Navigating the Creative-Production Partnership: Insights from Industry Experts

Synergy between the creative minds that conceive groundbreaking ideas and the technical wizards that bring them to life is the driving force behind captivating brand experiences. Join us as we delve into the insightful conversation between industry experts Jude Braunstein and Doug Binder, exploring the key lessons and strategies at the core of this collaborative journey.

They Cover:
- The importance of  trust, transparency, and alignment of goals between creative and production
- Balancing Creativity and Practicality
- Human-Centric Engagement

Listen now and don’t forget to rate, review and subscribe to the InVision Xcast to stay fresh on the latest industry trends, technologies and insights.

Transcript

Jude Braunstein:

Welcome to the IVC Podcast, the Xcast, where we help brands navigate audience engagement in times of change. I'm Jude Braunstein and Executive Producer of Integrated Engagements here at InVision, and I'm delighted to be doing this podcast with my friend and Senior Creative Director at InVision, Doug Binder. Welcome, Doug.

Doug Binder:

Hey, Jude, great to see you as always.

Jude Braunstein:

Nice to see you. And thank you for joining me. Today. We're going to talk about all things or most things, creative and production. But before we start, I want to clarify one thing. When we say production, we mean live, digital, multimedia, gaming. And when we refer to producer, we're speaking generically. So this includes everybody from associate producers to producers, senior producers, executive producers across all of our disciplines. Similarly, when we talk about creative directors, we're including associate creative directors, creative directors, senior creative directors, executive creative directors, and anybody else I may have missed. So we're going to keep the language simple, knowing it represents a much broader group of individuals and disciplines. With all that out of the way, let us begin. One of my favorite and most fun pitches, and I know that's really bad English, was one I did about six years ago, and we were pitching for the entire account of a piece of pharma business.

So there was a little bit at stake. And one of the things with the feedback that we had gotten was the problem and why the company was going to market was because the previous agency they had, there was a disconnect between what they were pitching and what they were delivering. So the client never felt like what they bought was what they actually got. So it was really important for us to demonstrate that our production and our creative work in lockstep. So the CD and I at the time, were talking about what is the best way to demonstrate our ability to take an idea from concept through to delivery. And Doug, I don't know if you remember, there was an infographic that circulated around a few years ago. It was very popular, and it was the right brain and the left brain. And the left brain was depicted in black and white, and the right brain was depicted in vivid color. Do you remember this?

Doug Binder:

Sure, yeah.

Jude Braunstein:

And in addition to the colors and the black and white, there were also words that went with it, and it went something like this. I'm the left brain, I'm analytical, I'm strategic, and I'm practical. And the other was, I'm a right brain, and I'm boundless imagination, and I'm creativity, and I'm fun. And in the spirit of show, don't tell. We brought that infographic to life, using the infographic as a prompt. We put it on screen, and we wanted to give them a visceral experience of how we would work together. So the creative director would say the line, I'm right brain, and I would say I'm left brain. And then we went through the whole writeup back and forth, riffing off each other. And we really had a lot of fun because at some point I was rolling my eyes, and he was going like that, and you guys can't see me, but my hands went back and then they came forward.

And we would just say different lines and demonstrating to the client the cut and thrust between production and creative, but also the partnership between production and creative. Well, they loved it. They laughed a lot. We had a ton of fun. But the most important thing was we actually won the business. And one of the things they said was why we won the business was the relationship between the creative director and us, and they were convinced that we would be able to deliver, that our walk and our talk would match. So coming down from the adrenaline rush of that great pitch, I was thinking about what a fantastic demonstration that was between the importance of that partnership in our business. So where I want to start with Doug, is tell me about what makes a great... This is a big question. This is an existential question. What makes a great production creative relationship slash partnership?

Doug Binder:

That is a big question. I think honesty, I think transparency, I think familiarity and trust. But what you just described is also very human. You didn't put this as, here's how creative works. Here's how production works, here's how technical works. You essentially told the story, and you showed that you guys are aligned in this journey that you're going to take with a customer. It's very much a human relationship, it's professional, but we've got to trust each other, and we've got to go on this journey together. It could be three months, four months, six months, whatever. And there's going to be some snags along the way. So we need to start off on that right foot.

I just had a great week, Jude. I delivered for a new client something that I hadn't done in a long time, which is, I delivered something that was new. So it was refreshing, but what it took was six months of creative with production. We built basically like a set you would see on a sound stage. So we had a curve screen upstage, a vanish screen, which I've just fallen in love with. And that was the background for an office of a fictional company. And we had the shelves with the food on it and all the dog pictures of all the dogs in the office from this company, our client. We had conversation areas, we had demo areas. And then these 10 cast members really worked hard to get their lines down, get their characters down. They developed characters that were still themselves.

