choices. But it’s still about “trust” and relationship. You come off a shoot and you want your footage to land in a place where you know your creative is going to be looked after.

The Brief: I hear that the expectations vs. budget are over-the-moon. Is that so?

Rooster: We want them to be. The expectations of creative teams should be high. We want them to come in, for example, and see an edit that explores possibilities they haven’t thought of. We take the film we’re given… Have a relationship with the director. Encourage the director’s point of view… Then we like to present an edit that isn’t literally the board – maybe it explores a creative direction that is different from what they expect and that should be the starting point. Fresh eyes. Of course we also edit the board if required!

The Brief: So basically, though technology has changed everything, and the economy has changed everything, Rooster has, at its core, not changed at all.

Rooster: Yes! We’ve always believed that you set the bar high. We need to set the bar high. Personally, we love collaboration. When people put their ideas together it’s no different than a few great musicians playing together. You come up with new ways of expressing the idea of the spot. You come up with different ways of looking at things. It’s not about the budget. It’s about inspiration.

The Brief: Speaking of inspiration, I think we’ve come to our end. But… has anybody ever told you that you look a little bit like Jeff Bridges?

Rooster: Don’t edit that!

Sources:

*10% post-production attrition per year is an approximate percentage.

Lesley Parrott, Lesley Parrott Consulting http://www.lesleyparrott.ca/

Richard Unruh, Partner, Sr. Editor Rooster Post

Sean Atkinson Head of Sales, Rooster Post sean@rooster.ca

Rooster Post http://www.rooster.ca

—–

Comment to Linda at this address: thebrief@to411.com.
LinkedIn // Facebook // Twitter

http://to411daily.com/catalog/the-brief/

By TO411Daily Columnist
Linda Chandler

It’s only a little over a decade into our new millennium, so it’s too soon to characterize it as the “Age of…” anything. If anything, it has so far been dominated by innovation in technology, the radicalization of human behavior, revolt in governments, climate tragedies, abuse of our natural resources, a global order in flux, and, for us media miners, a vast population more connected to their virtual lives than their real ones. 

Currently, we’re transfixed by the audacity of Wikileaks, and thunderstruck at how social networks such as Twitter and Facebook helped devolve dictatorships. We still do not know how those changes will resolve themselves and whether the social plague of fanaticism, religious and political, effecting countries, the Earth or Wisconsin unions – will effect the microcosm of our everyday lives – except in a very real sense – many of us feel resolved to a growing madness. 

Evercookies? Tsk tsk! N.pl. “These are browser cookies that never expire and can’t be removed from a computer. They conceal themselves in at least eight places in the hard drive to enable persistent tracking by advertisers and trackers” * 

Doesn’t the thought of that make you crazy? No problem. There’s a pill for that.

Have you noticed how openly we’re advertising mental illness these days? It’s not exactly demystification as it is democratization. Suddenly suffering from mental illness is like having headaches or muscle fatigue. And not just Depression either, depression being the “Everyman’s” mental illness of a decade ago, when the pharmaceutical industry and their ministers and marketers hailed SSRI’s. (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors) as the second coming. Was there life before Prozac? 

David Healy in his book Mania: A Short History of Bipolar Disorder (once known as Manic Depression and now remarketed as Bipolar Disorder) says that the “the never-ending expansion of the category of bipolar disorder, 1, 11, 11 1/2, 111, 111 1/2, 1V, and V, benefits large pharmaceutical companies eager to sell medications marketed with the disorder in mind.” * Even children as young as two years old are being diagnosed and treated for it. (Remember when ADHD was like chicken pox?) 

Why is this happening? The Brief asks rhetorically.

Because mental illness is big business. All syndromes, disorders, diseases and their like are abuzz with opportunity. The market for atypical antipsychotics (currently prescribed for mental disorders such as bipolar disease) is currently worth 18 billion dollars. Twice as much as SSRIs in 2001. 

But the drugs for mental illness, would be risky business without the assistance of PR companies, marketing and branding specialists, websites and online organizations, blogs, banner ads and who knows what else. It’s everything that made the manufacturing and treatment of clinical depression so common… so successful… so rewarding to so many.

Add to that windfall for the pharmaceuticals and their ministries, all the rest of the drug advertising, or, as I like to put it, evening television. How come we don’t seem to question the dark irony of a drug for something as benign as stomach acid causing seizures or kidney disease or death! A litany of side effects which take longer to announce than the real symptoms of the ailment. Why are we not revolting about drugs that are advertised as potentially fatal? 

Big account, that Celebrex!

And drugs have a long shelf life too. Which is good for our industry. You can rebrand them, repurpose them and then remarket them too. Take Wellbutrin, for example. It’s an SSRI for depression, but it has been remarketed, actually double-marketed, as the smoke cessation drug, Zyban. S. Mikkel Borsh-Jacobsen writes, “Illnesses can always be tailored to better sell a particular molecule under a particular patent.” 

And you thought you were fu-ked up! 

