DAVID FAIRS DESIGN PORTFOLIO THE WORK: MUMBRELLA360 BRAND IDENTITY Brief: Using existing company logo elements, develop a brand identity for annual conference, Mumbrella360, targeting anyone in the media, marketing & entertainment industries. MUMBRELLA360 B&T MAGAZINE INSERT Brief: Create an enticing brochure to promote the newly developed annual event, Mumbrella360. Showcase the events biggest draw card; it’s speakers, to specifically target B&T Magazine’s readership. DAVID FAIRS SENIOR DESIGNER 0420 456 753 [email protected]
Transcript
DAVID FAIRS DESIGN PORTFOLIO
THE WORK:
mumbRellA360 bRAND IDeNTITYBrief: using existing company logo elements, develop a brand identity for annual conference, mumbrella360, targeting anyone in the media, marketing & entertainment industries.
mumbRellA360 b&T mAgAzINe INSeRTBrief: Create an enticing brochure to promote the newly developed annual event, mumbrella360. Showcase the events biggest draw card; it’s speakers, to specifically target b&T magazine’s readership.
mumbRellA360 ADSHel CAmPAIgNBrief: Promote the mumbrella360 iPhone app designed specifically for the annual conference outside and inside the venue. Develop a complete set of promotional products and signage that creates a strong brand identity.
THe mumbRellA AWARDS 2011Brief: Create a brand identity for annual event The mumbrella Awards. Create all visual elements to showcase the industries best in various categories including Agency of the year, TV ad of the year and Film of the year. Design elements include; Video presentations, trophies, logo design, printed programs, seating plans, art direction for photography and interactive iPad App showcasing the winners and best photos.
mumbRellA AgeNCY ReVIeW bOOK SeRIeSBrief: 148 page coffee table book. Create an effective layout from concept to printed product, displaying the top creative and media agencies in Australia, as voted by a panel of experts.Develop a style guide to be carried across various agencies as a series of books.
Brief: Develop a fluid, easy to edit layout for annual magazine to be produced in under a week. From the best advertiser of the year, to the hottest in the industry, showcase the best images for each category.
Brief: Create a strong cover design to sell the Power 50 feature, the top 50 players in the Australian film industry. Source high quality photography of number one director, emille Sherman.
Brief: Completely redesign the cover, masthead and internal layout of monthly sections and features. Formerly tagreted at the film industry, the new look magazine has broadened it’s scope to report on all things media, marketing, advertising and content creation. The style should reflect this change, with a contemporary feel. Design extends to tablet publishing, with interactive elements in mind.
PRINT EDITORIAL DESIGN
iPad® is a trademark of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. App StoreSM is a service mark of Apple Inc.
eNCORe mAgAzINe leAD FeATuReSBrief: Display editorial content in an eye catching style, with focus on ease of access for the reader. Various lead feature designs on the following pages.
rience”, while others insist markets are a valuable process. There’s plenty of time to network, but Michael Favelle, founder of international sales agency Odin’s Eye Entertainment, says time-poor executives don’t always appreciate impromptu pitches. “People are up there to meet people, so it’s not uncom-mon to receive a pitch every 20 minutes either at lunch, after a brief introduction with someone, or in a bar at 3am. It can be very disruptive when you’re trying to sell a movie that you’ve already acquired before the film market, and you have someone who just keeps coming at you,” he says.
SPAAmart manager Scottie Connolly observes the people who are most successful at markets listen carefully to distribu-tors. “People sometimes go in with a pitch rehearsed, but it’s actually a conversation,” she says.
Other producers employ creative methods to distinguish their work from the crowd. “Three years ago, a team pitched a vampire movie and had bottles of wine labelled and made to look like blood to give to each executive,” recalls Connolly. Similarly Blight says her production company, Goalpost Pictures, makes a point of not relying on printed handouts. “When pitching the Tim Winton literary adaptation In The Winter Dark, we gave everyone a soundtrack from the film and a bottle of scotch to drink while reading the script. For The Sapphires, the Wayne Blair directed film about an indigenous all-girl soul group set in the 60s, we have a beautiful hard cover look-book,” says Blight. The book shows a collection of images that give a feel for the finished film which is currently in the throws of post production.
There’s also the delicate issue of feedback, both at film mar-kets and in one-on-one meetings with distributors: whether to expect it, how to interpret it and how to react if it’s scathing. Favelle doesn’t mince words. “Some producers get upset when they don’t get what they consider to be a decent amount of
order to present their vision for the film. Sales agents - execu-tives who acquire films and pitch to distributors on behalf of producers - receive pitches from production companies, while simultaneously pitching their own acquisitions to buyers. One common mistake made, says Andrew Ogilvie, executive pro-ducer at documentary production house Electric Pictures, is pitching a genre that is inappropriate for a buyer’s outlet. “I’ve seen it happen and I’ve done it myself. Some buyers actually get quite annoyed by it. If you do that too often, you won’t get meetings with people,” he says.
