By TO411Daily Columnist
Linda Chandler

The Brief spoke with Wayne Fenske, founder and Executive Producer of LTB Films, and Scott Mackenzie, Partner and Executive Producer at Radke Film Group, to scope out the changes in television production – 2011. 

Wayne Fenske – Housekeeping and traveling light.

The Brief: I’m going to ask you a question that goes right to the jugular. Why are some production companies closing? 

Fenske: One reason is that a lot of new companies opened up and then the recession hit. There just wasn’t enough work to spread around.

Also, the industry became more internet driven; we didn’t need all the “trappings” we used to need. Some companies didn’t react to the changes and cut their overheads in time. They lumbered along with big spaces and too many people on staff.

The Brief: You saw change coming?

Fenske: This is where my strength is. I’m the person who figures things out. So LTB did housekeeping 5 or 6 years ago

The Brief: What specific changes did LTB make?

Fenske: We changed the breadth of everything. We only hire when we need to. We don’t have like a hundred people on staff anymore. We have what it takes to maintain the business, and when we need to staff-up we do that. So if we don’t have jobs for a couple of weeks, we’re fine.

The Brief: LTB converted to digital early too.

Fenske: Ten years ago. 

The Brief: How come?

Fenske: At the time, we were shooting all over the world for President’s Choice with Bensimon-Byrne, so we started using Beta SP Aeroflex and the Sony 900 HD. You can travel very light with digital. Unlike cans and cans of film, I could throw the tapes in my shoulder bag and get on the plane. You can get home with it edited. That’s another article altogether.

The Brief: Okay. While I have you and you seem to read the future fairly well, do you think the industry will be all digital at some point?

Fenske: Yeah. But there will always be someone who wants to shoot film.

The Brief: Like vinyl.

Fenske: Like driving a vintage Jag.

The Brief: That would be you!

Scott Mackenzie and new math.

The Brief: How much does it cost to produce a high-end TV spot today?

Mackenzie: Before, an expensive 30-second spot would run you, on the shooting side, $175,000. Then two years ago, when we started seeing the contraction, that budget came down to maybe $150,000… I would say the budgets are probably down anywhere from 10-20%.

The Brief: And the number of commercials?

Mackenzie: The number of commercials is probably down 20%.

The Brief would like to note that at the annual February Freeze, Paul Bronfman, owner of William F. White, a leading equipment supplier to commercial production, estimated the decline of commercial production at roughly 50% over the past two or three years.

The Brief: How about the number of shooting days?

Mackenzie: The day on days is probably down 25%. I don’t know what the total would be for the community, but if the community was shooting 1200 days a year, we’re now probably shooting 900 days a years.

You have a global contraction, and economically, the way it manifests itself in advertising, is there are three kinds of production: one that has money, one that has days, and then there’s production that doesn’t have any money or any days. There are all different price categories. What we do on our side is manage the expectations of each of the different categories.

The challenge is even when you don’t have money, you want everything that you can get creatively on both sides because we’re obviously working for the agency and the client.

The creative team want it to be as big as they can make it, and the director wants it to be as big as he can make it and we try to satisfy everybody’s wish list.

The Brief: Smaller budgets and fewer shooting days. Ouch!

Mackenzie: It makes it hard because volume of work is necessary for infrastructure, and on our side it’s so we can mentor new directors and bring new people in, and I think it’s the same on the creative side – so it’s a challenge.

The Brief: How do you see the industry moving forward?

Mackenzie: The good news is that the recession’s over. It just hasn’t manifested itself on the street. The consumer doesn’t know it’s over, and the advertiser is waiting for the consumer to recognize it. And what’s been happening in the last – I would say – two months is that we’ve started to see the business coming back, but it’s coming back with a new reality.

The Brief: The “new reality”? That sounds like a euphemism for something unpleasant.

Mackenzie: Well, we will have to be more efficient with how we spend money on the process side. The process of production is tighter. Tighter on our prep time and on our shoot days. In the past we’d sometimes shoot 14-16 hour days, now we’re doing 12. We don’t have the money for overtime.

But, I’d say we’ve always been the most efficient in North America on a shoot day anyway. Whether you’re shooting in Toronto, Vancouver, or Montreal you get the best bang for your buck on a production day compared to shooting in the U.S..

