Throughout the rest of the morning, there have been more conferences, starting with ‘The importance of production in our business’, in which Juan García-Escudero, Chief Creative Officer of TBWA, has interviewed the renowned director James Rouse.
‘If I was granted three wishes for any project I would always choose the same: trust, trust, trust’.
García Escudero has started the talk making two confessions: the first one is that, although he did not have the chance to work with Rouse, James is one of his favourite directors; and the second one is that he is new to ‘this whole interviewer thing’. All this has helped to give a perspective that mixes knowledge and curiosity.
The truth is that when he was younger, Rouse did not dream to be a director, but fell in love with directing during the filming of the first project he worked on, which was a big success.
His ability to storytell and to work with different genres consolidated his decision. The development of new characters is an essential aspect for the British director, who considers this one of the main things that encouraged him to shoot a film. Understanding the characters’ emotions and being able to ‘get into their heads’ seemed interesting for someone like him, who at that point had only worked in projects shorter in length. Nevertheless, he highlights that the length of the spots is one of the charms of advertising.
In addition, Rouse considers humour a beneficial asset on a creative level, being this one of his personal touches. A gift García-Escudero inquires the interviewee about: is there any specific gift or ability necessary to be able to create fiction and advertising films? According to Rouse, it all comes to the ability to introduce the brand to the audience and the philosophy behind the story, the values.
To him, this is essential amongst brands, agencies and production companies. In relation to this topic, he gives a specific example in which a creative was given total freedom to ‘create whatever they want as long as he makes the brand famous’. By doing this he achieved more than more than he thought he could, they had a small budget, but all they needed was creative freedom to do this.
So, to the question ‘If a genie granted you three wishes for your projects, what would you wish for? Rouse does not hesitate to answer: ‘There is only one thing I would wish for: trust, trust, trust’.
However, there is another key ability to be a director: improvising. He wants to be involved in every step of the creative process, admitting that ‘I never take the projects where the client does not leave space for creativity and ideas’, as he considers that ‘there is no incentive’ if you cannot intervene on every level.
By showing us a snippet of his last projects, Rouse illustrates the importance of creativity: the more vulnerable the character, the better the film will be, emotions will be more intense, and the easier it will be to connect with the audience.
