As we all recover from the Boards Summit, here’s a recap of some notable items from Day 2.
The morning session, Business as Unusual, was a round-table with Jerry Solomon (Co-Founder and Executive Producer at Epoch Films), Javier Jimenez (Co-Founder and Executive Producer at Motion Theory) and Diane McArter (Managing Director of Furlined). The thread that united them all was the openness to change in the changing production landscape.
As Epoch’s Solomon discussed staying relevant, he spoke about a company before the individual and building a strong culture. He went on to say, regardless of platform changes, new media, etc. we are storytellers. So, find out what you do well and figure out how to maximize that. MTh’s Jimenez elaborated to say, pick the projects to invest in and do them so well. This would naturally lead to having to figure out a new way of doing things and to embrace that task.
During a Digital Storytelling session, B-Reel shared some of the storytelling and technology behind the horrific story of the Hotel 626 and its sequel, Asylum 626. After discussing tactics they used to absolutely freak out their users, they shared the spherical mapping techniques in flash that allowed for a 360 view whilst moving forward and the facial recognition software that let you avoid a bloody chainsaw massacre.
As I mentioned in my recent post about the ADC’s Young Guns; this year’s show Directors Showcase Screening also had a solid showing from mixed-media directors. Among the lot were some of our regulars: Alex Turvey, Corin Hardy, Dennis Liu, Hayley Morris, Gabe Askew, Sean Pecknold, David Wilson and Ray Tintori. There was also a chance to see some relevant work in the lunch-screening of Twenty 120.
The day then closed out with a heavy-weight panel of agency folk who all offered up different (and mostly positive) ideas of where we’re all headed in the next few years. The range was from JWT’s Harvey Marco saying, “we are fucked” to DDB’s Diane Jackson playfully reminding us that talent is and always will be our strongest currency.
More mini-news and quotes from the day can be found here.