Having more creative brains is a no brainer.

Two years ago an unorthodox idea by the founders of The Producers led to them making a big change to their business, they employed an inhouse Creative Director. Someone to oversee creative quality control within the production company by adding an extra layer of creative thinking for their agency partners. “Through no fault of their own, we started to notice ad agencies having less creative resources, less time and more fractured production budgets, so we decided to change the shape of our business, adding our own creative offering to our existing director roster to support our agency and production partners” - Noelle Jones, Co-Founder of The Producers.

The Producers, Creative Director, Luke Thompson discusses the role itself, what they’ve learned, trends they’re noticing in the industry and where they see things heading next.

The role itself in a creative production company

We didn’t really fully know how it was going to pan out when we started, but after getting my head around the structure it became clear how beneficial this could be to our rostered directors and the agencies we work with.

Today we’re a true hybrid of film production and creative, it’s just become second nature. 

We give every concept that extra layer of thinking - we wrap our brains around the detail to give scripts an extra creative hug. 

Script details and treatments

When scripts come in from agencies I work closely with our directors to workshop every beat within the commercial to ensure it’s as succinct, authentic and impactful as possible. Crafting I guess…remember crafting? We’ve found these extra details or ‘life’s wrinkles’ (as we call them) can make a scene feel so much more relatable and authentic, helping sell in the director's vision. We’ve found that creatives intuitively feel the deeper thinking when reading our treatments.

Writers room and getting involved early

With a lengthy history as an agency creative both locally and abroad I’m also often brought in as an extra resource within the concept phase - workshopping territories with the agency or in-house creatives. It can really help with overall creative quality control, and gives the creatives direct access to our directors and producers early on, so they can get a quick snapshot of what’s doable before getting too far down an untenable conceptual track. 

Current creative trends

Another major benefit has been an overall understanding of what’s naturally occurring in the market. Ad agencies mostly work in silos, only ever seeing their own work at the conceptual phase, whereas a production company sees scripts from multiple agencies at once, allowing us to spot trends as they start to occur.

One such trend is ideas being sold-in using broad scenarios rather than fully crafted scripts (again due to stretched resources). We’re finding that the process of filling in the nuanced gaps is often being left to the directors. This again is where an extra layer of thinking can ensure this step doesn’t get completely skipped in the pre-production phase, making sure we still have every precious second being thought through before it hits the screen. 

Ai is also obviously having a huge impact on all creative industries and used correctly as a tool it can really help to land creative thinking in the production and treatment process. We’re also finding it can be overly manicured and cold, unable to replicate the beautiful imperfections of real-life, lived experiences. Those ‘life’s wrinkles’ need to be re-injected into the rhythm of an idea to ensure it still rings true to our human eye. Without these prompts consumers pick up on this feeling of ‘simulation’ leading to trust being eroded between themselves and brands. 

I think this new model will probably become the norm in the future with more production companies employing their own creatives, and for years now we’ve seen agencies invest in their own in-house production companies - having lived the experience for a while now, it just makes sense to have more crossover and collaboration between all parts of our business. 

I’m pretty damn thankful that The Producers made a bold move two years ago, changing their mindset and the shape of their entire business - after all that’s what we ask of our clients when we pitch them ideas. And now we’re here, it’s becoming clear to me that more collaboration, more care, and more creative minds at the table leads to better, more resilient work. 

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