[Nick Griffin]

I’m with the consensus on this one. Consultant sounds too passive and removed. How about something very active like “Post Production Editor / Process Improvement Gorilla.” Only half kidding with the Gorilla part — you need something which implies action.

As to: [Evan John] “explaining my background and my goals/work ethic.”

Explaining your background is one thing but goals gives your prospects a chance to come up with the idea that your goals don’t match up with their planned future plans. And you REALLY don’t want to be the one who is promoting your “work ethic.” That sort of thing is best done with testimonials from past clients. Has a LOT more credibility that way.

[Nick Griffin]

[adeeb oberoi] “where do I start? Ad agencies????? Just start targeting ad agencies? and where do i find them?”

Fact of the matter is you’re in a much better position to service an ad agency than you would be a direct client. Clients need their hands held (well, as do some agency people) and that requires being where they are.

One simple, yet pricey way to find agency names and personnel is the Advertising Agency Red Book. I would Google that and then Google phrases like “Ad Agency Creative Directors” and see what other, less expensive ways you can find of getting specific names.

I would also offer as a thought that you may find your best potential clients are not the big agencies, but the medium to small ones. They may also be more attuned to your pitch and the type of work you do. (And it never hurts to lead with Disney if you can legitimately say that the work came from them.)

The key to effective 3D mailers (like what I described) is to make them very engaging and attractive — which means a high cost per unit. This means you will be sending them on a highly selective basis — a mass mailing is simply not affordable for to many companies. Choose your targets carefully, verify them with a phone call to their receptionist or assistant, (“Hi, just checking to make sure that Joe Jackman is still your Creative Director…”) and mail away.

From a cost-effectiveness standpoint it would probably be best if you are able to coordinate someone who could do the actual mailing from within the country you are targeting. That’s going to be MUCH simpler than getting a box of sand through customs. Oh, and the Sea Fan idea… scratch that. A piece of dried Sea Fan is a dead coral and sending that is wrong on any number of levels.

As another source of business you might consider is going up into the larger windward and leeward islands. I don’t know this for sure but when I was doing business in the Caribbean (past life in the ad world) there really wasn’t much in the way of serious production happening outside of what was based in Puerto Rico. Even then, you might be competitive with them. There should be any number of larger hotels and others who want something more than they can get locally, but don’t have the budget to fly production in from Miami. There are also any number of highly developed businesses in major capitals like Bridgetown, Barbados, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and so on. Just don’t send them a box of sand or offer a beach front condo for coming to Curacao to watch a render. It just won’t have the same draw. Physically calling on them will be far and away the best way to get business.

This is sales, Adeeb. You have to figure out what you can spend to go after what you want to achieve. And sorry to say, not everything will work. It’s a LOT of trial and error.

[Nick Griffin]

I spoke directly with Ty at length on this earlier today, so I’m just posting some of our discussion here for the record.

Technically I think it’s extremely well done. The lighting is good, the jib arm moves, where used, add a lot to the production value and the audio is invisible — exactly as it should be and the music choices and mix are top notch. (I would expect nothing less from Ty Ford.)

The video is, if anything, too clean. It needs a pass through a good colorist to make it look more filmic and have more of a mood. I’ve seen what the COW’s own Walt Biscardi does, you might want to talk with him.

The acting and directing are solid, although I do think the Exorcist-style scene is a bit — OK, more than just a bit, overdone. The male lead is pretty much just playing a straight man, but he’s doing it well. The female lead is doing a competent job but needs to be less normal, edgier, more out there, more sizzle, more of a wacko, more… more.

What I don’t see is that the writing is where it has to be for this piece to fly. The basic premise is approached as if from a distance and as a viewer I don’t feel inside of it. Maybe more close-up, facial acting would accomplish some of this, but for me it’s not yet coming through. And as a 58 year old MALE, maybe I’m not the intended target audience. But then I’m not the target for Marc Cherry’s Desperate Housewives either and whenever I’ve seen that show I think he nails it.

