In June, Johns + Gorman Films, a California-based commercial production house, marked its 10th anniversary by opening a new-media division. Its first project, an Internet site for Swatch, went online at the end of August in 43 nations and in 25 languages as part of the new Microsoft Network (msn).

The project was frontlined by the principals in the company, directors Gary Johns and Jeff Gorman, and produced by in-house producers Effie Samios and Sylvia Kahn. In this issue of Playback, Kahn and Samios discuss how a spot production house made the transition to new-media production.

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With all the activity surrounding new media and interactive technology, we took a good hard look at the industry last year and realized that our company’s philosophy was easily translated into this medium.

We began by investing in a couple of Powerbooks, got online with America Online, and got dial-up access to the Internet. Soon we became proficient in this new language of ‘paradigm shifts’ (you’ll hear that a lot if you get into this business), ‘pull rather than push marketing,’ bytes, bits, pixels, isdn lines, overnight uploads, etc.

The true value of this new way of communicating became quickly apparent, even in the daily workings of commercial production. Jeff Gorman scanned in photos of prosthetics for a special effects job while in Cannes. Gary Johns downloaded location photos for his next job while shooting in Calgary.

Over time, the more we read, the more we learned, and the more we talked about what we saw, the more the ideas began to formulate, ideas for online games or cd-roms

As all of this discovery was taking place and taking shape, we continued shooting commercials. Among them was a diverse package of five international spots for Swatch that Jeff and Gary were directing.

During the production, we were constantly sharing new information with our clients, who would get caught up in the excitement with us. Eventually, they asked us to tell them about our ideas for the Web and online services.

Through a contact, we acquired Microsoft’s new development tool, Blackbird, which isn’t available on the market until early next year. Finally animation, sound, film, rich graphics and text, all seamlessly streaming over your phone lines to your hard drive.

For us, it looked like the first tool to really use the understanding of broadcast technology, and a stepping stone to broadband. We were confident that it is this kind of technology that will one day evolve into broadcast pcs.

At a meeting with Microsoft, we showed them what we had done and they in turn asked us to participate in the Microsoft Network (msn), which launched Aug. 24.

There was one condition to the offer – there was a developer’s conference coming up in July that Microsoft wanted us and Swatch to present at. This left six short weeks for production.

We treated this production like any other, hiring the best freelancers for the specific tasks, like Rick Morris, a brilliant graphic designer, illustrators and animators, and a great programmer. Stephen Dewey of Machine Head did the fantastic sound design and Michael Bartoli of Filmcore edited the film that we digitized for the piece.

Gary, who began as an art director, and Jeff, a former copywriter, had worked on accounts such as Nike and Apple and at shops including Chiat/Day, Della Femina and NWAyer, and were there every step of the way with creative direction.

The details of how the production was financed are confidential, but we can tell you it was budgeted like a commercial and front-end loaded. The contract has been left open at the back end for further negotiations once the dynamics for the client to measure response on the Internet are available. For these types of new media projects, the contracts are often ongoing. It’s a longer relationship you develop with the client than you would in producing typical spots.

For the time being, Johns + Gorman Films intends to use commercial production as our business model, using independent contractors who are hand-picked for their expertise in a particular field.

But a new addition has been the bidding program for interactive productions which we designed ourselves, based on the commercial outline but with new categories of personnel, digitizing costs, etc. No more details of the bidding program are available right now because we’re looking into marketing it. That’s how it happens today – you get an idea to make your life easier and all of a sudden, it’s a business venture.

For us, msn is a partnership. Our other projects include a cd-rom game, online games, an online publication, a multiplatform edutainment project for children, and long- and short-format films. All of these fall within our initial and ultimate intent, which is to become content owners, building partnerships with clients in the development of content.