TJ talks to students in Bristol on CGI’s ever-growing role in advertising15/03/11
On Tuesday 8th March Keith Jeffery, Business Development Manager and our newest member of staff Andrew Davison travelled to the Creative Arts Campus at the University of West England, in Bristol to give a lecture on the current state of the creative production industry. Keith spoke about the shift going on within advertising as consumers change their viewing habits and digital platforms begin to mature. He also spoke about creating cross media CG assets and how this gives advertisers a cost effective alternative to costly live shoots. Finally Keith gave some parting advice encouraging them to collaborate with the best people, do work they enjoy and keep showreels short and always tailor them to the companies they are approaching.
I took my seat in a lecture room on the Creative Arts Campus at the University of West England. It’s my second week at Taylor James so as well as helping Keith give a lecture to students from multiple courses on the current state of the creative production industry, it’s a good chance for me to learn more about it too.
“How many of you watch TV?” was Keith’s opening question. The point he was making is that increasingly programs are watched on phones and on platforms such as YouTube and iPlayer. People choose what they want to watch and when and can do it without sitting through long advert breaks.
With hardware getting better and internet speeds getting faster it is possible to deliver rich visual content right into people’s hands. It’s these interactive experiences that will replace the traditional advert break in the future. And therein lies one of Taylor James’ strengths and key differentials; the ability to deliver CG assets that are of a high enough quality that they can be reused across print, TV and interactive. Keith took the students through our work on the ‘Nissan Qasqhai’ campaign as a good example of a print campaign extended across into a commercial and ‘Motorola City’ as an example of a print piece extended into a fully interactive microsite.
Keith spent time explained how Taylor James has deliberately geared itself this way. Our background for a start, as photographic retouchers, has been an advantage. The move into CGI 6 years ago was done with a team experienced in delivering high quality, photo-realistic work for print ads. This photo-realism when applied to moving image work leaves people unable to tell whether it was captured in camera or CGI. In practice it is often a careful mix of both and as Keith emphasised “our designers are doing their job properly when people can’t tell the difference”.
Today’s students will graduate into an industry where CGI is developed enough to make it a cost effective alternative to a photographic or live action shoot. Location scouting, prop hire and transportation, crew costs and travel all eat into a client’s budget and can all be reduced when using CGI. Further savings are achieved as the client receives a library of CG assets and environments that can be reutilised should they want to extend or update the campaign in the future.
Our work on the ‘Turkish Airlines’ advert is a perfect example. With no access to a plane and only a small window of time with the players, the scene had to be created in CGI. When the day of the shoot came camera angles and lighting had already been approved and we were able to position the Manchester United players exactly as required. The photos of the players were then blended into the CGI environment and expert retouching gave the whole layout a photo-realistic quality.
At university students benefit from a great deal of creative excellence and input from tutors but it is important they also make an effort understand the commercial environment when picking their career route.
Keith concluded with some parting advice for the students. Most important is to collaborate with the best people whenever possible and specialise on the areas in which you have an interest. Also important is to research an agency’s particular strength and tailor their portfolio accordingly, keep showreels short and be honest about your involvement in collaborative pieces and finally to follow key players at their favourite agencies but to not let this turn into stalking! All in all a great day out and hopefully a good insight into creative production industry for many entering the creative sector.
Jim Campbell, Senior Lecturer Visual Culture & Programme Leader BA Photography, had this to say “I just wanted to thank you and Taylor James once again for your lecture last week. There were some valuable lessons about the nature of the creative industries and I know the students really enjoyed and learnt a great deal from the experience. I’ve just been reading a piece by David Baldwin (NYC advertising guru) talking about media integration– which I think is the main thing that stuck with me about your pitch last week.”