What’s the biggest takeaway or lessons learned from work (please identify the project) you were involved in that was or is in the running for current awards season consideration (i.e., Emmys, Cannes Lions, etc.)?
The DoorDash “Soul of the City” film premiered at The Tribeca Film Festival. The film followed the people powering some of New York City’s infamous restaurants. The focus is squarely on rebuilding restaurants in a post-pandemic world. With its narrative storytelling and cinematic approach, the film captures some of the raw emotion felt when a culture is disrupted to its very core. The authenticity and resiliency of the owners helping to drive the restoration of connectivity was emotionally moving.
Throughout the process, we learned that to capture these kinds of stories we had to be less structured in our creative and production approach. If everything ‘zagged’ then we had to follow the trail and adapt on the fly. Due to its unstructured nature, there really needs to be a deep genuine trust between client and agency to pull something like this off. It was an unforgettable wild ride.
While gazing into the crystal ball is a tricky proposition, we nonetheless ask you for any forecast you have relative to content creation and/or the creative and/or business climate for the second half of 2021 and beyond.
Looking ahead by looking back. Necessity is the mother of invention. There have been some wildly creative innovations in the production space over the past year. Decades-old processes have been rewritten, remote setups have fused tech and craft and new motion capture systems have allowed us to do the unimaginable at record speed. The people driving change now are definitely a new breed of leader. With variables constantly changing these people literally thrive at the edge of chaos. What could be unnerving for most seems to bring out the best in them. They drive forward with original and imaginative creative thinking. For them, it’s part art and part science. It’s fascinating to watch it unfold and I’m genuinely excited to see where this goes.
What trends, developments or issues would you point to thus far in 2021 as being most significant, perhaps carrying implications for the rest of the year and beyond?
As our head of talent and culture would say “CULTURE IS KING, QUEEN, AND EVERYONE IN-BETWEEN.” The ability to create the best work with the people you love is magical. It’s only possible when a culture is created that allows for this kind of unfiltered collaboration to happen. We exist because of one another, so it’s only right that our culture means everything and everyone. At Martin, an amazing amount of effort goes into creating the perfect conditions that foster this kind of creativity. Any organization that doesn’t focus on creating a culture where creativity, collaboration, and imagination can flourish is missing the point altogether.