Blue Curtains

Paying attention to what's important is important.

On a shoot, a long time ago, an art director made a decision.  They were getting ready to shoot a commercial for a fast-food restaurant, and it was time for the final agency approval of the set.  It was about 8 pm on the night before a 6 am shoot.  The style of the commercial was very wide-lens, in-your-face comedy, with a presenter very close to camera, and a stylized room in the background.  Off to the side of the set, deep in the background, was a small window.  The art director decided that the window needed...  something.  Not sure what.  Curtains.  Maybe.  Yeah.  Blue. 

Blue curtains.

The producer scrambled.  Every production assistant in the greater metro area was dispatched to every department store and home store (all closing in just a few minutes), to spend whatever they had to spend to get blue curtains.  Because the shoot couldn't start without them.  The decision had been made.  Late, but still made.  And the stores wouldn't open again until 10 am the next morning - 4 hours into a $10,000-per-hour crew day.  Waiting wasn't an option.

They got the curtains.  The curtains cost a lot.  Because all those PA's running all over town cost a lot.

And you never saw them in the spot.  Because the guy who was talking in the spot filled the lens.  Like he was supposed to, from the beginning.  And even if he hadn't filled the lens, the lens was so wide that the curtains would have been unidentifiable pixels, at best.  Like it was planned from the beginning.  They didn't affect the spot, except to make it cost more.  They were never going to, from the beginning.

I remembered this story because the same thing is happening right now to a friend of mine who's producing a spot.   And because the same thing happened on just about every spot I ever shot. 

I'm a big believer in details.  I think they're critical.  But I'm a bigger believer in knowing what's important.  And knowing what you're doing.  And knowing the consequenses of your actions, and opinions.  For your suppliers, and, more importantly, for your clients.
That's hard.  It takes more work, and more confidence. 

It's easier to pick the $5000 sofa for the set, even though you're only going to see one seam on one arm, and it's on the side of frame.  It's a $5000 sofa.  It has to look better than the other one, right?  But... will it make the spot $5000 worth of better?  Will someone actually like the spot more, and respond to it, because of a sofa arm that's on the side of the frame, and has nothing to do with the concept?  Or will an almost identical sofa, in an identical color, do exactly the same thing - even though it can be rented for $200?  Unless you've been there, you'll be blown away by how many agency people will stand firm on the high-priced sofa behind door number 1.

If something - a prop, a costume, a casting decision, a headline tweak, a buy on a particular show, a color, a curve on a line, the timing of an image shift in a flash banner, the choice of a particular background texture, or any one of another billion things - will make even a molecule of difference in the way the message is percieved, accepted, understood, enjoyed or engaged with, it's worth it.  Yes, it's worth it.  Didn't think I was going to say that, did you? 

Many of those things do make a difference.  The iPod isn't functionally all that much better than a ton of its competitors.  The details are.  Way better.  And the little details collect to form one big picture.

But not always.  The hard part is knowing which details contribute, and which don't.  Again: more work, more confidence, more experience, more talent.  I find that agencies seem to, all too frequently, get lost in the details.  Unfortunately, they tend to get lost in the wrong details.  And that's lazy.  And wasteful.  Or, it's just not competent.

To be fair, some details that matter a lot in print, matter a lot less when the images move.  But the point is still the same.  The big picture matters.  As does knowing what you're doing.

Without a good concept, you can have curtains in any shade of blue you want, and it won't make a difference.

Focusing on the big picture is just as important as focusing on the details.  When you get them both right, you sell tons of stuff, AND win creative awards.  When you only get the big picture right, you have a chance at selling stuff (though probably a bit less), but you won't win awards. 

But when all you're concerned with are insignificant details, you don't do either.  Being able to differentiate between significant and insignificant is an important part of being good at what you do.

Forest.  Trees.  Blue curtains.

Technorati Tags:  Advertising  Marketing   Creative

Comments

[olivier blanchard]

Confidence and vision.

the problem is that the director isn't always the boss... and that always causes problems.

[ernie]

Actually, the director is almost never the boss. Sometimes that's good. Sometimes that's bad. Depends on the director. But for certain, the "almost never" part is true. With very, very few excetptions - like Pytka, Ridley, et al. Which means somebody has to step up with some confidence and vision. And that's rare, too.