Commercial making is a side to the film business that rarely receives much industry attention.
It is however an area that provides many productions companies with their bread and butter commissions and can be a lucrative market not only for independent producers but also for crews, directors, artists and designers.
Shooting commercials keeps many crews working when other work is unavailable. However for some of the larger companies in Ireland like Russell Avis, commercials are a speciality area that represent almost if not all of their work.
Most advertising agencies specialising in commercials use a film company with whom they have established a relationship through past collaborations. Therefore it can be a difficult area for new production teams to get into. Frank Neary of Doherty Advertising explains that a client will come to his agency with a concept. The agency will then approach two or three production companies and ask them to estimate cost and feasibility. They will then contract the filmmaker to produce the ad based on what they feel is the best deal for their client.
By nature - though in essence they are still TV - commercials are shot under slightly different conditions. Any commission, whether a short, feature or TV production, necessitates working closely with several vested interests. Commercials take this a step further, in that the creative element isn’t just spread around the producers and key crewmembers. It must include the client, their advertising agency and marketing managers who rely on the production company’s expertise. For this reason, good working relationships between agencies, producers and directors keep most of the work tied down to a few main players.
There have been exceptions to this, most notably the immensely successful ‘Whassup’ campaign for Budweiser shot in America. The oft-imitated cry was created by a group of actors and filmmakers after they approached the company itself with their concept. Examples such as this are rare but do exist and should inspire directors, producers and designers to have a go.
Creative and artistic input does not go ignored either. The Institute of Advertising Practitioners in Ireland (IAPI) annual award ceremony honours commercial makers from concept designers to production companies and directors. Nomad, Russell Avis, Toytown and Chemistry all received awards this year, as did their directors Ciaran J. Walsh, Dominic Murgin, John O’Driscoll and Cathal Flaherty.
Commercials made cheaply invariably look cheap and TV audiences have proved sensitive to a brand’s image. Considering the relatively high cost of most shoots, it is a competitive and sometimes unforgiving environment for production companies to operate in.
Peaking all other efforts at large scale commercial production here was the Bord Fáilte and Northern Irish Tourist Board collaboration in 1996. Owens DDB, the advertising agency acting on behalf of the combined tourist boards, commissioned London Based director Sharon Maguire after viewing some 50 show reels. 85% of the £1.75 million budget was spent here and 80% of the crew were Irish. The ads have been seen all over the world and though the intention was to shoot enough footage over 27 days to last 3 years, the same material is still being used worldwide today and will feature in a new campaign for 2001. Other commercial shoots made for Irish TV have reached the £.5 to £.75 million mark but these are relatively rare.
In Ireland the market is understandably small. However, some commercial makers like Hugh Sweeney have made the crossover to UK television. His past commissions include an advertisement for Goodfellas Pizza that was aired both here and in the UK. Hugh is currently working on a commercial for UK television that incorporates both live action and computer graphics but the bulk of his work is featured here, on Irish TV and includes commissions for Uncle Ben’s, Darina Allen Ice-Cream and Cuisine de France. Large, international brands often air the same footage in several countries at once but alter dubbing and voiceovers to suit different audiences. Sound engineer Tommy Ellis’ most recent work on commercials includes L’Oreal’s Plenitude and work for Motorola (the one with the turtles!). The advertising work coming out of his Mount St. studio usually arrives directly from agencies seeking changes to regional campaigns for Europe wide commercials. Again, building relationships with several agencies is vital. Considering the number of international products advertised on Irish networks, commercials provide an important bonus to work undertaken by local sound studios.
Steve Shanahan, of IAPI, points out the difficulty in trying to assess how much of the advertising on Irish TV is shot by local crews and how much represents foreign productions. He estimates that it breaks down roughly on a 60/40 basis with 60% of what we see coming from abroad. L’Oreal, for example, might use the same commercial on both sides of the Atlantic but in each region sound production facilities will have to be contracted to make the ad acceptable to local audiences. This bodes well for the sound studios receiving contracts but illustrates how much competition film producers here have to face.
- Nick Wilkinson