But again, laughter, empathy, the audience ate it up. They loved the technology, but they loved that these people were real human. We lost the internet, which is in a live event. That's the OS moment. That and the folks on stage so much just charisma that they started telling each other jokes and no one panicked, and the internet came back up, they did the demo, and pretty much a standing O. So that was just taking what we've all done for years, the demo, and doing it in an all new way that was thrilling, but really, really human. So yes, I had a good week that way. You and I have been through this business for a long time. We've seen a lot of innovation. We've seen a lot of change. We've seen audiences change, we've seen clients change needs, everything, technology for sure.

But again, I think it goes back to my first answer to your first question is it still comes down to people. It comes down to empathy, inspiration, all those tools that really move audiences, not just talk out them, not just educate, but really bring them along. And one of my least favorite words is journey, but when you can actually make it happen, I'm willing to use the word.

Jude Braunstein:

On that journey, the thing that it sounds like worked so well for you and the team was that the producer and you and the technical director, it sounds like it was a fairly technical show. You were in it from the beginning, and you went on that creation journey together. And I think that's a really important part of the production, creative relationship, is that you're on that journey together from the beginning to the end. Because to your point, there are times on that journey where you think, oh, wait, this is not going to work. Or you have to adjust it. And if the producer, and in this instance, the technical director isn't on the journey from the beginning, they don't know what your intention is or what the intention of the creative is. So I've often said, follow the intention, not the tactic. And it sounds like that's what you guys were doing as you were ideating and iterating.

Doug Binder:

Yeah, very true. From a technical standpoint, physics plays a big role, as you can't hang that much stuff in this ballroom or there's just not enough square footage to do what you're asking. From a production standpoint, there's also time, there's money, there's resources. And so we did have to make those compromises along the way, and they were sometimes difficult, but like you say, the intention is still there. People understand that we want this to be an engaging experience for the audience. We want to highlight the technology that's being sold. And when you work with high-tech clients these days, it's ethereal. It's things that you can't see, you can't hold in your hand, it's in the cloud, or it's in the network. And so I think the producers and the technical folks and our clients for sure understand that the way we needed to tell these stories was through using humans to tell the story. And so technology was really important, but it all came back to what does this really mean to the audience through the lens of the people that are presenting this?

Jude Braunstein:

And I've seen over the years how they've moved away from talking about the technology and talking about the humanity that the technology supports. That's a richer story. So let's talk a minute, or a few minutes, about ideation and the ideation process. And how production and creative work together in that process. It's a very private moment between the idea and the creative director. So bringing people into that-

Doug Binder:

I like at the beginning to hear every voice. So whether it's production, whether it's accounts, whether it's clients, just to get a lot of ideas out there. And then, yeah, I think it is the job of the creative director to sort of walk away, see what resonates with them, what can get onto paper or how they can present this back to the team. And once we get going, again, we have to have production bought into this because ideally it's going to be a new idea or a fresh idea or an idea they haven't done before. And you want to make sure that they're enthused about it, because if they're not, this is going to be a really tough row.

But then once we get into this, yes, things evolve. We learn about challenges of being on site, we learn about challenges of budgets, we learn about things like that, but it's up to the creative director to push things forward, try to navigate again, whether it's compromise or whatever you want to call it. It is staying true to that intention. And yeah, I use the word fragile because there are days where just through conversation, the idea could get attacked or could get undermined. Again, I enjoy many voices, but not every meeting is a brainstorm. Once we get into production, once we start moving forward, we need to nurture that idea together. Not every challenge has to be solved immediately. Give the creative team, give the production team time to go away and say, okay, we could change it this way, or we could do it this way.

In a recent project, I kind of felt a little bit threatened that folks were like, I don't like the idea because it's too hard. It's never been done before. Or we don't have enough square footage, or we don't have this, we don't have that. Can we solve that problem? I'll go back, and I'll think of other ways to achieve the intent, as you say, but I need everyone to do that as well.

Jude Braunstein:

It makes me a little sad when I hear somebody say, we can't do this because it's too hard. The producer's job is to make magic. It is to take the creative idea and breathe life into it and bring it to its full realization in whatever space we're working in, whether it's the live, virtual, gaming, digital, whatever. And if that way that's being proposed is too hard, then propose something else that maintains the integrity of the idea. But it maybe isn't as hard to deliver or as risky to deliver.

