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Presentation given by Peter Collingridge to Dundee School of Digital Art and Imaging, on what it means to be a New Media Producer. For more info visit www.aptstudio.com/timesemit
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What does a producer do?
Live a life of glamour, parties and celebs?
The odd cell phone call between lunches?
Catch a private screening, among friends?
In my case, sadly not.
The truth is,I don’t really know
what a producer does.
I just do my job
“Make shit happen”
“Have an idea & run with it”
Text
Stress
On timeOn budgetOn brief
My Job Skills
Network
ClientsDesignersProgrammersThinkersCreativesPlannersIllustratorsAnimatorsFilm-makersEditorsCopywritersGraffiti artistsMusiciansSound designersCorporationsJournalists
Organisation
PlanDocumentBriefPitch & presentCo-ordinateForeseeNegotiateBudget
Multi-taskProblem-solve
Critical
Art directionTechnical
Manage
TrustCreativityReliabilityQuality
Why do you need to know about producers, you’re creatives?
I do all the stuff you can’t doYou do all the stuff I can’t do
= Symbiosis
How do you become “a producer”?
Text
Rejected
Oxford, ECA, Radio 1, Jazz Cafe, JWT, Grey, Hi-Res!, Pentagram, The Guardian, Penguin, Faber & Faber, HarperCollins, Channel4, &c &c
My Career PathMy Career Path
A Levels(91-93)
English, French, German. Art & Design.Degree(93-97)
English Lit.
Canongate(97-01)
Gopher. Assistant. Amanuensis. Damien Hirst. Andy Warhol. Gil Scott Heron. ConnectionsFun. No money.Recommend it.
Screenbase(01-05)
Work in. Work out.Burn out.
Apt Studio(05-)
Creative consultancy, Great boss.
Some Work1. Canongate Books
SnowblindDamien Hirst, Howard Marks.1998
Andy Warhol: The Factory Years. Nat Finkelstein, Angus Hyland. 1999
The Pocket Canons. God, Angus Hyland (1999)
2. Pop Promos for Books
Short Films inspired by booksOpen brief
‘Viral’ online distributionFilm festivals, DVDs, Creative Review
Drive traffic to Canongate siteSell lots of books
Wrote business plan for SAC / LotteryAwarded £25,000 development
The Concept
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.(Dir. Intro)
Gil Scott Heron promo:www.aptstudio.com/portfolio/gil.htm
Hey, Nostradamus!(Dir. Mickey Stretton)
Doug Coupland promo:http://www.aptstudio.com/heynostradamus/
Life of Pi(Dir. Hoss Gifford)
Life of Pi promo:http://hossgifford.com/pi/
The Baghdad Blog (Dir. Intro)
Baghdad Blog promo:http://baghdadblog.aptstudio.com/home/
Anatomy: The Long Tail
Get offered a promo
4 week deadline
Random House UK
(New Client)
Personally requested by CEO
Talk to Hoss:“yes, it can be done”
Objectives
Build Word of Mouth
Announce it to geeks
Encourage UK sales
Make RH look cool
Strategy
Chris’ blog - massively popular
Launch exclusive PDF through blog
Use promo as extra honey pot: YouTube, Google
Creative Commons, Adwords
Belt & braces
Agree tech specs (flash version, frame rate, aspect ratio, file size, hosting environment, seeding strategy).
Luck
i.e. get paid to do some sexy promo work again. Whilst on holiday.
We’ll come onto that...
Always, always, always get it in writing and signed off.
‘Nutshell’ the bookSimple, smart, minimal animation of key
statistics and insights from the book. Visual language of informatics, but made sexy
and funky with elegant typography. Mixture of vector, 3d, type.
‘Win an award’
Creative brief
Visual approach & moodReferences
“Tone of voice”Audio referenceVoice reference
Find balance between winning work & setting bar way too high
Pitch approach to client
#1 Royksopp, Remind Me
Royskopp promo:http://64.207.133.64/spotPopupMovie.php?id=911&qual=1
#2 Orange, The Sea
Orange ‘The Sea’ ad:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raji46D-N2E
TextTextText
#3 Sony Bravia
Bravia ad:http://www.bravia-advert.com/commercial/braviaextcommhigh.html
#4 Nannou, Aphex Twin
Nannou:http://videos.antville.org/stories/1286803/
SUDDENLY, THE MISSES ARE BECOMING AS PROFITABLE AS THE HITS.