Retail items: $33 is the average amount a gift card holder spends beyond the card’s value. 6% is share of retail cards never redeemed. *

Just be happy. Professor Jennifer Aaker teaches a happiness class at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She consults with clients including AOL, Adobe and Facebook who use her teachings to increase employee productivity and entice customers. Aackers says “the idea of brands enabling happiness and providing greater meaning to the world is powerful… people have an aversion to anything that feels overly manufactured.” Her research defines happiness as “a state of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy.” * Sounds like one-half of bi-polar disorder.

Clearly, in the beginnings of this new millennium, the earth and all its inhabitants are hanging by a thread. Tweet that. Retweet that. Is that your BlackBerry or mine? Ooops, I forgot to pick up the kids!

If you want to be happy for the rest of your life listen to this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh9ZZgDqzAg

SOURCES

  * Wired February 11, 2011, pg. 42, Jargon Watch
* Wired February 11, 2011, pg. 44 Secret Messages by Clive Thomsson
* A Short History of Bipolar Disorder by David Healy, John Hopkins University Press, 2008
* On the subject of mental illness and the pharmaceutical industry, The Brief discusses it only because it is a source of account building and revenue for advertisers and marketers. Mental Illness is real and easy to get in our business. Seek help from your health care practitioner or The Canadian Psychiatric Association: http://www.cpa-apc.org/index.php
* Inc. The Magazine for Growing Companies February 2011.
* Fast Company, February 2011, “The Business of Happiness” by Nancy Cook.

—–

Comment to Linda at this address: thebrief@to411.com.
LinkedIn // Facebook // Twitter

By TO411Daily Columnist
Linda Chandler

Commercial production companies are trying very hard to please. 

After speaking to several top commercial executive producers over the last couple of weeks, it’s become clear to The Brief, if not to the production companies themselves, that giving 100% is not only more difficult these days, it’s not enough. 

Now advertising agencies have never been pliable entities; if they were they’d be yoga studios. But given their tighter budgets, combined with excessive demands and doing the downward dog to satisfy the client, it’s the commercial production houses that feels the endgame.

Liane Thomas, Executive Producer at Sons and Daughters, (of Knorr’s “Salty” fame,) is a pragmatic optimist about all the above. 

This is the conversation The Brief had with Thomas about the new challenges of being a commercial production company in the year 2011.

The Brief: I hear from lots of your competitors that it’s tough going right now?

Thomas: It’s changed. It’s still good. It’s just that we have to work a lot harder to play in today’s market. We cannot do what we did six years ago. We can’t even do what we did three years ago, or two years ago. It’s an irresponsible approach to one’s business to not make some shrewd decisions.

We’re trying to figure it out! That’s the vibe. We’re all trying to figure out where we should be in order to move forward. 

The Brief: Can you blame the recession?

Thomas: Canada was ready for the recession because we have always worked in a bubble where we know how to do things efficiently. And that’s what makes things so frustrating now. Because there’s no fat. I promise you! For everybody, there’s no fat. What’s so hard is when we have to pay for overtime because we were asked to take the quote down from a 14-hour day to a 12-hour day and we wind up shooting 16 hours! It’s really hard that one’s word doesn’t really count anymore. 

The Brief: I’m hearing this same thing from other sources. 

Thomas: Yeah. It’s what’s happening.

The Brief: What about the role of the agency producer as mediator?

Thomas: The role of the agency producer could not be more important in today’s world. Because they have to understand how to work with the client so that the clients feel confident that the costs (attached to doing the commercials) are accurate. Nobody is submitting excessive budgets. Every line is pared down to the absolute minimum - if not less! than what we realistically need. 

The Brief: Just say “no”? 

Thomas: Yes. It’s the inability to say “no” in this world. And Sons and daughters doesn’t want to say “no” to our clients either. We want them to feel we gave them everything they wanted. We are constantly trying to please so many people and maybe agencies are afraid of disappointing their clients. They want to make sure they’re so covered off there’s no room for disappointment.

The Brief: So the problem is managing expectations?

Thomas: We have to be much more supportive of each other in these harder times and not play mean games in order to get a day in the shot. Everybody thinks they’re going to get taken advantage of. It ain’t there.

The Brief: Is it crass to ask about production fees?

Thomas: No. The standard production fee used to be 20%. To get 15% as a production fee today is lucky. 

The Brief: Short of luck?

Thomas: It’s generally somewhere around 10%. 

The Brief: So basically you’re all packing your lunch! May I ask what are the costs for a shoot day?

Thomas: Today, $150,000 to $155,000, in Toronto, should be a very happy place to do what you need to do and make a fair living. I think we’re averaging $125,000 – $140,000 tops. 

The Brief: So how do you make a profit?

Thomas: You don’t make a lot of money anymore… You love what you do and are consistent with your work. And hire the right people who are smart at their jobs: line producers, art directors, production managers, suppliers – and directors who you can work with!

The Brief: And your last words of wisdom?

Thomas: Change your perspective and enjoy the process. If you don’t love it, get out. 

The Brief thanks Liane Thomas for her honesty, pluckiness, and spirit of fair play. Next week we’ll explore the post-recession changes in commercial post production. 

Until then… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlBiLNN1NhQ/

SOURCES:

sonsanddaughters.ca

liane@sonsanddaughters.ca

—–

Comment to Linda at this address: thebrief@to411.com.
LinkedIn // Facebook // Twitter