From in-house to freelancer: brand storytelling with Phil Lind
Phil Lind is former Network Creative Director at Channel 4’s 4Creative and ITV’s Network Executive Creative Director who now works as a freelancer. Recent projects include the critically acclaimed The Times Unquiet Film Series through Grey London and an easyJet commercial. In this Movidiam podcast, we talk to Phil about his experience of production, moving from in-house to freelance, and the golden age of television.
https://soundcloud.com/movidiam/e31-phil-lind
Welcome to the Movidiam Podcast. Today we’re speaking to Phil Lind, who is a profile on Movidiam. He has a fantastically successful career as a commercial director and filmmaker. Phil, welcome to the Movidiam Podcast.
Hello. Good morning and thank you.
Phil, I first came across your work with The Unquiet Series for The Sunday Times, and more recently, your easyJet work. Perhaps tell us a little bit about Unquiet, and where that came from.
had worked for 11 years at Channel 4 in their 4Creative department. From there, I was approached by ITV to rebrand the whole of the ITV group. That was a full rebrand of all of their channels, all of their properties, buildings, mugs, and passes the people wore when they came into the building. It was all very, very interesting. It was part of what I would say, was my full-time life. I had been in full-time employment through 4Creative for 11 years, and then two years at ITV rebranding ITV.
At the point at which I left ITV, I was approached by The Times and The Sunday Times to creatively direct and direct parts of a series that they called The Unquiet Film Series. This was an idea developed through Grey Advertising for The Times and Sunday Times through their arm News UK.
My involvement then became as a co-creative director with Dave Monk, who was the Creative Director at Grey at the time. We produced 14 times for The Times and The Sunday Times, which were entirely based on parts of the very rich archive that these newspapers had developed over many, many years from the 1800s. The interesting thing for me was the fact that this was the beginning of my freelance life and a commercial undertaking; but it was a commercial undertaking that was, in fact, branded content. It was an online initiative.
Very interesting, Phil. You touch on a very interesting point there. You chart your journey from full-time employment and rebranding inside a huge and very big team to a commercial existence, but as a freelancer. Is this perhaps a macro trend that we’re seeing more of in the filmmaking and visual effects industry?
Well, I think from my point of view and understanding of television and advertising within television channels, certainly what’s happening now is that we’re seeing a lot of migration from traditional advertising, in terms of creative directors, coming from advertising and coming into Channel 4.
Channel 4 currently have two creative ex-Fallon guys who are their creative directors, who have just done a very successful rebrand not too long ago. The BBC also have guys from advertising. So, the migration that is happening in two directions. People are moving from television into advertising, which was the traditional way, and now advertising is migrating into television. Of course, everyone is looking at social media and that sort of thing as well.
Sure. Well, I think the fundamental behind that is that the distribution is changing. Therefore, the means of production, or the format of the media content needs to change. Although the means of production; the individual directors, visual effects artists, and editors produce the same stuff whether it’s long-term television, or short-form brand commercials such as the one you’ve done for The Sunday Times and The Times, the format is changing, therefore the distribution must do as well. Or, the distribution’s changing, therefore the format needs to change.
Yes, I completely agree. I found more and more so that I view every new brief that comes in, that in a way I consciously don’t think too much about the methods of distribution because they become so varied, and I rely more and more entirely on the brief that I am given; because the methods of hyper-distribution are so varied that, in fact, it becomes a very specific deliverable list that you deliver creative against, if that makes sense.
It kind of leads to this idea of building something big, and chopping it up into lots of different formats. Perhaps you might have this format for Snapchat, you might have another format for YouTube, a third for your own domain delivery as you see on The Sunday Times, or The Financial Times behind a paywall. Really, is that an expectation that the filmmaker needs to develop an understanding about the distribution, and how to push the narrative as well, and actually perhaps consult on how to proliferate the message?
Yes. I think it’s absolutely fundamental. Having a view of the overall activity for any given campaign I think is important, because I think not too long ago, if we were creating a film or a video, that was pretty much central to a campaign. It was the key messaging. That was where all of the focus was. Nowadays, I suppose it’s fair to say that if you make a film or a video, or something of that nature, that that is something that really kick-starts a much bigger process. To have sight of that entire process, I think really, really does help inform the creative.
Then, when we’re creating a film or a piece of video content, we have to aggregate all of the reasons that we’re making that video content for, and say, “Okay, well this film or video is going to do X, but it’s also going to, hopefully, get viewers interested in other behaviors, typically in social media.”