VOICEOVER Visuals“WE ARE TOLD THAT SUCCESS IS MEASURED BY BESTSELLERS, BLOCKBUSTERS, AND HITS.BUT WHAT ABOUT THE INFINITE NUMBER OF NON-HITS? IN THE INTERNET AGE OF UNLIMITED CHOICE, THESE MISSES ARE NOW EASILY AVAILABLE TO US.OBSCURE FILMS, NEW MUSIC, SPECIALIST BOOKS - OUR DEMAND FOR THE NICHE GROWS.
THIS IS THE THEORY OF THE LONG TAIL. AND IT’S REVOLUTIONISING THE WAY WE LIVE.”
Single dots fly past the camera with animated annotations appearing as they pass with the names of the hits that they represent.
2 sec 50f
An explosion of less vibrant dots creating a galaxy of non hits, not annotated. Camera starts flying through galaxy.10 sec 250f
Galaxy of dots swarm to fill pie chart with hits accounting for small slither of pie. 19 sec 475f Hit dots from pie chart swarm to fill highly ordered grid formation. Animated annotation tags hits as ‘Books in Borders superstore’. Miss dots now swarm in to extend grid 40 times larger (gun scene in Matrix stylee) and tags misses as ‘40 x more books on Amazon’.
26 sec 650f
All dots fly through air doing a sexy swirl and ending up building the long tail graph curve. Book fades in to right of graph.
35 sec 875f
Graph dots fly to build Chris Anderson’s face as book spins to back to reveal testimonial quotes.
44 sec 1100f
Stage 2: Final Script, voiceover and timings
Stage 3:Creative process
Beery bubbles
Labels
Pie Charts
Pie Charts w/ labels
Long Tails
Stage 4: Audio. Brief
“Find the voice”(No budget for professionals)
My view:Female
AccentedFuture of business:
China
Voiceover: Xiao
“WE ARE TOLD THAT SUCCESS IS MEASURED BY BESTSELLERS, BLOCKBUSTERS, AND HITS.
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE INFINITE NUMBER OF NON-HITS? IN THE INTERNET AGE OF UNLIMITED CHOICE, THESE MISSES ARE NOW EASILY AVAILABLE TO US.
OBSCURE FILMS, NEW MUSIC, SPECIALIST BOOKS - OUR DEMAND FOR THE NICHE GROWS.
SUDDENLY, THE MISSES ARE BECOMING AS PROFITABLE AS THE HITS.
THIS IS THE THEORY OF THE LONG TAIL. AND IT’S REVOLUTIONISING THE WAY WE LIVE.”
__________REJECTEDBY CLIENT___________
Voiceover: Kelsey
“WE ARE TOLD THAT SUCCESS IS MEASURED BY BESTSELLERS, BLOCKBUSTERS, AND HITS.
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE INFINITE NUMBER OF NON-HITS? IN THE INTERNET AGE OF UNLIMITED CHOICE, THESE MISSES ARE NOW EASILY AVAILABLE TO US.
OBSCURE FILMS, NEW MUSIC, SPECIALIST BOOKS - OUR DEMAND FOR THE NICHE GROWS.
SUDDENLY, THE MISSES ARE BECOMING AS PROFITABLE AS THE HITS.
THIS IS THE THEORY OF THE LONG TAIL. AND IT’S REVOLUTIONISING THE WAY WE LIVE.”
___________REJECTEDBY CLIENT___________
Voiceover: Maria
“WE ARE TOLD THAT SUCCESS IS MEASURED BY BESTSELLERS, BLOCKBUSTERS, AND HITS.
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE INFINITE NUMBER OF NON-HITS? IN THE INTERNET AGE OF UNLIMITED CHOICE, THESE MISSES ARE NOW EASILY AVAILABLE TO US.
OBSCURE FILMS, NEW MUSIC, SPECIALIST BOOKS - OUR DEMAND FOR THE NICHE GROWS.
SUDDENLY, THE MISSES ARE BECOMING AS PROFITABLE AS THE HITS.
THIS IS THE THEORY OF THE LONG TAIL. AND IT’S REVOLUTIONISING THE WAY WE LIVE.”
___________AUDITIONACCEPTED___________
43 individual takes to tape in the studio
None of them perfect
Cut up and piece together one take
Meanwhile, back at Hoss’ ranch, a wireframe...
