5 Minutes with.. Claire Davidson
This ‘5 Minutes with…’ interview is a bit special. Claire is someone we’ve known for many years, and as well as being one of the experts on production across Asia Pacific, she’s also a driven humanitarian and ‘animaltarian’. Her passion and dedication are truly humbling – she’s been in the thick of relief efforts during the 2015 Nepal earthquake and the Ebola crisis. We’d been wanting to interview her for some time because she’s a genuinely inspiring person. Despite falling ill recently, Claire still wanted to talk to us and has shared some incredibly thoughtful and thorough insights, for which we’re grateful.
These days Claire is lead producer at Facebook Creative Shop, APAC and before that she was the driving force behind the Sweetshop’s growth across the region. She’s equally at home in the world of traditional film and delving into new technology and platforms – proof that a good producer is a quick thinker and great problem solver, whatever the challenge. In fact, Claire is even convinced that the production skillset is one that transfers surprisingly over to the world of disaster relief.
LBB’s Laura Swinton spoke to Claire – and left feeling inspired.
LBB> When you were at university you majored in film – but what first drew you to filmmaking and production? Was it something you were involved in as a kid?
Claire> Sadly I just missed out on being smart enough to get into vet at university, and I wasn’t talented enough to become a professional surfer.
I had always been drawn to stories, feature films and the cinema, and I just followed my dreams. It was as simple as that. My imagination drove me. I studied Business and majored in Film Production at university, and minored in Advertising and PR.
LBB> What was it that drew you to becoming a producer specifically rather than any other aspect of filmmaking?
Claire> I was offered a job as a production assistant and a photographic assistant with two different companies on the same day. I had been awarded Student Photographer of the Year for Australia and New Zealand by Photography International Magazine and was really passionate about photography. However, after much thought and deliberation I decided that I could always do photography on my own, but I couldn’t make films on my own and needed collaborators – so I chose the production assistant role.
LBB> You’ve worked all around Asia – for readers who haven’t shot or produced work in APAC but who might be looking to, what do they need to understand about how production works in the region?
Claire> There is so much to learn about Asia Pacific. The most important thing is to understand that APAC shouldn’t be lumped together as a region that you can easily conquer and you can’t bring your skills from elsewhere to here and think that they will just automatically work here as they have elsewhere. Filming in Japan is very different to filming in India, which is very different to filming in Indonesia, which is very different to filming in Thailand.
Each country is unique with their culture and nuance, their religious beliefs and their language. But it’s also important to know legal restrictions, technical restrictions or product limitations. Advertisers in each country have very different goals for these very different markets. It’s important to learn as much as possible about each country, ensuring that what you create for a brand is understood and engaging for the market, and technically works for the local channels and platforms.
LBB> At the Sweetshop, you helped grow that business’s footprint across South East Asia, Greater Asia and even MENA. What are your proudest achievements from that time and what projects there do you count among the most interesting?
Claire> Setting up the Sweetshop across Asia MENA gave me extensive experience in new business development, cross-country collaborations, planning, implementation, coordination, and supervision of teams.
Being the managing director and executive producer, I was responsible for the development and running of the business, identification of new opportunities, sales and marketing, pitching, budgeting, scheduling and all of the logistics that come with putting television commercials or events together. I worked on all agreements, negotiations and contracts. I travelled extensively for this role, and managed a team spread across a number of countries. I was also the key contact and liaison for each advertising agency and client we ever collaborated with. During the five years that I was with the Sweetshop I built a successful footprint here, but I think my biggest achievement was at the beginning when we set up the hub office for Asia in Bangkok and worked extensively through all the Thai government protocols and procedures to do so. That was challenging and really pushed me out of my knowledge comfort zone.
In terms of the projects, there were so many that were interesting, from managing small shoestring budgets through to multi-million dollar budgets, depending on the clients and their budget spends. Clients included: Canon, Coke, Tiger Beer, Northface, Tresemme, Chevrolet, Toyota, Perrier, Milo, Omo, Blenders Pride, Lux, HP, and Vaseline.
LBB> When at the Sweetshop, you were based in Bangkok, which is of course renowned for its directing talent, local crews and great sense of emotional and comedic storytelling. How do you feel that market is evolving in the age of social media, as I know that Thailand is super engaged when it comes to social?
Claire> If we are looking just at the Thai market, they have evolved just as social media have evolved, initially focusing on: on-brief content (with an objective to generate sales);
social content (integrating existing ideas through or executing new platform specific ideas); branded entertainment content - the brand is linked to the content of the story, so that the story and the content come first, and the brand follows.