The Brief: Are there any big changes that impact the new reality?

Mackenzie: The big changes are moving to digital cinematography.

The Brief: That sounds familiar.

Mackenzie: When you look at shooting film for a day, you’ve got a camera that’s $5,000, and you’ve got film stock that’s $10,000. If you go digital, you’ve got a camera that’s $4.000, and you’ve got digital that comes in somewhere around $4500.00, once you do the cloning that’s necessary. So you’re saving over $5,000 a shoot day.

The management of the creative also lets you save money. You can have a cast of 30 or you can have a cast of 10. And if you have a cast of 10 you have less casting, less wardrobe, less people feed… etc.

The Brief: So digital saves the day.

Mackenzie: Digital is usually there for cost-savings first, and for creative second. But digital gives you some things that more money can’t buy.

The Brief: Such as?

Mackenzie: Digital’s a quicker result. And instant gratification.

You can shoot digital and walk away with a disc that day, and the manipulation of it is easier on the post side. The time line’s quicker.

To the educated eye there’s still a difference between film and digital. But the technologies are getting closer, and I think we’ll see digital grow to match film.

The Brief would like to thank Wayne Fenske and Scott Mackenzie for their insights.

For the Superbowl 2011 commercials you (sadly) missed in Canada, click here.

Sources:

Scott Mackenzie, Radke Film Group

Wayne Fenske, LTB Films

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By TO411Daily Columnist
Linda Chandler

Timing is everything. And building momentum for 3D across advertising platforms today is a little like buying your wedding dress before you meet the guy. Perhaps that’s the reason why the enthusiasm in the TIFF Bell Lighthouse theatre, after a seminar on 3D for Advertising Week, was a bit tepid. The Brief had to wonder whether learning about a technology that’s not quite ready for prime time made some creatives anxious to get back to work. In 2D.

That said, the Brief is a big believer in being ready for the future. So, in the words of James Stewart, the Don Quixote of 3D, Producer/Director of Geneva Films, and the host of this seminar – “Are you ready for the 3D Revolution?” Because as Stewart sees it, “In the future, the work that you’re doing is going to be in stereoscopic 3D.” In his opinion, “There’s no reason why we should continue living in a 2D media world.” It’s so shallow.

3D tells a story. Differently. Stewart believes that the whole purpose of 3D is content. It’s more immersive storytelling. Which is why, he says, “it is so great for brands.” Shooting in 3D, which uses two cameras, a left eye and right eye camera, allows you to physically move the eye where you want it to focus, and create the experience you want the consumer to engage with. Stewart says this richer, more involved experience in 3D has also been proven to increase brand message retention rates. ESPN recently conducted a research study on their 3D TV audience during the World Cup, and results proved that the 3D viewing audience had a 15-16% lift in brand recall, ad liking increased 67% from 2D to 84% with 3D; cued recall 68% with 2D/ 83% with 3D, and purchase intent 68%- 2D/83%- 3D. With numbers like that why would you ever want to shoot in 2D?

ESPN becomes a 3D network. Scott Clarke ESPN’s exec VP-sales and marketing, Sean Bratches, said all commercial inventory on ESPN 3D will be shot in 3-D, not repurposed or converted from 2-D. Advertisers are ready to make the leap into 3-D, too. Sony will be one of the first sponsors to air a 3-D TV ad during the World Cup coverage, Mr. Bratches said, with plans already under way for ESPN’s first 3-D promo, for “This Is SportsCenter.”

All commercial inventory on ESPN 3D will be shot in 3-D, Mr. Bratches added. No spots will be repurposed or converted from 2-D. “We don’t think that’s an experience that is meritorious to the platform,” he said. “From a consumer experience standpoint, we have one time to get this right, and the consumer experience is critically important to us as we look at the ESPN brand, as well as our advertising partners and distribution partners as we look at their brands. The network… will be distributed across Comcast’s full digital footprint of 18.9 million homes later this summer. 

This could be a very creative opportunity for your brands. (How lucky for you that you came to this seminar!)

