How to Direct in the Brave New Age of Mobile and Experience Marketing

Many creatives dip their toes in directing their own campaigns. Few dive head first into the rabbit hole to the extent WE ARE Pi co-founder and ECD Rick Chant did this year.

The team sat down with Rick to chat about what it was like to self-direct a production that touched advertising, social content, live events and thousands of party people across the globe.

A bit of context... In 2019, party-starting tequila infused Desperados beer and its creative agency WE ARE Pi embarked on an around the world adventure to make people’s party dreams a reality. Dubbed 'EPIC PARTIES IMAGINED BY YOU' the resulting integrated global campaign touched down everywhere from the UK to Poland and South Africa.

Q> Why did you decide to step beyond creative and also self-direct the events and content?

Rick> It wouldn't have been fair to ask anyone else to direct this wildly experimental idea and keep up with us across a hair raising nine month production rollercoaster. So we directed it ourselves.

Q> What was different about directing this campaign?

Rick> After previous beer and tequila fuelled adventures - at an underwater club at the bottom of the world’s deepest swimming pool, in zero gravity 30,000ft above Las Vegas and in 7 Hot Air Balloons in the Pyrenees mountains - I didn’t think things could get any more technical. Wrong, wrong , wrong.

This was a different kind of technical, a hedonistic, year long triple header. A Live Social Broadcast, or an ‘LSB’ experience which expanded the minds of our crew and the beer and tequila fuelled folks that got thoroughly involved. 

9 Parties, in 9 countries over 9 months.

The party ideas were sparked in social by the public, given a creative twist and a kick of tequila, brought to life as an epic party like no other, broadcast live and buttoned up as a series of editorial and marketing assets to be served up fit for each and every platform.

Our job was to capture this process from spark to celebration. To follow the journey, breakages and all. It wasn’t always pretty, things went wrong and that’s what made it so exciting.

We broadcast live along the way, created editorial content within 24 hours and pushed out a whole host of other fit for feed assets throughout.

Q> How do you build a story from directing live events?

Rick> The 3 Ps.

Preparation. Preparation and Preparation.

It’s a masterclass in scenario planning. Prepare for every scenario, income, outcome, curveball, success and disappointment and you still won’t have prepared enough. But from this pre-planning we were able to roll with the punches and create compelling narratives, the true reflection of what happens during wild experimentation. 

Q> Which different techniques are required to shoot for social?

Rick> Shooting for social is a raw and honest approach. For Desperados we mixed this with constructed cinematic shots and innovative camera techniques to create a mixed media premium grit aesthetic.

In practice this means giving go pros and 360 cameras to people in the crowd and let them go crazy, then try and find them again in the middle of the crowd and wrestle the cameras back. This created real, unscripted golden moments.

We also had a live team trawling social for people’s own party moments and asking to include this, as well as briefing our amazing camera crew to get out, about and amongst it.

Q> What were the biggest technical barriers on the project?

Rick> Each party production was a different kind of technical. An eight legged barman kind of technical, a human disco ball kind of technical. A human cannonball entrance kind of technical. A security guard grandma kind of technical. A 3000, 24 hour party people kind of technical. A light show made from people’s mobile phones kind of technical. An interactive wall that expands your apartment kind of technical. A party you can feel as well as hear kind of technical. A build it and they will come kind of technical, but make sure you’re prepared for absolutely anything and his dog kind of technical.

Each party idea pushed the frontiers of partying and experimentation at every turn. (Just like putting tequila into beer.)

The practical stuff out of the way the next step was ensuring that it was all captured live, as there was no opportunity to cut or retake any scene. These weren’t film sets. They were parties. Everything was live, with a real crowd of people up for it on a Friday or Saturday night. 

Q> If you could shoot a party anywhere in the world, where would it be?

Rick> Honey, I shrunk the festival. Elrow meets Inner Space. Imagine a crowd of 3000 nano-sized party people, washed down the gullet of a DJ with an ice cold Desperados. Inside they ride the red corpuscles like in a water park soundtracked by the beating heart. Some hang out in the stomach, others head up to the light show in the brain, everyone has an epic time.