It’s no longer hard sell, but it’s ‘heart sell’ - human connections, deep connections that link people to brands. It’s about generating brand love, conversation and engagement connecting the belief or attitude of the brand.
Thai audiences love to watch stories, which is why many agencies offer digitally-driven customer engagement solutions for clients. Understanding the experience or engagement platform is key after which brands connect with the consumer and content is curated to this accordingly. As Thais love to watch entertainment and movies, there are many levels of content production and so often both short content and long content are produced and crafted with creative storytelling. They have a good understanding of making online video content work. Thailand has broken the theory that all content has to be short. This again comes back to the importance of consumer insight and knowing your market.
LBB> Speaking of Facebook – you moved over to the Creative Shop in 2017. What was it about the role that appealed to you?
Claire> I was looking for a career challenge – one that would challenge me intellectually with new knowledge, learning, development and skillsets, and one that would challenge me technically, and you can’t get more tech than a tech company itself. Every day I learn something new and that is incredibly rewarding.
I'm also most excited by companies that throw caution to the wind and believe nothing is impossible, with teams who push boundaries and use not only embrace positive latitudes but also use any limitations to their advantage instead of treating them as negatives.
LBB> As far as one can have an ‘average day’ what does your work look like on a day-to-day basis?
Claire> My responsibilities include building out production throughout Asia Pacific, collaborating on campaigns with the internal creative and sales teams, and external advertisers, brands, agencies and content and production companies, as well as cross functional partnerships with our legal, business affairs and sales ops teams. In this role – leading production to create original content – I also work with our product teams to produce mobile first/people first and mobile facing advertising for Facebook and Instagram’s portfolio of products. So, my ‘average day’ includes all of this.
I’m humbled to work alongside the team that I do across APAC each and every day. Oh, and I also enjoy snacking in our micro kitchens each day... Mmm… Snacking…
LBB> And what have been the most exciting projects you’ve worked on while at Facebook?
Claire> My favourite project has been Ikea – The Human Catalogue. We produced the Facebook Live component of this campaign alongside BBH Singapore and worked with Yanjaa Wintersoul who memorized the full 2018 Ikea catalogue. Yanjaa is a two-time world memory champion and memorized all 328 pages of the catalogue in just one week. We put this to the test during the Live with viewers asking and challenging Yanjaa to recall infinite details from any page. She is a truly extraordinary human being and ‘human catalogue’. It was the perfect use of Facebook Live.
We’ve also produced some great work alongside Pantene, TenCent, Uber, Tokopedia, IGG, Amazon, LG, Air Asia and Samsung.
LBB> With all of the tech tools and platforms that sit within Facebook, there must be a lot to play with from a production point of view, for example Facebook Live. What are the most interesting toys in the Facebook arsenal to play with?
Claire> Yes! I’m a big fan of Stories, Live and AR and how to best create and craft ads to drive our audience to those. And there are always new products that are being alpha- and beta-tested or being launched.
Working closely with our product team and solutions engineers allows the production team to see what is and isn’t possible to produce on the platform. We do a lot of prototyping and piloting which then allows us to take the learnings to the market and to clients. 2019 is going to be a great year with the new toys that are going to come out for Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp for production to have in our playground.
LBB> I am in AWE of producers. Out of the whole industry, they’re the people who make shit happen. Do you think that kind of resourcefulness and proactiveness is an innate thing or can it be taught? And what do you look for in young producers?
Claire> I think both. If it’s innate, then you just become stronger and stronger and better and better. If you learn it, you need the interest and passion to drive you. First and foremost you need to be a problem solver.
I will always look for a strategic thinker, a strong planner, an organizational genius, someone who is savvy with finance, a good communicator, a stringent negotiator, a top relationship builder, an efficient time manager, a tenacious team leader and a well-balanced collaborator and coordinator. I will also look for digital, technical and platform understanding and experience. And I would want to know how they would approach producing a six-second ad to producing a 30-second ad.
LBB> What’s the craziest production challenge you’ve ever faced and how did you overcome it?
Claire> On November 27th a few years ago I received an email from Ogilvy Singapore asking us if I might be interested in producing a ‘cute little project’ with them. Of course, I readily agreed. Then I received the schedule. I was still enthusiastic but knew that I was faced with turning around the impossible. Achieving the impossible is a challenge I always like to tackle.
