the process

Don Veinish,

Creative director,

Associate general

manager,

J. Walter Thompson,

Vancouver

At J. Walter Thompson, Vancouver, we choose tv commercial directors in a pretty unmysterious way.

We start with Vancouver-based talent for a couple of reasons. We’re lucky enough to have some of North America’s best people and facilities here; and, along with our clients, we believe in supporting them. Not at all costs. But usually, we can spend less and get the best here.

So why wouldn’t we go with a local or, at least, a domestic director?

Sometimes there are reasons.

The biggest is too few directors – from anywhere – really love advertising. Too many would rather be doing a series or a feature and, to me, that’s like a copywriter who’d prefer to write books or an art director who would sooner paint. You hire these people and they act like they’re doing you a favor. Or they just don’t get it and crank something out like a supplier. Since I like my clients to respect me as a professional (maybe even an artist), I avoid bringing phony ‘artiste’ or supplier types into their offices.

This still leaves a lot of directors who are worth working with. But it does eliminate many who aren’t.

Recently, we worked with an American director and here’s why.

Instead of just a reel, he came in with a whole presentation on how he works with ad agencies and advertisers. He showed us some of the preproduction shooting he did on a couple of past projects. Experiments he’d done on tape and stills before ‘the day’ that helped everybody involved understand and participate constructively. He also delivered this whole presentation himself, thereby proving he could talk and relate to people – things which kind of count for a communicator.

So we asked him to bid on a project and, when he came back, he had a couple of approaches already shot on Hi-8. This included a careful examination of how to shoot the product best. The product. The thing most directors deal with in the last five minutes as an afterthought.

This guy obviously got it. And he did it beautifully, enthusiastically, non-cynically. It was the coolest, most relaxed shoot I’ve ever been on.

Obviously the fact that he’s American wasn’t why we worked with him. But it wasn’t a reason not to either. And, if Canadian production companies have extra shooting days on their hands, maybe they could spend some of them building better presentations. Like directors’ reels that go beyond the usual compilation of past work – that actually present the person and his or her approach.

With Fedex and faxes and air travel what they are, it’s not where you live that matters anymore. It’s how far you can go.