“I’m Not Working In Post Production”

You ask me why I’m working in post-production? The answer is simple: I’m not. 

I always want to be where the work happens, or rather to be in the place from where I can make things happen.

That place isn’t where it used to be.

The landscape of our industry is changing: clients are ‘fixing’ the broken agency model by taking their pick of planners and creatives out of agencies and moving them in-house. Agencies don’t own the relationship like they used to; they don’t see the volume of briefs or the magnitude of budgets anymore. In this new landscape, the best place for me is where the muscle can be applied incisively and that’s here, at MPC, where things get made. 

MPC used to be strictly post; today it’s an end-to-end creative and production solution. We pick up the project from wherever our client’s capabilities end. Being here gives me the opportunity to work on ambitious jobs and interesting ideas, directly with brands, as well as with smart agencies and directors.

I’ve worked with MPC, from my position as a creative at an agency, throughout my career. They are the best creative problem solvers in the world. And that’s what I do too. So, I guess this is my natural home.

MPC have always known how to craft the work. What people don’t know yet is that we also know how to make work that is effective: work that is memorable and moves people to act. So, I’m here to develop that side of things.

I like to think I bring my own little something, naturally, and I believe that I can make the biggest impact on my industry as part of the team at MPC. That’s something I’m hungry for and the ambition for that within these walls is clear.

The true potential of the place was really framed for me by Oli Forder, who I first worked with in the late ‘90s at AMV. I’ve always enjoyed talking about ideas with Oli; he gets it. He saw the end-to-end creative and production solution as the right strategy in the context of the new landscape. But he also worked out that the right place to build it was from MPC, with its virtuoso skills in actual making, rather than coming from an agency perspective. Joining the builders was a very potent conduit to a more effective process. Oli left the agency world to come here. He opened me up to the vast potential in that joining of forces, and it makes complete sense, so I’ve followed him.

As Sir John Hegarty says, “The value of a great idea hasn’t changed, but the opportunity to exploit it has.” There is still magic in the idea itself - of course there is – but, today, so much of the magic is in how it’s made. We make things, brilliant things, at MPC. We have the best technology and the most amazing talent; and, as I said, the depth and quality of the expertise is so impressive I’m discovering something new and remarkable in development every other day. 

So, when people ask me what I do, I tell them, “I don’t work in post production. I work in the most exciting area a creative can work in at this point in time.”