For yet another year, the 12th Commercial Film Workshop places Valencia at the epicentre of Spanish advertising production, highlighting the evolution of the sector and the impact of technology, and reflecting on future challenges.
The event, organised by the Adversiting of Advertising Film Production Companies (APCP), began with the celebration of the members’ assembly, where the APCP’s commitment to strengthening industry representation and promoting standards of quality and innovation was reaffirmed. In addition, the strategic alliance of the Spanish Association of Post Production Companies (AEPP) was presented, joining forces to consolidate the interests of production and post-production companies in the sector.
The talks, presented by Ricardo Llavador and Carito Kanashiro, began with the inaugural interview with Rodrigo Cortés by César García in ‘A small favour: let’s be a team’, where as well as taking a look at the filmmaker’s career, Cortés defended the need to take risks and accept challenges in advertising in order to overcome creative rigidity.
There was also time in ‘A small favour: Let’s update’ to discuss how the pandemic and digital transformation are redefining the industry, highlighting the need to adapt to move forward in an increasingly disruptive technological environment. With a focus on how creatives must adapt in a changing environment, focusing on sustainability and the evolution of production towards new platforms. All of this took place in a round table discussion made up of José Manuel Ferrater, Vito Reig, Pablo Pérez-Payá and Massimo Poccecco, moderated by Leo Solanes.
Luna Esquerdo was in charge of moderating the round table ‘A small favour: let’s talk about series’ in which Cristóbal Garrido and Paco Almazo presented the new Movistar Plus+ series, ‘La vida breve’, directed by Diego Núñez Irigoyen; while they talked about the relationship between cinema and advertising.
The last panel of this first session was ‘A small favour: Let’s respect each other’, in which Florence Jacob, managing director of Caviar (France) and Nico Cabuche, director and EP of Landia, discussed the growing competition between in-house production and the independent market.
An initial day that culminated with the presentation of the awards of the VII Edition of the APCP Awards and the subsequent cocktail as a tribute to excellence in advertising film and in recognition of the work of the technicians, advertisers and institutions that make up the sector.
The second and last session of the conference began with the round table ‘A small favour: Let’s take care of ourselves’, focused on the vision of the sector from the point of view of independent creative agencies. Moderated by Victoria Piantini and with the participation of Iñaki Bendito, Eva Santos, Jesús Lada, María López-Chicheri, Pablo Torreblanca and Rubens Pérez. The participants discussed the challenges and opportunities facing independent agencies in a competitive market, highlighting creativity as their greatest advantage and reflecting their concern about the growing trend of project-based competitions and the inclusion of agency fees in production budgets.
Naturally, the local industry also had its space through the round table ‘A small favour: Let’s shoot in Valencia’, which addressed the situation of audiovisual production in the city and invited people to shoot in their homeland. Moderated by Armando Romero and made up of Arturo Fons, Jorge Acosta, Nacho Merita and Alejandra Mora.
This was followed by the panel ‘Welcome S. XXII: Insight into trends and the future of AI’, with the participation of Joan Amat, Inés Dueñas and John Prieto from Statement. The panel focused on how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming advertising and creativity in the industry, exploring its impact on content creation and its integration into current advertising campaigns.
The final panel was a case study of the ROMA production company, in which Pablo García Acón and Óscar Romagosa shared their work on the successful ‘Andalusian Crush’ campaign and the creative process behind the Cupra ad, directed by J. Bayona. Both shared how the collaboration with Cupra and their work on Andalusian Crush became key examples of creativity and production in the sector.
The twelfth edition of the conference ended with an important announcement by María Jesús Horcajuelo, president of the APCP: the Spanish Association of Post-production Companies (AEPP) joins the APCP to bring together production and post-production companies in the audiovisual advertising sector under the same umbrella. A union that will be effective from January 2025.
Thank you all for joining us, for yet another year, at our advertising film conference and for supporting the sector and the Valencian people at this time. We would also like to highlight the commitment and effort of all the speakers, sponsors, suppliers and institutions to make this edition a success.
