Create boards for pitches

[Christopher Wright]

That is the problem with a lot of my larger corporate clients as well. They can’t grasp anything about a visual project or ad campaign(with or without treatment/storyboard), they don’t know anything about the process of shooting and editing, usually have a company “media” guy who is even more clueless (and self important/absorbed) than the project “director,” can’t tell the difference between a rough cut or polished finished piece (even though they have been told many times that the final color correction, music choice, VO talent, special FX, etc. are all to be added after a general consensus is reached by all on at least the rough cut), and no one wants to take the blame when the “real” boss sees the “finished product” and doesn’t like it. More and more I have to just take the project and take my best intuitive shot as to what image and message the company wants to convey, go ahead and polish the piece up as much as possible with my own vision (despite what the “art director” tells me), and then show that to the company. Fortunately that has worked in 95% of all my corporate projects over the last few years. No one wants to be in the edit suite anymore. They all want a finished, polished piece that they don’t have to think about or sweat over, and then they will all try to take the creative credit for it if the boss likes it! This seems to be the conundrum of modern posting!

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[Gav Bott]

All power to the stick man.

I do rough boards before a meeting just for myself – then draw them in person during the meeting “so what you mean is you want this to look like this?”

Stick men all round.

And everyone gets the feeling that they have had their input considered.

Of course it doesn’t avoid the changes at the back end that everyone else is bemoaning, but I find it helps at the start. Then move on to animatic if they like that kind of thing, and understand that it’s not the finished product.

The Brit in Brisbane
The Pomme in Production – Brisbane Australia.