Now the real issue. Why is a pre-vis of this length and complexity needed? My guess is that it’s not for showing it to TV and film industry professionals, but rather to obtain funding from an individual or group who is not familiar with reading a script and really has to have something produced put in front of them. On that level it succeeds quite well. Maybe that kind of investor could fund shooting the whole thing so you’re shopping a show that’s already in the can. Possibly not the safest investment one could make, but there are people out there who want to be in show business and have money to risk.

I believe that the best place to get this sold is through one of the female-oriented cable channels. But before even going out to pitch, it should have a much punchier script with a good twist or two and maybe a couple of other options for the female lead. Maria Bamford and one or two other of today’s new group of just starting to make it stand-ups comes to mind.

Ty reminded me that this is the first project of this nature that he’s produced and, on that level I’m blown away. Incredible job for a first time producer, Ty. Now why did you wait so long to get started? We’re not getting any younger, bub.

[Nick Griffin]

[Chris Blair] “Nick…No offense, but I’ve been doing this for 25 years”

Chris-
“It’s not you, it’s them” was tongue in cheek and I’ve been doing it for 35 years — hence my disdain for the know-it-all agency types. That’s not to say that non-agency clients can’t be the same, just that’s where I’ve seen the most of it.

I really doubt that there is an answer to this situation other than bringing it up again and again with your clients. Give them some specific examples of projects where your input has had a very positive outcome on the final product. Show them things you’ve done completely on your own. Problem is some may see this as threatening. They may worry that if their client is in the meetings the client or the boss may get the idea that the ones who brought you in are extraneous to the process. I believe that almost all of us here are ethical (and smart) enough to not let something like that happen, but that doesn’t keep them from fearing that it might.

Bottom line, this is just one more of the numerous conundrums which are part of the human dynamics of small business.

[Nick Griffin]

Awesome! Thanks for sharing it. Laurie Hill put an amazing amount of work into 5 minutes of finished video.

[Nick Griffin]

[grinner hester] “It’s not about a better product to them. If that were the case, they would have been there during the creation stages.”

On the money, Grin!

Chris, it’s not about YOU, it’s about THEM. At some point in advertising copywriter/art director school the fresh-faced kids are taught that they know everything and their take on anything is always the best and final answer. Then as they gain experience in the real world this must become even more true because, after all, they’ve been “directing” for years.

In many ways with these kinds of clients it comes down to: What else would they do if they weren’t there to “improve” the production? Maybe you should provide a dead dog or two.

[Nick Griffin]

Adeeb-

Love your island above water almost as much as I love neighboring Bonaire beneath the water line. If only there was a way to combine the two.

While Matt’s idea may make some sense, it does seem like a broad, and therefore expensive way to go for what is, by its nature, a narrow and specific business. In my experience broad advertising works great for things everyone buys — cars, mattresses, groceries, etc. and not so good for services bought by a fraction of a percent of the general population, ie.- ad agencies, film producers, etc.

Fact of the matter is Thomas Friedman is right. The world is flat and with a broadband connection it really doesn’t matter where you are physically if you work electronically. So Curacao is no different than Kansas City, which is not very different from Calais (France) if the contact you have with your customers and delivery vehicle for your product is the internet.

So the answers you are looking for are sales oriented. You must get your work in front of those people most likely to hire you and show them a new, different, perhaps even less expensive alternative to their current suppliers. The good news is that advertising creatives tend to be fickle. They’re much more likely to change suppliers and experiment than most other people in business.

You might want to consider a mailer which capitalizes on your location and Caribbean / South American influenced work. You might want to consider identifying a handful of ideal prospects and send each a box mailer containing sand with a piece of sea fan along with your pitch and URL to view the demo. You might want to consider a winter promotion which promises a 4 day/ 3 night island stay to review the final render of any job over $10,000. What the hell, throw in a side trip to Bonaire and even I might start looking for work for you.

