Concept Development

So when it comes toconcept development,is there one or the otherthat takes the lead on that?Oh, good question.OK, conceptdevelopment, so can youexpand on that question alittle bit like, do you have?It sounds like you have anexample you want to share.Oh, sure, so.Well, you know, like wheneveryou're coming up with an idea,there's a lot of work thatgoes into the execution.Like you said, it's likefinding the right aestheticand the right Illustratoror motion graphic artistor whatever the approach is.But then so there's a lot todo with the actual executionof that, a lot of craft.But then as far as comingup with interpretingwhat the client, whattheir goals are and likeaesthetically what you thinkwill work for them coming upwith the idea that,OK, like you said,I think an illustrative approachis going to be the best here.I think we're goingto keep it playfulor we're going to do somethingthat basically you'reusing the words that theclient understands that come upwith the concept and then youcan describe that to the artdirector in a way like then youuse design speak to say, hey,this is kind of myvision for this.But basically, I'mtrying to thinkif you take any, any spot,any commercial, any campaignand there's like aclever concept behind it,it's not just because,you know, it'slike when you watcha movie and it'sall flash, but no substance.But then like, it's like, what'sthe underlying key conceptthat all the creativeis built on top of?Mm-hmm so is there somebodythat takes the leador is that more like avery collaborative processbetween the art directorand the creative director,or maybe a copywriter?OK yeah, I think I understandyour question better now, soyeah, so in the ad world,you're typically handed a scriptand you kind of get the idea.It tells the story.It's pretty literal.If you're lucky, you mightget a storyboard with it, too.But oftentimes there'sa huge, huge amountof interpretation in termsof how do you produce this?What does it look like and howdo you tell that story visuallyand audibly?So I think I again,I don't thinkthere's one rightanswer to that question.I think it really dependson who and where you areand how you like the work.But I'm of the mind where Ilike to be surrounded by peoplewho are smarter, moretalented, overall,better people in general.Because at the end of theday, I think, you know,collaboration,putting a lot of mindstogether are very different.I don't want to be surroundedby 5 grades, a super boring.We're going to getthe same answers,but I think all that kindof leads to somethinggreater than thesum of its parts.And that's why I'm always ofthe mind to work together,find some sort of collaboration.Ultimately, you know,the creative director,if they've had thekind of face to faceor the most interaction withthe client, they might have,you know, an inside trackas to what they want,but they can alsobe kind of too closeto the client side of things,maybe, whereas the art directoragain, has that kindof healthy distanceand they can hear and understandwhat the objective is,what the goal is for thestory or for the client,and then come up with ameaningful and visuallyappealing way thatsatisfies that,that maybe the creativedirector didn't think about.You know, it's like some sortof abstract, abstract thinking.I don't think it's everlike this way or this way.It's like there'salways like, well, itcould be somethinglike this, whichleads to another thing,which leads to another thing.As much as I think welike to teach and thinkabout this like perfectfunneling of ideationand the way a jobshould go, like it'snice to have that plan.That's that's good, butthat's not always how it goes.I'll give you an example.I'm about to wrapup a job right now.It's one of these weird thingsfrom a long time ago calledlike a 30 secondcommercial, super weird.And the job startedout and I hadto pitch it, whichis even weirder.But when the jobstarted out, the kindof direction and everythingbased around the conversationI had with the client was wantit to be bright and friendly.And the term whimsicalwas thrown out.And you know, those were sortof like, OK, subjective termsto measure everything by.So what I did was take that, puttogether a bunch of referenceworking with mykind of rag tag teamand presented thatback to them and said,OK, well, you know, based onthe story that you want to telland all the conversationswe've had, in the wordsyou've chosen to describe this,this is what we're thinking.It's this kind of likethis almost like kindof Wes Anderson lookinglike very simple,cleanly art directed, soft,diffuse light, you know,got really specific.It was like, this is great.Oh, guys, you nailed it.The job is yours.Let's move forward.Fantastic so we gotto a week later,we were like in thedesign phase wherewe're trying to figure thisout, you know, and we'rebuilding on all this kindof agreed upon informationthat we've developed together.And so we built astoryboard sequenceand we build a bunch of keyframes to go along with that.And we're kind of like talkingthrough stories like this.Then we go from thisand this and kind ofkeeps us look andhere's how it'll work.And then we have a meetingand they're like, you know.It's just doesn't it look ok?Interesting so at that point,I'm like, time out, pause.So what happened betweeninitially what we pitchedand now because somethingsomething changed?So instead of reactingand being like, whatdo you mean, what areyou talking about?I was like, all right,well, let's talkabout why this doesn't work.We, you know, wemissed the mark.Let's let's try toregroup and figure outwhat direction we need to go.And ultimately, they'relike, well, you know,it's a pretty serious spot.We want something dramatic.We want some lightingand drama and everything.I mean, like, you could notbe any more opposite than whatwe initially had talked about,which is that's fine, you know?So the job went fromgoing like clear plan.We got this.We got this too.Like, OK, let's makea sharp left hereand see where this goes.And I think that's allpart of the process.And that threw me for aloop, and I went and talkedto my team.I'm like, OK, everyone.So here's a new plan.I don't know.Let's figure thisout together, and wehad a few days to sortof just scrap everything.Work it out togetheras a team and say, OK,how do we kind of keeplike what we know they wantbut work working this,you know, kind of 180 ideaof making it super dramatic.And it was at thatpoint, I'm like, look,all it needs to have is drama.You want some lighting.And I think rightnow it's too fun.So we've got to bring up theserious and bring up the drama.Help me, guys.How do we do this?And we were able to worktogether and find a way to kindof like merge those ideas in away that looked good, satisfytheir needs and, you know,albeit a giant curveball endedup working out.So we deliver Friday andso far so good knock on,knock on plastic glass.So that's my quickstory about like,good to have a plan until you.What did Mike Tyson say?It's good to have a plan.Everyone has a plan untilyou get punched in the face.Yeah, holds up.All right.I totally forgot whatthe question was,but I hope we answered it.You got there in the end.OK, good, good.All right.Happy to hear it.