Similarly, kinda porn takes to 3D. “Break Media and Lionsgate are attempting to figure that out with the official launch of Break’s 3-D channel, sponsored by “Saw 3D.” The site represents the first major 3-D content hub on the web, and features sections such as Life 3D, where Break viewers can watch otherwise ordinary clips of girls in bikinis splashing each other in a pool, having a pillow fight, or swinging on a swingset… but in 3-D. Hollywood studio Lionsgate is, appropriately enough, featuring a version of its trailer for “Saw 3D” and is helping Break get the word out about how viewers can get their free glasses. (The trailer itself is not in 3-D, but the content around it is.)

What does it cost to create in 3D? Production costs for live action, not animation, are 10-25% more than 2D. CG is 10% more. And if you want to convert 2D to 3D it will cost 5K to 100K per minute. The more details, the more layers – the more money.

Deluxe Toronto has been immersed in 3D post production, recently completing the colour correction on “Hubble” (IMAX), the DI and Mix on “Resident Evil 3D: The Afterlife” (Sony, Impact Pictures, Constantin Film) and “Saw VII 3D” (Lionsgate, Evolution). The amount of data captured and in need of processing can be substantial with posting 3D and ups the cost.

Stewart tells us that 3D is about content and it allows for a total visceral experience. But so far, until the day when you don’t need special glasses, The Brief believes you need over-priced theatre popcorn to enjoy it. 

That said, digital 3D is still pretty much on the ground floor of creative innovation. Which means there’s an opportunity for you to break through along all the platforms that will be available to consumers of entertainment and gaming on 3D. Eventually glasses free.

So start dreaming now. In 3D. 

The following are 3D spots featured at Stewart’s seminar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16hPBsw2Uy4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJiL-PAMI80&feature=related

Sources:

• http://www.genevafilmco.com/

• http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=143816 “…at the National Cable Telecommunications Association conference in Los Angeles this week, the conversation has now shifted to 3-D’s actual distribution in the home/

• http://adage.com/digitalnext/post?article_id=146382

‘Saw 3D’ Sponsors Site With Girls-in-Bikini Videos
Posted by Andrew Hampp on 10.08.10 @ 02:52 PM 

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By TO411Daily Columnist
Linda Chandler

Get your game on.

Right now, in real time, your brand directors and media planners should be considering ways to integrate your brand on social games. Because this is where the moms, dads, kids, tweens, teens and singles hang out. All 230 million of them are engaging actively with their gaming community at any given time. The stats from SocialTimes.com report that “95% of social gamers log on to play at least two to three times a week, and 64% log on one or more times per day.”

Where is Oz? It’s in CityVille from Zynga, the newest hotspot on Facebook. The object of this game is to build a great town, from the ground up, and its success has been meteoric. It took CityVille less than one month to surpass the game magnet, FarmVille, in terms of both daily and monthly active users, and it took under forty days for it to reach 100 million users. Take a quick tour of the game here and find out how it hooks you for virtual goods and currency.

FarmVille, by Zynga has approximately 80 million active users and 18-plus million users play it every single day. The game pulled in as much as 200% more net profit in 2009 than Facebook itself. ABC reports that the majority of Farmville players are 40-something women, but a vast diversity of generations play the game.

The virtual economy is not in a recession. In social gaming, the commerce is flourishing. Avatars have never had it better. The gaming world is overflowing with branded and non-branded virtual goods – just close your eyes and dream up anything you could possibly want but can’t afford in real life, and then pay for it with virtual currency… that costs real money. Real, real money.

As a matter of fact, in the real world, virtual currency adds up to nearly $2 billion this year, according to ThinkEquity, a financial research firm in San Francisco. *

Don’t you want some of that for your brand? Volvo does. Elizabeth Olson reports in nytimes.com that “Volvo Cars of North America, the clothing retailer H&M and MTV Networks are among the diverse brands entering the market for virtual goods.”

Gamers buy Facebook Credits in the following currencies. Hint. Hint. US Dollars (USD); Australian Dollars (AUD), British Pounds (GBP); Canadian Dollars (CAD); Chilean Peso (CLP); Colombian Peso (COP); Danish Krone (DKK); Euro (EUR); Hong Kong Dollar (HKD); Japanese Yen (JPY); Norwegian Krone (NOK); Swedish Krona (SEK); Swiss Franc (CHF); Turkish Lira (TRY), and Venezuelan Bolivar (VEF). Monopoly money is not accepted.