BTW, I believe that physical mail, especially 3D mailers (ie- box mailers) is FAR, FAR, FAR more effective these days than email. Email is dirt cheap, therefore easily ignored. You get what you pay for. Want someone’s attention? Put something in their hands.

So what is the URL so we can see some of your work?

[Nick Griffin]

[Todd Terry] “Now, if you are “just” the production company, it doesn’t matter.”

What I’ve seen in and around Washington DC is a severe polarization. The agencies and consultants who work with one side don’t want their spots in the hands of anyone who might reveal them in advance to the other side. Concept work or not typically once you are on a side the other side wants nothing to do with you.

[Todd Terry] “I think in the past we have always billed them net/30 just like any other client,”

In some cases that may be OK, but then again BE CAREFUL. The one and only time I was screwed for a few thousand dollar, last minute radio buy was by a candidate who basically said “trust me” then AFTER HE WON said something to the effect that I “knew the risk” I was taking because I’d always been paid in advance on everything else. Four years later when his supporters (who obviously had NO idea of what had gone on after the last election) gave me a retainer. We used the money, about four times the amount I had been screwed on, to fund internal “research” before a meeting with the candidate where I quit. He was mildly furious that his people had given me money without consulting him. I laughed all the way home — to a home well outside of his jurisdiction. (Oh, yea. And he LOST in his reelection bid. Guess I wasn’t the only one who knew what an a-hole he was.)

One thing that’s been briefly mentioned, Politicals do have good budgets and the thing I liked the most was they HAVE TO spend the money they’ve raised — unlike a business where the owners or stockholders can opt to simply KEEP the money they would otherwise spend on advertising.

[Nick Griffin]

Three things to remember:

1) Politicals PAY IN ADVANCE, not to say that you can’t provide approval copies with t/c burned in, but NEVER RELEASE BROADCAST-ABLE MATERIALS WITHOUT BEING PAID, AND HOPEFULLY WITH THE CHECK FULLY CLEARED.

2) Once you work with a side: R, D, Pro, Against; you almost always are associated with that side and expected to stay with that side (should you plan on continuing to work with politicals.)

3) Politicals PAY IN ADVANCE – ALWAYS

[Nick Griffin]

Jason-

The fact of the matter is we all do stupid things from time to time. Thanks you for reminding us to learn from this mistake. Now go use your Time Machine back-up to restore the version of Leopard you had been running. (You do have a Time Machine back-up, right??)

Now, IMHO, would be a good time to NOT make a second mistake, namely that of switching to FCP from M100. If your experience would be anything like mine you’d be enamored for a few weeks, feel like your plodding just to get simple things done for the next few months, and eventually realize that you are going through more steps and more levels of complexity — even to accomplish basic tasks — and then you’d look back at Media 100 and say “WHAT was I thinking?”

I still have FCP, even have upgraded it twice, including to the just released FCS bundle. There are a few things/ couple of transitions/ etc. that FCP does that Media 100 does not, so it gets used occasionally. (Mostly to render out things which are then imported into M100 shows.) But the real reason we have it is for all the OTHER stuff that comes with it, not FCP. Color, for example, is an unbelievably powerful multi-thousand dollar program (as it was when Apple bought it). DVD Studio Pro is a simple and easy to use authoring environment, greatly facilitated by Compressor. Motion does some slick stuff far easier than After Effects, but just as FCP is not a particularly good replacement for M100, Motion really can’t replace AE, unless you want to be limited to the things that Motion does. That’s why we have all of these programs in our arsenal.

Frankly, Jason, I don’t see the problem upgrading. If you’re using Media 100 to make money the upgrade pays for itself in a matter of hours. And expecting Media 100 to backwardly upgrade older versions to work with a new OS makes little sense. I, for one, would much rather see them devote resources to tweaking the latest version and developing the next versions.