It’s very interesting. Just going back to your own journey as working inside a big team, and now being a freelancer, effectively, on these productions, on The Unquiet series, and on easyJet, I assume that these weren’t 50–100 man big crews. I’m making the assumption. Perhaps I’m wrong, but this was you constructing the idea, pitching it, building the little team around you, or the team around you to execute the idea.
Yes it was. The Unquiet Film Series, I think part of the reason that I was contacted was because of the strong contacts that I had in the industry, primarily from many years at 4Creative.
There was an ambition that each of the films would have a different director, and a different method of making the film; be it animation, live action, computer generated, etc. I was very much engaged in order to reach out to other creatives in order to create the series. So, it starts small. There was myself and the producer, Peter Maynard. Then we sort of built teams from there, which didn’t exist in the real world. It was very much a freelance enterprise in many ways. Once the project was completed, we all sort of dispersed.
I think that ties in very nicely with the way that Movidiam works. There’s a network of creative talent there, so you perhaps audit your expertise and skills. If that is in the writing and the concepting, you might need a visual effects artist to do the text on-screen, or the animations around the opening montage. Actually going to Movidiam is where you can build people for a project. Then they go back to their other projects, or other work when there’s not the need.
That’s absolutely right. Now you can reach out to people who have a creative spark or a skill-set which are absolutely perfect for what you need for any given project. There’s no ‘one size fits all’ approach. We can now go to those people who really can fulfill a brief in ways that are absolutely right, which are sort of pinpoint. That is because there is such a large freelance community now. To be able to be in contact with all of these people, and to be able to reach out and work with, or for them to reach out to you, I think it’s really, really exciting now. It’s never been like this before, and I’m really excited by it.
I think if you look, just going to that terminology that you used there of a ‘Jack of all trades’, or perhaps someone you’ve built a trust with over a 10-year career. There is so much talent out there, and bespoke styles that could be totally relevant to this project, but not your next project. So, being able to source a team, and the team of best fit around expertise, actually probably means that the creative potential output is more diverse and interesting as well.
I think so, and I think we’re seeing it now more than ever. People say that we’re living in the golden age of television. With Westworld and series like this, television has never been better. Then, we look at social media, vloggers, and influencers as well as cinema. It just feels like every single stream is burgeoning with more and more creative, and more and more specific, creative talent. I find that really, really exciting.
Very interesting. I was just speaking with Steve Davies of the APA the other day on the podcast. He was talking about the changing shape and the changing format of production companies, and how that really you used to have to go to a production company to actually execute something. But, it comes back down to the idea and the story behind it. The story is at the heart of these things, whether it’s making a long-form, short-form, Snapchat. It’s always the story narrative which drives the human interest.
Absolutely. I’m represented through Mad Cow in production company terms, and JSA for commercials. Then we look at things like branded content, especially, or any sort of social initiatives, and the calls can literally now come from anywhere. I used to be surprised if I was called by a brand, a PR company, or a media agency, or something like that. Now, it’s feeling much more par for the course, in terms of the ways in which we can be contacted regarding projects, or project-based work.
Quickly onto the easyJet project then, Phil. This has got a fantastic grade. It fills you with the need to race away on holiday, and I assume it’s been a very positive message for them?
Yes, very much so. It was a really, really great commercial to be involved in, I think largely because the proposition was so simple in terms of easyJet wishing to capture some really precious moments that are made possible by traveling with easyJet around the various European destinations that they have.
It was my intention, and I was really pleased with the result, in terms of capturing moments, and really making viewers feel a part of those moments. How it feels to be on the holiday, and to be in the moment. We shot the whole commercial in Barcelona, largely because that gave us all of the locations that felt very European, so that it would appeal to many different country audiences.
It puts you in holiday mode, for sure.
It does put you in holiday mode. City holiday, beach holiday — we had all the locations in Barcelona. I thought what I was able to do on that was create scenes that the actors could live in and explore, knowing that I could rely on the editing process to bring them down to length. But, for the cast members and actors, it sort of allowed them to explore the roles much more fully, and really capture that feeling of being on holiday for a short break.
Very, very good. It’s a fantastic grade as well, I noticed. How did you find and pull a team together, Phil, on this particular project? Was there a production company involved?
EasyJet was very much in the traditional mold. It was BBC as an agency. Then I worked through my production company. That was, at that time, a very traditional approach; which of course works very, very well.
Yes. Nonetheless, these things need to get more efficient. Considering project-management tools, and how things are streamlining, I suppose when you start to investigate the Movidiam project-management tools, you can see there’s some timeline planning, video revision. You can get some rushes and some versions of the final cuts basically over to agency, production company, and clients, ultimately, to review and feedback on that. Do you find yourself using more and more applications in the cloud to help with the production process?