To make some sense of all the ephemera above, The Brief invites you to listen to The Globe and Mail’s Ivor Tossell on “Virtual Goods = Jackpot.” [Download (.mp3)]

Sources include:

*http://www.socialtimes.com/2010/02/your-mom-farmville/

*http:/www.nytimes.com/1010/09/07/businessmedia/07adco.htm

*Farmville: http://mashable.com/2010/09/10/farmville-vs-real-farms-infographic/ – disqus_thread

*Stock market game – Empire Avenue: http://thenextweb.com/apps/2010/11/05/social-stock-market-empire-avenue-introduces-real-world-rewards/

*http:/www.socialtimes.com/2010/02/gurbaksh-chahal-interview/

*Read how Zynga has removed scams from games: http://techcrunch.com/2009/11/02/zynga-takes-steps-to-remove-scams-from-games/

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/digital-culture/ivor-tossell/virtual-goods-jackpot/article1513400/

*http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/business/media/07adco.html?ref=mtvnetworksAdvertising Marketing Fanciful Items in the Lands of Make Believe By Elizabeth Olson, September 6, 2010

A real comment about virtual goods:

Jonathan Jennings 1 Sep 2010 at 12:58 am PST:
“I think there is a lot of money to be made in virtual goods. While I admit I was originally opposed to the idea I have seen avatar items take off on Xbox live. I have seen everything from the “save carmine” shirts for gears of war 3 to the RC car Item available to players straight from the Microsoft avatar area. I think what really made the items take off though is the amount of items there are for each game, the turning point for myself was seeing a t-shirt with the transformers logo on it, at the time I thought that was just too cool and since anyone logging into Xbox live can see your avatar on their friends list it’s very obvious someone would see it. While I very rarely care for things like that I admit it has its charm. That goes hand in hand with the personalization you speak of in my opinion. Players are given the ability to represent there favorite games on their avatar and considering Xbox live is a gaming service it’s obvious that such representation is appreciated or will be understood.”

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By TO411Daily Columnist
Linda Chandler

When screenwriter Aaron Sorkin picked up his Golden Globe for The Social Network Sunday night, he called the real Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, an ‘altruist’. 

An altruist is someone who believes that the general welfare of society is the proper goal of an individual’s actions. 

Either Sorkin had a lot to drink, or, Zuckerberg just made a deal with him to underwrite his next three films, which would run exclusively on the Facebook platform.

Ironically, looking after the general welfare of the 500-million-plus Facebook users (worldwide) is Facebook’s weak spot and at the core of this week’s controversy with Zuckerberg’s company. The world’s largest Social Network has long dealt with privacy issues. In large part because the concept of privacy conflicts with the company’s mission to “make the world more open and connected.”

On the irksome subject of privacy protection, Zuckerberg summons his whole 25 years of life experience to explain, “People are learning how to use the site and what’s OK to share. As time goes on, people will learn what’s appropriate, what’s safe for them – and learn to share accordingly.”

‘Sharing accordingly’ appears to be at the crux of the problem for Facebook this week. 

The problem for users was signing up to gain access to the free social games which live on the Facebook platform. Games from Zygna, such as FarmVille, CityVille and Mafia Wars, have grown into a major pastime. But it wasn’t long before users realized that the convenient and easy permission box for access to the APP required far too much sharing – As in users’ mobile numbers and current addresses.

“In a carefully-worded blog posted Tuesday at 2:25 a.m., Facebook outlined the benefits of the expanded sharing options, and they noted that the company would be disabling the “feature” for several weeks to make changes to the tool that enabled Facebook app developers to access users’ private information.”*

Internet security firm Sophos warned that the third-party policy could “herald a new level of danger for Facebook users,” noting, “the ability to access users’ home addresses will also open up more opportunities for identity theft, combined with the other data that can already be extracted from Facebook users’ profiles. Facebook is already plagued by rogue applications that post spam links to users’ walls, and point users to survey scams that earn them commission – and even sometimes trick users into handing over their cellphone numbers to sign them up for a premium rate service. Now, shady app developers will find it easier than ever before to gather even more personal information from users.”

