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TVC Process – from client to ad agency to production
I’ve been making corporate videos for a while. Now I would like to try doing TV Commercials. What is the usual process: from the client brief to the ad agency to biddings to offline-online editing? How will I convince the ad agencies that I can make TVCs when this the first time that I’ll do it? I don’t have actual TVCs to show them but I can sure make a sample.
I know this might take much time to answer but I will really appreciate anyone who will.
ut in omnibus glorificetur Deus
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2 Replies
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Hi Clyde
Your profile doesn’t tell where you live so the following is generic based on living in or near a top 10 market. If you want to do dollar-a-holler commercials you can do your own marketing in smaller than top 10 markets.Commercial production is a very specialized field. Getting hired by a high end post house would be the quickest way into it. You would have to convince them you can use flame or shake for compositing as well as smoke or Avid DS for editing. The agencies only solicit bids from houses they know and trust so unless you’re working for one of them you are unlikely to be able to break in. Sometimes doing excellent work for a regional project of a national account in a large but not top 10 market could also move you to the “bigs”.
You might start as an assistant in order to learn all that is required to sit in the chair with the clients in the room. Learn from the editors/artists wherever you can and you can break in. Your experience in corporate will be useful getting you that job as an assistant.
Del
fire*, smoke*, photoshopCS3
Charlotte Public Television
del underscore edits at wtvi dot org -
no agency will hire you – period. You must go to work for a production company that they use, and meet the agency contacts. Within a few years (or sooner, depending on how good you can bulls#$%
them) you can say “I am starting my own production company”, and they will hire you. No ad agency, that is buying on air time is going to risk working with you – even if you are an established feature film DP. They want to see your record with COMMERCIALS, not with anything else. Even if you were a famous feature film cinematographer, you get “repped” by an established commercial production company, who says “wow, we have got Clyde V working for us, and he is the best DP we have ever seen”. If a FAMOUS DP who makes academy award winning movies made a cold call to an agency like Ogilvy and Mather, asked for the creative director, and said he wanted to shoot a commercial for them, he would not be given the chance. Not until he made his “contacts” – and it’s got nothing to do with your abilities. Most businesses work this way. Life is not fair.Bob Zelin
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