The brief was to film - in tandem - in Singapore and a faraway country where it was snowing. We were going to create a white Christmas, with snow, in Singapore, via a Coca-Cola vending machine, from another country. No problem! As we needed to film in December, and prior to Christmas, our locations were limited - because winter hadn’t fully kicked in in many countries. We required a high-speed internet line and webcam link from our snowy location, fitted inside our Coca-Cola vending machine, that also wouldn’t drop out over a six-hour period.
We soon found that where there were copious amounts of snow, there weren't any internet signals. There was snow in the middle of nature and in the middle of nowhere. Our production staff were all hands on deck looking for where / how we could make this work. We eventually found Santa’s Village, in the Arctic Circle, in faraway Finland. Phew. Santa to the rescue. Of course he is online! We should have checked with him first.
Next up we needed to had two very similar Coca-Cola vending machines produced, each with their own technical specifications adapted for their 'snow' functions. We found that we couldn’t get what we needed built in time in Finland, so we agreed to have both produced in Singapore and send one to Finland. We teamed up with a company that turned these around in record time, but… due to Christmas freight we couldn’t get ours on a flight (commercial or cargo) to Finland in time to prep and test. Whilst we were able to test our internet connections and cameras and all manner of technical equipment, we couldn’t test everything TOGETHER. We weren’t 100% sure that the technology was all going to work when our Coca-Cola machine arrived on the ground.
With some sleepless nights, our machine finally arrived in Helsinki, took six hours to clear customs, and then was driven by two drivers. The vending machine was on its way to Rovaniemi to meet us on the ground at 2.00am. Crew call was 6.30am. Nerves of steel, I can tell you.
We unpacked our big red shiny machine at crew call and miraculously everything worked! We were without an additional dongle drive which meant we couldn’t use our laptop inside the machine remotely, but climbing up the ladder to adjust it was but a small issue to deal with. We were all smiles looking at our Coca-Cola machine, waving at the agency and camera crew on the other side of the world in Singapore.
It was December 14th. We had turned all of this around in less than two and a half weeks. And the day before, our hero boy chipped his front tooth. So off to the streets of Rovaniemi to do an emergency casting we went. Santa once again was on our side and we found a wonderful replacement child. We are nothing if not resourceful!
Back to the shoot day, time to film, and crossing live to Singapore it started to rain in the tropics. It wasn’t even the rainy season in Singapore. With only a small window to film in due to there being very little daylight in the Arctic Circle (only three hours of light at this time of year), this caused a few delays, but the rain soon passed. We were soon back on track filming our wintery snowy Coca-Cola-filled wonderland in two distinctly different continents.
A few extra grey hairs and stress wrinkles for everyone, but a great example also of how a small budget can be overcome with a bit of creativity and the right approach.
There was one PPM for the project, and one agency personnel was sent to Santa’s Village to oversee the creative. This degree of trust led to a successful project where the production company was left to do what they do best - achieving the impossible and making great content.
LBB> Outside of your work in production you’re also involved in a lot of humanitarian work too. When did you first start getting involved in that world?
Claire> I consider myself an ‘animaltarian’ and a humanitarian. I have always supported animal rights and animal welfare. When I arrived in Asia, and specifically Vietnam, nearly ten years ago, I volunteered with Free The Bears and have worked with them ever since. Free The Bears is an international wildlife conservation and animal welfare organization that works with local communities and governments throughout Asia to save three of the world’s least-known bear species from misery, torture and the threat of extinction. The NGO operates in six countries and in each country bears are saved for different reasons, ranging from the shocking bear bile trade, the dancing bear trade, the black market trade, or the bears that are used for their body parts, often kept alive and tortured, for example, the making of bear paw soup. Most rescued bears at the sanctuary come with mental or physical scars.
In 2015 I started working in the humanitarian sector, on the Nepal Earthquake response and the Ebola Emergency response, both with International Medical Corps (IMC). It all came about through a friendship. My neighbour, Sean Casey, in Thailand was a Global Director of Emergency Response and I had admired the work he tirelessly did for some time; for example in Iraq, the Philippines, Ukraine, Myanmar and South Sudan.
LBB> You were in Nepal when the 2015 earthquake struck and became involved in the relief effort – can you tell me about that?