I haven’t as yet, but I’m aware of your applications on Movidiam, and others that exist. I know that they are used. I come more from the sort of creative side, so I’m, in many ways for this sort of process, an end-user that I’m part of what gets input, rather than being a producer. Then I’d be using it much more frequently to create projects. So, it hasn’t impacted on me, this way of working quite as much yet. But I’m sure there have been projects that I just haven’t been aware of, if that makes sense.
I’m sure it’s coming. 2017 Phil, will be the year that production-management software hits you.
Yeah, I’m sure it will.
What’s comes up, Phil, over the next couple of quarters? Have you got some exciting projects in the pipeline?
I suppose in the short term, regarding my projects this year: I have meetings, first briefings starting tomorrow for Giffgaff Money and Tesco. These are very much branded content, sort of online and social initiatives. They’re the first projects this year. A project that I’ve been working on for, I suppose touching on a year now, is that I create a bit of 360 VR content for Samsung, which I find very interesting. It was my first introduction to 360 filming and VR. I’d come to it very, very cold; but I really, really, enjoyed the experience.
We created a VR film. Then, Samsung had a stand in Westfield shopping center. There was a bit of experiential involved that people would watch the film. It was a Halloween film, so it was a zombie film. Then we brought a zombie into Westfield whilst people were watching it, and saw the reaction of people. It was really, really good fun; but more importantly, it really kicked off for me, an interest in 360 filming. Not because of everything that I learned, but I felt that there was so many shortcomings in the process that were involved in this project. That started me down a road of testing quite a few 360 filming thoughts that I had, and devices. It’s something that’s ongoing for ’17. I think I’m at the stage now that with all of the development and testing that I’ve done, that I can probably bring some of this thinking to a brand.
Yeah. It’s an interesting format for sure. I think that leads us on nicely to virtual reality and augmented reality. How is that going to take a role? Is the equipment to watch this stuff on too expensive, which leads to 360 filming being achievable because it distributes fairly well through platforms like Facebook?
What I’ve found it’s a very interesting question. I’ve found in 360 filming and the way in which my testing has taken me, that it’s fair to say that whilst 360 filming seems relatively straightforward; in terms of you take a multi-lens camera, place it in a scene, and away you go; it’s actually much more complex than that. I’ve kind of worked out that it takes about three and a half times more time to film 360 than it does to film something in a standard single-camera way.
The techniques that I now use within it, in post-production terms, it pretty much for me makes every frame a post-production frame. So the time in post-production, editing and finishing 360 in the way that I do it, is very much longer, and so very time-consuming. Ultimately, I’ve found with my technique, not with every technique, it does become quite expensive as well.
Sure. Well, I think that’s interesting. I mean, if you think of the film being, or a commercial being this suspension of disbelief, 360 is perhaps more the involvement inside the suspension of disbelief. Therefore, it’s got to be a more precise and sort of mathematically polished bit of stitching.
Of course it does, because you have very little control of the viewer, where they look, and what they choose to listen to. If you’re creating a narrative arc, obviously you want to control that. The way in which they’re looking, what they’re listening to, and what they’re interested in, in order for them to follow the narrative. This, of course, takes a great deal of planning. What I have found interesting is if we look across the tech within 360 and VR, we have very, very impressive cameras, we have very impressive post-production, we have very impressive processing power.
I think a slight sticking point, and one that does need to be resolved, and I don’t have the answer to it, are the ways in which we view 360; because wearing goggles or looking on our smartphone and sitting on a spinning chair in order to get the view are all really lovely ways to enjoy 360 and VR, but they are limited still in the fact that we can’t really have a shared experience. Okay, we can get 200 people in a room with headsets on, and we’re having a shared experience; but it still isn’t.
Administratively and costly-wise it’s quite a lot, isn’t it?
Yes, and so it’s very interesting in terms of the technology, in terms of camera and post-production is flying ahead; a new camera system virtually every day. But, the ways in which we view, I think is less prolific. It’ll be interesting to see how that develops over the next year or two.
Very interesting, indeed. Phil, it’s been great to talk to you on the podcast. You’ve got some fascinating stories of your journey through the creative industries, and it sounds like you’re really challenging the new agendas and the new formats that are arriving. We look forward to following more on your Movidiam profile. I’m sure it will stimulate a lot of interest in your work.
Thanks very much for having me, George.
Great to have you, I look forward to catching up again at some point in the future.
Find Philip Lind online here:
Movidiam: https://www.movidiam.com/philiplind
Website: http://artandsci.co.uk/
Mad Cow Films: http://www.madcowfilms.co.uk/directors/phil-l…
