The Work That Made Me: Glen Percival
Glen Percival is an executive producer at No.8, the award-winning creative sound and vision studio. Glen produces high end VFX projects and has a plethora of experience under his belt, working on campaigns for Lexus, PRADA, TOYOTA, Danone, Asda, ThinkBox amongst many others.
The ad/music video from my childhood that stays with me…
Glen> Too many to choose from. Michael Jackson's Thriller, OBVS!
However, I will always remember the visual opening and chords of Moloko’s Sing it Back video. The Disco ball light refraction and psychedelic VFX over Roisin gave me a wave of nostalgia to the '70s disco films I was obsessed with as a teen.
Still a classic. Perfect imagery paired with an awesome track. Music is so important in advertising – it’s like muscle memory. A catchy song will always help the brain link to a visual.
Another great ad was BBH’s Lynx commercial in the early 2000’s, featuring Get Down Saturday Night by Oliver Cheatham's. That was stuck in my head for months.
The ad/music video/game/web platform that made me want to get into the industry…
Glen> Guinness Surfer. Directed by Jonathan Glazer - I remember watching it for the first time and being blown away. Something so phantastic and yet still fashionable - needless to say, I’m now a Guinness drinker through and through.
The creative work (film/album/game/ad/album/book/poem etc) that I keep revisiting…
Glen> I’m an admitted fantasy geek. Every Christmas I revisit Peter Jackson's The Hobbit and LOTR! And I insist on doing the Directors Cut of all of them!!
My decision to work in VFX stemmed from reading an addition of Empire magazine and seeing the first stills released from the Fellowship of the Ring.
Having read the books, and being a sofa critic for CG/VFX in films, I wasn’t convinced that the world of Tolkien could be brought to life. Boy was I wrong.
My first professional project…
Glen> To be frank – I can’t remember. Although one of the earliest ones that sticks out was a beauty brand for P&G which was styled like a KPOP promo; it was the epitome of fun. It consisted of bubbles, giant lollypops, dancers, extreme transitions from one scene to another and was done on a tiny budget.
As it was a five min long promo, it meant long hours and lots of late nights. But overall, it oozed camp, cheesiness and was essentially KPOP before KPOP was even a thing *mic drop*. Doing something like that in the early stage of my career allowed me to work with various artists and resources outside the conventional standard of flame/online; also, beneficially finding cost and time efficient approaches when costly CG wasn’t an option.
The piece of work (ad/music video/ platform…) that made me so angry that I vowed to never make anything like *that*…
Glen> I’m going to plead the fifth amendment here I think – let’s just say that any project can throw up challenges that need to be overcome. Pleased to say that however frustrated I’ve been made over the course of a project; the collective team always find ways to achieve the best possible results.
The piece of work (ad/music video/ platform…) that still makes me jealous…
Glen> I really liked the DFS ad that Ella Glazer won for best Postproduction Producer at Young Arrows this year. I loved the mixed media aspect of it all; the animatronics, CG and stop frame animation. I was enamoured that it pooled all artistic approaches into one so seamlessly, and to the point you’re not sure what’s what!
Also, animals are always fun in scripts. When demanding specific performances animals, it’s great to utilize animatronics to carry the creative through.
The creative project that changed my career…
Glen> I worked on an Lexus job a few years ago and was made aware that it was the first script written by AI. Its become an interesting topic within our industry of late. And it was an incredibly emotive script. I couldn’t believe it was generated by AI. It’s both fascinating and terrifying pondering this new frontier.
The work that I’m proudest of…
Glen> All of my work makes me proud to be honest. I take pride in every project I’ve been involved in as it’s led me to where I am now after all. Still very confident that the best it yet to come.
The recent project I was involved in that excited me the most…
Glen> The project I’m currently working on, a Samsung Christmas ad directed by Felix Brady. Really clever and conceptual idea based on cliché of the ‘Now’ albums of the '90s.
It includes merfolk, boy bands hanging from helicopters, a table slicing guitarist and a cool pastiche of Hip Hop videos. All the things that reminded my teenage years. Such a pleasure to work with Felix.
Really excited about this project and have been so fortunate throughout my career to work with so many brilliant directors and creatives at various agencies.