At this point in the process, the format for pitching can vary from informal meetings to structured film markets. For producer Rosemary Blight, flogging the 2007 film Clubland involved numerous one-on-one meetings around the world. “When I was pitching Clubland in New York, I had one guy who got down on his hands and knees and thanked me for the film because he was just so in love with actress Brenda Blethyn. I also pitched it to a sales agent in Soho. When I left the meeting and looked around, he was behind me on the street checking I wasn’t going to pitch it to someone else,” recalls Blight. “You have to pitch with passion but do it concisely to people who have about 15 minutes, if that. As I’ve become more experienced, I’ve articulated my audi-ence better. I let the script talk for me,” she says.
Then there’s the frenetic world of international and local film markets. While some have makeshift offices for executives from distribution companies, others like SPAAmart (run by the Screen Producers Association of Australia during their annual conference) place producers in stalls while executives circulate.
Film markets can be incongruous territory to tread for producers and directors. One producer describes them as “stagey” and another “artificial… an uncomfortable expe-
THE ART OF THE PITCH
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Features
One of the most fascinating pitching stories told doesn’t come from the screen industry.
It doesn’t come from film markets, where producers have performed raps, run cooking shows and given away bottles of booze to attract the attention of buyers.
It doesn’t come from the south of France, where Andrew Denton pitched an animated talk show host to the CEO of Channel Ten, despite not knowing if the technology to create such a program existed in Australia.
It doesn’t even come from a marketing boardroom, where one creative agency included its entire company – all 150 employees – in a pitch via video conferencing.
One of the most fascinating pitching stories comes from the late Steve Jobs, when he returned to Apple in 1997 to turn around the company’s ailing fortunes.
Jobs invited two advertising agencies to meet with him. On the day of the first meeting, he was two hours late. Instead of apologising, he entered the room and drew 13 boxes on a whiteboard, each box representing a multi-million dollar Apple product line. One by one, Jobs struck a line through 11 of the boxes. He explained how he’d recently killed all of these prod-ucts except for the two remaining boxes: the iMac and the G4. They were the only products that upheld Apple’s commitment to technological innovation and beautiful design, so the only products the company would continue to invest in.
“All he’d done was draw boxes on the wall, and I was imme-diately convinced that Apple had a very strong future,” recalls Jon Steel, then partner and director of planning at advertising agency Goody, Silverstein & Partners and one of the ad execu-tives in the meeting with Jobs. “He had no formal visual aids, just him and his passion. Whenever I make a pitch, that’s what I try to do. I try to tell a story about a brand and what it repre-sents, what it could represent. That’s what a great pitch is,” the
now Perth-based GPY&R chief strategy officer says.Steel’s encounter with Jobs, mentioned in his book Perfect Pitch –
The Art of Selling Ideas and Winning New Business, is a story that resonates across industries. Talk to producers from film, television, radio and advertising, and the bare bones of pitching remain the same: tell a compelling story, and tell it well - preferably in less than five minutes. This is especially true in the Australian film industry, where thousands of projects struggle to find their voice in a clut-tered market.
FILMIs pitching a film as simple as spinning a good yarn for investors
and waiting for the offers to flood in? Not if you take into account the many stages involved in getting a project up.
When a scriptwriter or director has a concept for a film, the first hurdle they face is pitching the script, still in its early stages, to a production company. Stories can be creatively pitched – pro-ducer Rosemary Blight recalls hearing the sound of tap dancers while working downstairs from the room where Baz Luhrmann was pitching Strictly Ballroom.
Director Craig Boreham says bad pitches occur “when people are trying to tell a story of their movie from beginning to end, and it becomes convoluted and complicated. You start getting character back stories and people don’t know what’s going on anymore,” he says. At this stage, the key is to keep the presenta-tion succinct.
If the pitch goes well, the production company will broker a relationship with the writer and develop the script, packaging it with a suitable director and cast. The second phase of pitching then occurs; a frenzied series of meetings as producers attempt to sell the project to film and DVD distributors, investors and sales agents. The process is complex with much overlap. Directors often accompany producers to pitch meetings in
THE ART OF THE PITCHFrom boardrooms to the back of yachts in Cannes, the pitching process is an integral step for many projects - whether film, television or advertising. Sophia Russell goes behind closed doors to uncover the differences, similarities, secrets and strategies of the pitch.
Features
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PRINT EDITORIAL DESIGN
November 2011 ADELAIDE 5
advantages to being such a boutique size. “Because the city is small, it’s unencumbered by some of the difficulties larger cities have. We can be a bit more nimble, we can be a bit more adventurous, we can be a bit closer to our clients because it’s a smaller business community.” He adds that it is important to harness the power that comes from being so niche and as a result stronger creative will follow.
“The challenge for Adelaide is not to confuse size and success. There is a tendency for people to think that because you’re not as big, you’re not as good. But what we have to do is understand that it’s not all about size, it’s about understanding what you’re able to do at the size you’re at. In many respects, we ought to be able to do better work because we are smaller.”
