Kodak UK announce business as usual

Jan 20, 2012 - 04:46 PM

Kodak UK have announced that the restructuring and application for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection of Kodak in the US does not effect its UK operation. That is still trading and continuing to serve its customers. For the statement from David Webb, General Manager Kodak UK, please see below.

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Standard form confidentiality/non disclosure agreement issued

Jan 18, 2012 - 10:45 AM

The APA and IPA have created a template confidentiality agreement aka non disclosure agreement. The document protects the confidential information of both parties and, as with all our standard documents, saves you and the agencies you work with from having to draft and negotiate the terms of a confidentiality agreement each time you use one.
This form can be found on our website in the APA/IPA agreements and documents section.

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Updated contract and PIBS

Jan 18, 2012 - 10:42 AM

The APA and IPA have published a revised version of the standard industry PIBS and Contract.

You can access the updated versions, together with a guidance note here

We have made the changes to reflect the experiences of APA and IPA members working with the contract and PIBS.

They bring greater clarity to two areas of the contract, the division of risk/liabilities for the effects of weather on pre shoot days and time critical information. Anti-bribery provisions are also included to meet the requirements of the Bribery Act 2011.

Equally important in practice is that the contract and PIBS are now identified, in the top right hand corner of each document, as “Approved by the APA/IPA/ISBA January 2012”. We have added that because there have been instances where an older version of a contract has been used/difficulties in identifying whether a contract template is the the latest version when there are older versions on a company’s server. So you can check whether a template you access or contract and PIBS you receive are the latest version by checking that they have the date “January 2012” in the top right hand corner and that will remain the date until such time as we notify you of a further update.

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Televisual’s Commercial 30 - annual industry survey 2011

Nov 18, 2011 - 02:50 PM

Televisual magazine’s annual survey of the UK commercial production sector.  Plus a look at the UK’s top directors, producers and commercials; a review of the production sector and the challenges it has faced in 2011; a showcase of recent commercials that have used vfx and music to incredible effect. 

Click here to read the article and survey.

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Mumbai London Advertising Forum 2011 - Report

Nov 17, 2011 - 10:42 AM

It came as a huge relief to the UK delegates at the Mumbai London Advertising Forum to learn that India is just as confusing and complex a country to the Indian advertising industry leaders as it is to us foreigners.  Within India’s population of 1.2 billion there are two official languages Hindi and English, over 100 dialects, seven religions… the stats run on stratospherically.

“The vast contrasts across language, wealth, locations, food and culture are overwhelming even for us so you can imagine the complexities of working in communication here,” said Subhash Kamath, of BBH India. “I could live here for 100 years and still not fully understand this place.”

There’s been a huge shift in the social paradigm, according to Kamath, with 50 percent of the population below the age of 25 and 65 percent below 35. “They are impatient, spontaneous and are beginning to believe they can take charge of their own destinies.”

Getting the balance right between “how modern should advertising become and how traditional should it remain” is an issue facing all creatives and directors, according to Karan Singh, HTV, JWT Delhi.

“Pops”, the national creative director of Leo Burnett, also talked of the complexities of the Indian society which is reflected in the country’s advertising. “Twenty years ago there was only a national channel with an occasional BBC 15 minute bulletin, and now there are 140 regional news channels.

“India is a mystery to all of us. And if we can’t understand how the hell can people coming from overseas understand Indian people and their behaviour,” he said also pointing out that the multi national companies are run by Indians with few, if any, ex-pat creative directors.

“India is so diverse that McDonald’s had to change its menu in different regions to suit the local palettes.”

However, the solution to how to communicate to the relevant but different sectors of society seems to be easy: Bollywood or cricket.

Bollywood celebrity endorsement is huge particularly in the beauty sector which is the biggest advertising sector and is likely to have bigger budgets than the average spend of about £100k and apparently is more likely to be the area where an overseas director would be considered.

As one Indian speaker said, “We consume ideas differently and are are still caught up in cliches, 90 percent of our beauty commercials look the same. This is where we need the ingenuity of UK directors to make things look different with their execution and post-production.”

However several speakers commented that those directors who had invested time and effort in getting under the skin of India, “those who had found the soul of the country”, added a huge amount of value.

The disparity of timelines between the two countries became very apparent throughout the two- day forum with several Indian creative directors asking the UK delegation “Can you make commercials faster, cheaper?” In India the average time for an overseas commercial was 25 days compared to London’s three to four months.

As Bang Bang’s Roopak Saluja pointed out that in India it was quite common for the story to be still evolving on the shoot.  “Can you treat and budget by tomorrow without a script?” was not such an unusual demand said Saluja.

A point that was further picked up by Agnello Dias, chairman and co-founder of Tap-root India who said: “The writing of the script never stops on a shoot,  it stops only when post-production is completed.”

He had the audience smiling with his comments that “In the UK as a race of worriers there is not much lee-way for production going wrong because everything is planned. In India nothing will go right.  We rely on karma, whereas western thinking is ‘if I plan, I can go there’.

Directors have the power in India over the look and feel of the commercial, and Dias pointed out that foreign directors tend to bring in their own aesthetic influences to style sets, something that Indians don’t always identify with.

Meawhile, Mark Benson, global MD of Moving Picture Company, Joce Capper, MD of Rushes,  and Anthony McCaffery, head of production at Rushes, gave a joint presentation of the brilliant post production and special effects out of London - highlighting the competitive but collaborative nature of their work. “Each house has individual specialisms and we often share different parts of a job,” said Capper. “The more we work together the more we can meet price and time pressures and it betters creative executions.”

“As a price driven market we have the same pressures in the UK as India but we can meet these issues,” said Benson, whose company MPC has long experience in India since setting up in Bangalore.

Josh King senior producer of MPC showed the company’s stunning 4D outdoor projections - we all loved the Ralph Lauren installation of live and holographic models for the Shanghai store - and Stephen Gosling exec producer at Framestore talked us through the impressive work flow from concept, pre-vis through to final comp on some brilliant ads.

And talking of brilliant ads, Penny Verbe screened the amazing array of animation styles from Passion including Andrew Ruhemann’s oscar-winning The Lost Thing.

“Our production sometimes can be eye-watering expensive and we don’t get all the Indian nuances,” said Tim Katz, MD of Knucklehead,  but as he pointed out these issues are not insurmountable.

“We’re used to getting on a plane and working with many other cultures,” Katz said, also highlighting that London’s position as a top centre of production excellence was due to drawing the best talent in directing, editing, post, vfx and sound from all over the world.

“We want to find ways for the Indian market to access that too,” Katz said,
“We have our ways of working but we are willing to be flexible and adapt how we work.

“We are not a barter society but we are competitive. We can either come to you or find the most cost-effective place to shoot.”

For all the differences between London and Mumbai’s ways of working, there appeared to be a huge appetite on both sides to combine London’s natural instinct for process and talent for execution with India’s prolific output of over 3,000 commercials per year.

“After all,” as Luke Beauchamp, MD of Compedium pointed out, “Chicken Tikka Masala is the UK’s favourite dish.”

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