“Inside Mobile Apps”, Facebook’s new Wikileak-alike tool dedicated to helping developers and analysts who need to track the convergence of mobile apps, social platforms and virtual goods is clearly not in the best interest of the over 500 million Facebook users.

The following is an IM exchange with 19-year-old Mark Zuckerberg after he launched The Facebook in his Harvard dorm room:*

Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard. Just ask. I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS.

[Redacted Friend’s Name]: What? How’d you manage that one?

Zuck: People just submitted it. I don’t know why. They “trust me. Dumb f*cks!”

Sources: TT

• Associated Press

• The Huffington Post Bianca Bosker, First Posted: 01/17/11 10:55 AM Updated: 01/17/11 05:29 PM

• http://www.quotesdaddy.com/quote/1043766/mark-zuckerberg/people/
  

Sophos blog

Security

• Zuckerberg’s IM message: anecdotal

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By TO411Daily Columnist Linda Chandler

Well, of course, you turn 40 and throw everything away for a pretty face. Have you seen the new Starbucks logo, 2011?

Abandoned is the iconic green logo. Banished is the black ring that surrounded the historic “siren”.* And most curious of all, gone is the name “Starbucks.” The siren is now free to be all that she can be. Evidently, Starbucks’ President and CEO, Howard Schultz is enamored with this brand-expanding metaphor. In an online video about the undressed logo, Schultz said, “What we’ve allowed is for the siren to come out of the circle in a way that gives us the freedom and possibility to think beyond coffee. But make no mistake, we always will be the world’s leading purveyor of the highest quality of coffee.”*

“The decision set off a wave of criticism from designers, much like the Gap logo fiasco last year. Gap unveiled a new logo so bland that the company was bombarded with complaints and scrapped it,”* writes Steven Heller of NYTimes.com.

Let’s look at the old and new Starbucks logo to see what all the fuss is about.

First of all, one is struck by this: doesn’t it look like the siren’s pointing to the top of her head saying, “Doncha love the tiara?” And secondly, who is she and why doesn’t she look familiar? I had to venti somewhere. The Brief called David Soberman, Canadian National Chair in Strategic Marketing and Professor of Marketing at Rotman School of Management. Professor Soberman sums up Starbucks re-branding attempt in two words: “Not wise. These companies have a tendency to be intoxicated with their own success. Starbucks made a poor decision because one of the most important things to do is keep your brand name in.” Soberman says that broadening your brand is not a good reason to get rid of a recognizable logo, and that what was in the the center of Starbucks’ logo was not well-known. He tells me about a fiasco with Tropicana about 3 years ago, when they changed the graphics on their packaging, confusing consumers into thinking they were looking at a generic brand, and not Tropicana. “Their re-packaging efforts cost the company 20-share points,” Soberman recalls. When Nike removed their name, we all recognized the Swoosh. Same with Apple. But with Starbucks’ new deconstructed logo, (liberated from all those nagging elements of successful branding), a visceral connection disconnects for me. The old Starbucks logo accompanied me through all of my caffeinated life – from Los Angeles to Toronto, to new jobs, and long drives, and confidential talks (at Starbucks!), and to a shared experience of one perk a day. An over-priced latte.

This is what The Brief concludes: when re-branding (as Coca Cola taught us), a company needs to reconsider the consumer’s personal narrative as well. I want my old cup back. It runneth over.

Cue: Jimmy Kimmel’s take on Starbucks’ new logo:

*The Siren has been the symbol at the center of the Starbucks brand mark for 40 years, and yet has never been used as a central figure or story of the Starbucks brand heritage. The connection from the Siren mermaid and the Starbucks brand name was never widely communicated to consumers. Sure, it was common knowledge in branding circles (and among English lit majors) that the name comes from a coffee-swilling old salt in the novel Moby Dick. And industry insiders know the mermaid logo is derived from Seattle’s seafaring history. But most Starbucks customers have grown to love this unique name and logo without much context or explanation. http://blog.interbrand.com/blog/post/2011/01/06/Starbucks-Rebrand-At-Age-40-a-Sirene28099s-Coming-Out-Party.aspx

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/weekinreview/09heller.html/

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