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Best mentoring advice you were given?
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Mentor
Worst part of my job because I know how hard everyone works on treatments and bidding. And I hate being the bearer of disappointing news. But it MUST be done and on the PHONE, not via email. And be honest. It’s the only way a production company can learn and grow. All of you starting out as Producers should follow this. It’s how your call gets returned the next time you come calling.
I tell all my producers if they just submitted a reel and no treatment or bid that’s the only way you can send an email saying sorry. Otherwise it has to be a call and have actual feedback and not just shifting blame to people like client, creative, etc. give meaningful insight to help everyone grow.
Agreed! It is the part of my job that never gets easier. I know and appreciate how hard everyone works to get those treatments and bids done is what is never enough time.
I salute you all.
As a treatment & copywriter, this is genuinely the nicest thing I’ve read today!
Bowl Leader
Your thoughtfulness is respected. Because it truly, in this case, could be worse. You could be dismissing all of the bidders at the end of an exhausting Friday because your client pulled the plug with no warning, leaving all them holding expensive bags after several days of round-the-clock work on bids, treatments and revisions.
Leaving them asking why they’re in this business in the first place, if there’s any future in it, if anyone even notices the effort or cost, or why they keep bidding into the void even in cases of preemptively cancelled jobs where, to paraphrase Howard Jones, no one is really to blame.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pekhxxngQ3s
Rejection is always difficult to face, but it does help when you receive a clear reason why you were rejected rather than a 'template' answer, I think after all the efforts and money spent into the treatment we atleast deserve clear answer for rejection. In terms of pitches done for animation commercials, these days we end up providing even test renders of how the final product could look. Super expensive, but it has become a norm these days.
What is your take when the reason for not awarding a job is along the lines of ‘the other director had a more expansive reel in x-category’. We keep losing bids and get this response. I get the logic of why another production company gets the job when that’s the case, but I also can’t help but feel like you’ve wasted my time when you knew how the director’s reels stacked up against each other before we spent days putting together a treatment.
👆Bravo for saying this, OP!
My job as a Rep is to make it easy for you to tell me my company did not make the cut. It’s a privilege to be bid!
Been in all sides of this misery—as an agency principal getting the call that a very expensive “heart and soul” pitch didn’t get us over the finish line; as a creative director getting the “why not” call from production company partners, and, of late, being a director who puts out the treatment and gets both no’s and, occasionally, a yes. Based on all that I celebrate EP’s compassion, but wonder if we could do better than that. Do we truly need a production spec, right down to the look book, to decide who to work with? In fact, do we really get more of a sense about the chance of greatness than we do from the reel and the conversation? What’s odd is that all of us revile spec; but then we turn around and make that the pitch standard in production. I don’t fantasize reversing the trend—dating back to before the turn of the century—is going to reverse. But if we really want to ease the sting of rejection—or being rejected—would be good to reduce the price tag involved with competing. Y’a think?
I hear all of that, CD/Director.
FWIW, there are situations where I either don’t ask for treatments or make sure creative/client know it’ll be light.
Sometimes the client has an absurd triple bid threshold (our holding company is over $100k but I’ve seen procurement at some corporations set it as low as $25k). In those cases it’s reels + bids, no treatments.
Then there are the crazy timelines where we don’t have the proper time for the big treatments. I set the expectation that it’s a few slides with the Director’s POV and maybe a couple mood board slides. No 30 page behemoths, no motion, etc.
We do our best.