Wireframe run-through:http://64.13.209.91/apt/wireframe.mov
Scene 1 fully rendered with lables
Rendered scene 1http://64.13.209.91/apt/scene1.mov
Proof w/ Boards of Canada audio track... and a happy client
Proof:http://64.13.209.91/apt/proofBOCaudio.mov
Final renders, 4 days to go before deadlineEveryone happy
Sudden heatwave in ScotlandHoss’ motherboard & graphics card blow up
Hoss buys new MacBook to handle it No right click
Hoss buys 3 motherboards and graphics cards from 3 suppliers1 gets there on time
But not before Hoss’ stag weekend in IbizaRender farm contract expires
When you have a happy client, and are on time - shit happens.
Video:http://64.13.209.91/apt/pstormmed.mov
What kind of a person becomes a producer?
What is a producer?
Networked
ClientsTalentEmergency services
Literate
Client needs, talent needs
Design, technical - whatever your field is: speak that language fluently
Make yourself an expert
Focused
Planning, timing, resource, detail
Has Plan A, but also, Plan B, Plan C...
Hungry
Looking at new projectsNew talentNew approachesNew technologies
Lateral thinking
Lucky
“Golf is a game of luck.
The more I practise, the luckier I get...”
always, always, always get it in writing and signed off.
p.s: Anatomy: Salam Pax
Get offered a promo
4 week deadline
Guardian / Atlantic Books
5k budget
Pitch: hi-res, banksy, intro
adrian convinces me:
“we’ll squeeze it in between robbie & bobby”
Meta-marketing
Put up website to capture email addresses & google
Belt & braces
Agree tech specs (flash version, frame rate, aspect ratio, file size, hosting environment, seeding strategy)
Luck
15,000 email addresses captured in six weeks
GNL photo archive
GNL server platform
Salam blogged it
Aphex got involved
Always, always, always get it in writing and signed off.
•thursday 19 september 2002 – I really wish that Massive Attack would start worrying about the delay in their album release rather than this
•friday 21 March 2:05pm They said that nine B52 bombers have left the airfield in Britain and are flying 'presumably' towards Iraq. Anyway, they have six hours to get here...
•saturday 21 september IRAQI PEOPLE WILL EXPERIENCE PROSPERITY UNKNOWN TO THEM IRAQI PEOPLE WILL SEE THEY HAVE A FRIEND WITH THE AMERICAN PEOPLE – Sure, IRAQ WILL NO LONGER CONTRIBUTE MONEY TO TERRORIST GROUPS – Wwe will contribute cheap reliable oil to keep western economies going
•Monday 23 september Remember – never try to do work or drive while listening to Bjork or Aphex Twin – they do strange things to your brain cells.
•saturday 12 October THE WHITE HOUSE PLAN TO INSTALL AN AMERICAN-LED MILITARY GOVERNMENT IN IRAQ. – Don’t expect me to buy little American flags to welcome the new colonists
Stage 1. Read book, draft script, agree script.
•Saturday, 2 November 2002 – I think by now we all agree that I talk too much and need someone to take the keyboard away from me.
•tuesday 12 november WORLD SEES CHANCE FOR PEACE – Funny, the world sees peace while I have to prepare a bomb shelter in my house..
•tuesday 17 december – There are three things you can do whenever you like in Iraq get seriously ill get arrested get executed
•sunday 16 march – No one inside Iraq is for war (note I said war not a change of regime). We are not suicidal you know. How could 'support democracy in Iraq' come to mean ' bomb the hell out of Iraq?'
•thursday 20 march – Someone in the BBC said that the state radio has been taken over taken by US broadcast. That didn’t happen (6.40 am)
•friday 21 march 6:05 Two more hours until the B52s get to Iraq
MAINSTREAM MEDIA REPORTS
Salam’s Blog
Salam’s own photos - not good enoughPhoto library - too expensive
What to do?
Go through entire GNL photojournalism archive for images tagged according to our script
Stage 2. Source Assets for the promo
Stage 3: Luck
Intro does work for meIntro does work for WarpWarp publish Aphex Twin
Aphex loves Salam
Aphex gives us any tune to use, for the promo,free
Treatment
Final Cut
Baghdad Blog promo:http://baghdadblog.aptstudio.com/home/
Final Cut
15,000 email addresses1,300,000 hits
70,000 Unique Visitors In 14 Days 15,000 Downloads Of Chapter 1
Integrated Campaign With Guardian Newspapers & GuardianUnlimited
Project Delivered In 5 Weeks Massive Profile
International Coverage & Attention Creative Review
OneDotZero, DVD, TourBBC
'We were knocked out by the creativity and intelligence of Screenbase. They connected our book to its market perfectly, and were fast, accurate and highly responsive to our needs. I would recommend them unconditionally to anyone seeking to
market their books in a smart way.' Toby Mundy, Atlantic Books