The lifestyle in Adelaide clearly encourages creativ-ity. Melvin Mansell, editor of the News Limited news-paper the Adelaide Advertiser, echoes the sentiment and adds that despite a common belief you need to head east to ‘make it’, the professional opportunities in Adelaide are excellent. “Adelaide is a fantastic city to live in. It has, in fact, been rated as one of the most liveable cities in the world. In my opinion, the professional opportunities are tremendous if you are looking to come to a place, have a great lifestyle, and really make your mark.”
Brad Hulme, programme director for DMG’s FiveAA station, agrees. “It’s beauti-ful here. There are a lot
of very very passionate people in Adelaide. Passionate about the city and passionate about the lifestyle that they lead. I think this city has a lot to offer.”
ScreenWith such a versatile range of scenery, South
Australia has long been an attractive film destina-tion. Located within easy reach of The Kimberleys, Nullabor Plain, Kangaroo Island, and the Barrossa Valley wine region, its ability to double for many international landscapes is appealing. Channel Seven Adelaide’s general manager Tony Davison describes shooting in Adelaide as incomparable. “SA is a great place to shoot. The light is just incredible. You will hear filmmakers talk about the light in SA and you
won’t see it anywhere else in the world. Go up to the Flinders Ranges and it’s actually quite surreal.” Adelaide Studios CEO, Richard Harris, agrees. He believes Adelaide is second to none when it comes to location. “We are one of the best locations in the country in the sense that we are a town that can dou-
SOUTHERN COMFORTS“It takes a long time to become known in the industry nationally, so it’s always seen as a bit of a shock when an Adelaide f ilmmaker gains attention.”
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Adelaide's new studio complex is now open for business
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Special Report
Each year Adelaide plays host to Australia’s largest arts festival, the Adelaide Fringe. For three weeks in February and March the city is a hotbed of risk tak-ing creativity, but for the rest of the year what goes on down south? More than meets the eye, it would seem.
Boasting considerable architectural merit and a near European climate, Adelaide is an attractive lifestyle prospect for the city-weary. However, peel back the cultural façade and a quietly humming media industry is revealed, putting a whole new spin on the phrase work/life balance. And from this exact balance, a com-mon thread begins to emerge giving South Australian creative a distinct flavour. Although its
media landscape lacks the breadth and complexity of our larger cities, these obvious shortcomings are perhaps Adelaide’s greatest strength, for it becomes quickly apparent in this corner of the world, the fewer the resources, the greater the creativity.
Spread across multiple platforms, the Adelaide media industry encompasses film, television, adver-tising, newspapers and radio collectively creating a vibrant hub of world-class outlets bent on delivering globally. But what actually draws media professionals to put down roots so far from Australia’s eastern sea-board? While this southern gem has definite advan-
tages, it’s no mean feat to make it in a town where competition is high and everybody knows everybody. In the advertising bubble, for Jeremy Ervine and David Campbell, co-founders of ad agency Fnuky, the positives of living and working in South Australia are numerous, but for now they come at a price. Although the lifestyle is incomparable, Campbell believes much needs to happen before the ad industry reaches its full potential. “Adelaide is a beautiful place. Jeremy and I have this philosophical view that this is where ideas should be coming from. This is an amazing city that has an incredible arts culture; it’s got the best wine in the southern hemisphere, which is, of course, con-ducive to good ideas. We have everything this city needs to be a creative place, and most of the people here see themselves as creative people. For some rea-son the commercial side of that, the advertising side, hasn’t been along with that game. We both think not only does it need to be, but it will be and that’s why we are here.”
It would be easy to conclude that given the scale of the industry, the quality of work in Adelaide
is significantly lower than the standard set by Australia’s other creative centres. But Kim
Boehm, managing director for ad agen-cy Clemenger BBDO Adelaide, says
conversely, there are considerable
SOUTHERN COMFORTSWhile Sydney and Melbourne are busy hogging the media spotlight, Adelaide, their southern sister, has been quietly establishing herself as a world-class creative hub. Georgina Pearson scopes out the scene.
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PRINT EDITORIAL DESIGN
1. Intro 2. For Bar 43. Heart of War4. Fatal Attraction5. Everyday6. Hollow Bones 7. Sun Beats Down8. Scar 9259. Kids of the Basement10. Thick of IT11. Fading12. Night
TRACK LIST
DEKLMDEL
The next installment from the Sound Assylums, Fine Print presents this collection of unique hip hop beats. Featuring lyrics by Eske the Mug, Young B & Malakai. All production by Fine Print. Tracks mixed & recorded by Proph 1 for Sound Assylums.
Fine Print
Glue Tab
Glue Tab
Front
Back First Folds
Second Fold
FrontBackInside Inside
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PRINT PACKAGING DESIGN
THE WORK:
FINe PRINT ePBrief: Create a CD cover and marketing material for eP launch, FINe PRINT. Communicate a mixture of Hip Hop production and retro funk music.
SONY bmg beeR lAbelSBrief: Create a series of beer labels featuring popular music artists to promote brewtopia ltd and their range of promotional products.
