CATALOGUE

Once there is consensus on the creative brief, the creative team will produce several concepts/ideas that answer the brief in different ways. The brief must contain as much detail as possible as this is what the creative team will use to spark ideas and come up with concepts. They may vary by tone, messaging hierarchy, or production approach e.g. animation versus real actors. All proposed ideas will aim to achieve the objective as set out in the brief. Not to mention the colors must be graded a certain way and all must go through various stages of approval.

The pre-production process includes scriptwriting, location scouting, prop collection, hiring actors, equipment renting, and creating shot lists. When the concept has been agreed upon, the creative team will write up the script and possibly produce storyboards to show the visual intent for each frame. The script will provide context, so we know when and where each frame is set. It will also include all speech, voiceovers, acting notes, and supers (text that’s placed over the visuals). The storyboards convey the visual intention that helps to tell the narrative. It will show things like camera angle, focus point, camera movement, any visual type treatment, and more. These can be accompanied by mood films and images so that both the production team and the client understand the visual intent. It’s somewhere between settling on a concept and moving forward with a finished script that I find the advert changes the most, and it is good that it happen in this phase as you do not want any changes later on in the production phase as it can make the project much more expensive.

The actual shoot can last anything from one day to several weeks depending on what is involved. Similarly, there can just be a skeleton crew or a sizable entourage. Whilst this is often seen as the glamorous side of advertising, production can often be very slow, with a lot of hanging around during the Director’s quest to get the look of the Ad as envisioned.

• Editing – Cut the frames together to create the Ad. Ensure it works for all formats intended 
• Colour Grading – Various attributes of an image such as contrast, saturation, detail, black level, and white point may be enhanced or corrected in post-production. This can be used to give the final film a color stylization.
• Sound engineering – ensuring all the audio works seamlessly effect together and with the visuals.
• Overlays – Any supers(text) or visuals that need to appear over the film.  Any information and important action must be displayed within a certain frame on the screen – in the action safe area and title safe area.