Doug Binder:

Exactly. And that want to try something new. I'm not bringing you an idea. Like you say, I'm not going to tell you, hey, let's do the impossible. I'm going to bring you realistic ideas. I'm going to bring you ideas that hopefully will inspire you to want to think, oh, you know what? Maybe we could do it this way. Maybe we could do it that way. And those are the types of creative production relationships that I think work best is when the producer is also creative. Everyone's creative in a way, but I understand and here's how we can make this happen, make this experience as close to what the goal is as possible.

Jude Braunstein:

Exactly. I've often said, and I believe this, that production and creative are opposite sides of the same coin, that we're all moving in the same direction, and we're all doing it in service to our clients, and we're doing it in service to the big idea and to the creative idea. And when we have that alignment, and as you said earlier, the respect, the transparency, the communication, then that's a powerful partnership. That's a partnership where anything is possible.

Doug Binder:

Well, and I go back to empathy, so I've produced most of my career as well. So I understand the responsibility, the accountability you have to clients, but you have the role of producer. But how does your creativity drive how you produce a show?

Jude Braunstein:

What I say about myself and about a producer is that we're storytellers. Our job is to help tell our client's story in the best and most potent way possible. So when I work with a creative director, my job is to empower them with both ideas that I might have that I'll bring to the table. And even if my idea does nothing more than stimulate something in their thinking, and my idea never gets off the ground, that's fine too. But where I come from is I have a contribution to make because ultimately I'm responsible for the creative. You are going to entrust in me, and the client's going to entrust in me to go and tell their story. So I get very invested in the creative and in the creative process.

Doug Binder:

Like I say, everyone is creative. And you're also seasoned, I was going to say very seasoned, but you're in your prime. And I think that's important because we're all trying to achieve the best possible results. And so if you can come in and say, well, we're dealing with this physical question or this temporal question, you're a problem solver. So you know what the story is, you know what you're trying to get across. And so I think that experience is really valid. And every creative director should listen to a producer's take on something because you can make the idea stronger, you can make the idea more viable. And certainly when it comes to reality of budget and timelines, you can make it more palatable for the client.

Jude Braunstein:

Yeah, absolutely. And the other thing is, we can get behind selling an idea in too. There's always one thing that a creative director puts in front of me that it's like, I don't care what I have to do. That's going to happen. And it's usually the thing that's the most difficult and the most expensive, but you're like, I don't care. I'm taking this to the client. I'm going to sell it in because it's good for them, it's good for us, it's good for the show, it's good for the audience. And frankly, I really like the idea, and I'm going to make sure it happens.

Doug Binder:

Well, Jude, I'm not blowing smoke when I say that this is what makes you such a good producer, and this is why people love working with you, and this is why people love learning from you, is you have that enthusiasm. You have that drive that I don't just want to get this project done. I want to make this project special. I want to bring something, like we said, that's never been done before or never been done at this scale, or never been done for this reason, and that makes a great experience. I will come to you with also being responsible with the creative. I won't necessarily be creative to a budget, but I'm not going to try to sell you Cirque Soleil when I know that we don't have the time, the money, the resources, or even the purpose for doing it. And purpose is another big part of that. So that I think we may be opposite sides of the coin, but this coin is really thin because we're right there together.

Jude Braunstein:

So one last question, and this is a question that every single creative person I'm sure gets asked, but where do you find inspiration?

Doug Binder:

Everywhere. I won't say that I'm overly cultured, but I do take pride in that I am creative on my own. So I paint, I write, I do these things that when I meet a new client, my mode is to kind of treat it like I'm putting on a jacket or something. How do they feel? Where do I want to go? Is this bright and shiny? Is it fast? Is it slow? Is it time for reflection? But I kind of wear the client around for a little while, and that helps me kind of embody it. It's like when you write, and you find a voice, and that voice is going to bring so much to a story. That's what I like to do when I bring creative. Before we talk tactics, it's really what is the emotion behind this? What is the visceral side that we want to get across?

So I find it everywhere. But yeah, I am going to sound really narcissistic when I say that I kind of want to be that vessel to say, company A, B, C, this is what your world should look like and feel like to everyone who comes to experience it.

Jude Braunstein:

And you do that really, really well, Doug.

Doug Binder:

Thank you, Jude.

Jude Braunstein:

Yes, my pleasure. And thank you, Doug. Thank you for joining me today and for sharing your thoughts and your stories, and your insights, and your wisdom, and to all of you, thank you so much for your time. And be sure to join us for the next Xcast coming soon. I'm Jude Braunstein. Cheers.