By Agency.com

Slowly but surely, online production budgets are increasing but for too long online work has been expected to achieve above the line production standards on a fraction of a typical above-the-line budget. The common belief seems to be that it’s cheaper to produce online work. The reality, however, is that when we use video or still photography, the costs are no different given the higher quality work we can now deliver on today’s high bandwidth connections.

• From brief to concept
• Production case study
• Using external expertise

From brief to concept

As discussed in the previous chapter, the starting point for developing interactive work should always be a solid brief, based on consumer insight gleaned from strategic research carried out by the planning team. From here, you can begin the concepting phase which often kicks off with a brainstorm to get input from across both the client and agencies to generate initial ideas. Further information on these processes can be found elsewhere in this guide.

During the concepting phase production should also be taken into consideration to ensure that the concepts can be produced on time and on budget. Before selling concepts to clients, ideas and potential executions should first be vetted by senior designers to be confident about producing the work. Once the client signs off the campaign, the production phase can then begin.

It often makes sense to encourage the art directors to really think about how the concepts will work, which can often save time and money simply by making a small change to the concept – without affecting the ad’s idea or impact.

These considerations and decisions help determine how the work will be produced before it is sold in, whether the work will use still photography or stock photography, and whether it requires a video shoot. If so, the decision needs to be made about whether we need an external shoot/studio or if we can shoot it in house.

There are a whole range of questions like this to be answered before concepts even make it out the door. The biggest question one usually has to answer is whether the production budget available meets the work required for the concept and creative execution. This is of course not rocket science, but often misunderstood: the larger the production budget, when spent wisely the better the final work will look – and work.

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Production case study

The example, top right shows a rich media overlay concept produced by Agency.com for Dulux (in sketch form). Even before concepting begins, the creative team were made aware of the media specifications so there should be no nasty surprises when the concept hits the studio.

In this particular concept for Dulux, the aim was to bring to life the idea of colourful relationships. Some colours go together; others don’t. Agency.com knew they wanted to show the characters as moving people, but the issue was how to achieve the fluidity of movement without using video online.

The only way to accomplish the movement desired was to shoot real people in video against a blue screen in a studio. They then took the footage, edited the bits they wanted and traced each frame of movement, overlaying it with graphics – not the easiest of jobs but one that could be completed within the time frame.

In total, Agency.com produced three ads for Dulux and it took two days in a studio to get the material needed. Whenever they shoot video for online, the creative team is always present (as is the case with an above-the-line shoot) but they also invite one of the senior designers along to make sure they can work with the material being shot.

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Using external expertise

Depending on the size of the job, it may be beneficial to engage a production company to organise the shoot and liaise with them and photographers to deal with any legal issues that need consideration. Always have a pre-production meeting to ensure everything is covered off.

The work should only go into the studio with a signed off design brief, which is the production manager’s responsibility. Included in this brief would be all the signed off specifications from the media company, the file sizes of the units being produced, plus any signed off copy, and of course a signed off concept. At this stage, it’s vital that all the elements of the production brief have already been signed off.

The production manager is responsible for the work when it’s in the studio as well as for making sure the finished work goes out the door on time. They will have already agreed on a timing schedule which the designers have to work to. This schedule is put together based on input from the designers working on the job, so there shouldn’t be any issues. These timings include a client review.

Once the work is in design, it’s continually assessed, as we encourage the creative teams to check in regularly with the designers. The production manager also sets up official reviews – both internally and with the client – to make sure of the schedule and that everyone is happy with the work. To keep a project moving it’s always useful to get quick client and internal creative feedback. The more detailed the feedback the better. As a general rule, the more time spent on effective feedback, the less time wasted in design.

Finally, when the work is finished, there should be a thorough checking phase, to look for things like consistent timings of fades, missing full stops and click tags. There can be a lot of units to check, and normally, you need to re-size standard ads and check gifs image files. Only after these are checked will they be sent to the client for final sign-off. The work then gets trafficked before it’s seen on computer screens across the country.

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