In the competitive world of commercial production, Vancouver’s Cactus Productions has evolved and expanded, adding new producers and directors to its roster, bringing the once-small regional company to a global scale.

Employing only four directors a few years ago, Cactus president Scott Kennedy now has 12 directors on his roster.

In business for 10 years April 1, Kennedy has made some drastic changes to his company, one of which is the creation of independent film and tv production company Cadence Entertainment, a spin-off of Cactus.

Cadence, started two years ago by Kennedy, is housed in the same building as Cactus but has its own offices and is a completely separate entity.

Presently Cadence is marketing the sitcom Channel 92, winner of the 1995 Laugh! Chance competition sponsored by British Columbia Film and u.tv, and producing a feature film called Kitchen Party.

‘We have a number of projects in development right now and two feature productions in the final phases of financial development,’ says Kennedy.

With Cadence taking care of the entertainment side of things, Cactus will be focusing solely on the fast-changing world of commercial production.

Looking to Asian market

‘It’s like night and day,’ says Kennedy. ‘Ten years ago we could survive doing all of our work in Vancouver, but with a lot of head offices moving we have had to rethink where our markets are.’

Today Cactus works with agencies as close to home as Toronto and the u.s. and as far away as Asia.

‘We’ve been researching the Asian market for a while now. We sent out letters and made some calls but mostly these agencies came to us,’ says Kennedy. ‘We have helped out a lot of people that have been in the market, so they basically found us through previous relationships and networking.’

Due to all of these changes it was necessary for Cactus to make internal changes that would enable it to grow and transform with the ever-evolving market.

Pumped-up roster

With more directors around but the same number of production companies going after less work, Kennedy wanted to be more aggressive and cultivate Cactus in the Toronto market, which led to the August 1996 addition of Cindy Kemp, an executive producer from Toronto.

Other new additions at Cactus include former Applebox Productions director Hank Benson, best known for his work in the automotive field, who joined in December 1996, and Dian Cross, a Clio and Bessie award winner who came on board in January.

Having more people on its team, Cactus is now better able to manage the changes in the market, respond to requests, deliver an appropriate talent package and therefore, according to Kennedy, ‘continue to produce high-quality products.’

‘We have been reshaping so that the image and what we deliver is a very innovative and creative shop,’ says Kemp. ‘I think that companies these days have to be careful of not getting too comfortable in their market, because once you get complacent you are just offering something as opposed to something unique.’

In order to achieve that uniqueness, Kennedy plans to draw to his company new, highly creative directors with a different look – ‘rock video types that have experimented with new things.’

Kemp says agencies must take chances on less experienced talent, otherwise ‘there is going to be a big hole in the creative field, on the directors’ side.’

While the trend behind the camera seems to be moving in a direction towards untried talent, in front of the camera a tried-and-true way of creating commercials is making a comeback.

Kemp believes the trend in commercials is reverting back to good solid advertising through storytelling and strong dialogue, using technique only for the sake of the story and not just for the opportunity to use a technique. ‘Technique for the sake of it is taking a back seat,’ she says.

‘You aren’t getting any more of these 90-second spots that are all technique or really heavily art directed, where we were a few years ago,’ says Kemp. ‘We don’t want the same looks we have had year after year, we are going back to the storytelling but with a new freshness to it, keeping with the times, knowing your audience and knowing your market.’

Finding new approaches

Despite the fact that budgets are not what they once were, Cactus continues to be very busy. It recently finished a bold new campaign for the Salvation Army and is presently putting its efforts towards large campaigns for Ford as well as London Drugs.

And although the market is picking up from what it was a few years ago, according to Kennedy there is still not a lot of extra money lying around to produce today’s commercials and therefore careful attention must be paid to the structuring of bids and approaches to shooting.

As far as winning these campaigns is concerned, each project requires a keen and unique approach as each different project is ‘very specific depending on what you read into it and what you hear about the project,’ says Kennedy.

‘Sometimes it may be a technique that people haven’t thought about that you can bring to the table,’ Kennedy says. ‘It’s always fun to come up with an approach to a commercial or to a technical problem that other people haven’t thought about that works.’

In the future Kennedy wants to continue to be aggressive in his approach while at the same time getting out the message: ‘We are around and we are new, we have a new look and a lot of new talent and we can produce.’