Claire> We were in Nepal on the second day of a holiday together with our friend Ajay when the earthquake hit. After surviving, Sean immediately went into work mode setting up the emergency response. Ajay and I became his first recruits. With the approval of the Ministry of Health, Sean and Ajay went off to the epicentre in Gorkha early the next morning. I stayed in Kathmandu and started the coordination for IMC; bringing on volunteers, assessing the situation locally, attending cluster meetings and updating Washington each evening. ‘What’s a cluster meeting?’ I had asked. I soon knew very well and was attending not just the daily health cluster meetings but also the daily foreign medical team coordination meetings on behalf of IMC. Within days we had medical, logistical, water, sanitation and hygiene, monitoring and evaluation, and mental health and psychosocial support teams in place. I was in awe of the people I found myself working alongside, inspired by IMC’s calibre of personnel, their calibre of structure, and their calibre of response.
I also found that I could help. I could actually add value to IMC’s response. My skillset was completely complementary from the training that I have. This surprised me a lot. I don’t have a medical degree. I don’t have a public health degree. I have a business degree, with a major in film production. IMC’s equipment is medical equipment and medicine. For me it’s always camera, lighting and gripping equipment. IMC need to find warehouses to store their equipment. I need to find locations to film in. IMC need to coordinate with helicopter companies and their site managers to send medical teams into villages to set up mobile clinics. I need to coordinate with helicopter companies and location managers and hero drivers to film aerial scenes. IMC’s teams need to be well briefed on the situation at hand. I need to explain to my crew exactly what we are filming and what we need to achieve. We both need to arrange travel; accommodation and flights. We both have administrative and financial procedures and protocols in place. And so it goes on.
After working in West Africa, I returned to Thailand and combined another of my passions with my next humanitarian role. I joined the Sister Marathon Peace Initiative as their director of international development, promoting peace and goodwill throughout the world via running. Running has always been part of my life.
LBB> And why is it important to you to make time to do this – and I’m sure there will be loads of people reading who would like to be able to contribute to the world in this way but feel so busy. How do you make time for it?
Claire> We have one world and humans are destroying it, more rapidly than ever. I don’t want us to fail our planet. That’s why it’s important to make time. It was a hard decision for me to take the job at Facebook. I thought that I would always remain an animaltarian or humanitarian after making the career change in 2015. In the film industry I had always worked on a few social good campaigns each year, but it wasn’t enough, and that’s the main reason why I made the change to full-time humanitarian work so that I could devote all of me to it.
However, by taking the position at Facebook I am able to work more equally with both passions – production and social good work. Facebook has large Social Good@, Women@ and Pride@ teams to which I am a member and an ally and devote quite a lot of my time, whether it’s on internal initiatives or external initiatives working with the community or NGOs. We hold Social Good workshops, sprints and hacks for NGOs. We also work with NGOs to show them how to best achieve their marketing objectives and goals, and specifically how they can come to life via producing ads for them designed for our platform and directed at their target audience to raise awareness of their cause or increase donations or recruit volunteers or attract event attendance or build community etc. This year I want to take it an extra step further and work more on larger campaigns with brands and organizations who want to give back to their community and partner with NGOs.
There are endless content creators who focus on tech whom I work with but by having the opportunity to work on Social Good I am able to also collaborate fully in line with Facebook’s current vision for communities – choosing creators who offer meaning to make the world a better place via these projects. These are the more organic creators, in that they focus on the environment and world in which we live in and use technology to share their messages. Using our technology we can work to further their messages in other ways.
To make time I make social good a goal of mine. When a goal is a passion you are dedicated to it and you ensure you achieve it.
LBB> As well as all of this, I know you’re a pretty active person generally! When you’re not working or devoting time to social good projects, what sort of things do you like to get up to?
Claire> If I divide my 2019 goals into three, it’s career, social good and recreation. And the three need to be balanced. Recreation is usually outdoors be it running or triathlon (when not injured) or hiking. Although I travel extensively for work, I also travel extensively personally as well, and that’s usually to race somewhere new or to see animals in the wild that I haven’t seen before. Recent trips have included Borneo and Alaska. Next stop Galapagos.
LBB> Who are your creative heroes (in the industry or beyond it) and why?
Claire> First and foremost I have two production heroes – Sue Pope and Paul Ranford. Both gave me my first breaks, took the time to train me and ever so patiently showed me the ropes. They were both mentors to me not just during the years we worked together, but also afterwards. I also wouldn’t have the skills or the drive if it wasn’t for the director Ryan Renshaw who was very influential and behind my established work ethic and the following of my dreams.
Other heroes are Matt Hunt, CEO of Free The Bears and Sean Casey, who is now the Health Cluster Coordinator for the World Health Organisation - Matt for the relentless work that he does to save animals around the globe, and Sean for the equally relentless work that he does to help humans around the globe. I have also travelled the globe running and racing to raise money and awareness with both.
