Today we’d like to introduce you to David Deahl.
Senior creative teams often shoot their TV commercials with BDP Creative Motion over and over again because Director David Deahl, Founder and CEO, and Director Todd Klein (formerly of Silent Partners) make their productions seamless allowing agency producers to sit back and relax.
Clients are struck by Deahl’s intensity, his obsessive attention to detail, his creative vision and above all his sense of calm and confidence. “It just permeates the set, and inspires confidence in everyone around him,” says Creative Director Gail Offen. “He surrounds himself with good people and is totally focused. You know it’s going to get done and it’s going to look great!
Deahl has come to this outward sense of calm by dint of talent and experience. He started early, shooting stills in his late teens, one of which found its way into the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. He landed in Chicago to apprentice in photography, setting up his own one-man studio in 1972.
After a dozen years shooting stills for every major agency and brand, he moved into directing, and now has three decades’ work of tricks and insights to rely on. His client base is international-basically, if it’s something you eat or drink, there’s a good chance Deahl has shot it.
A few years ago, Deahl gave up his huge three stage facility in Chicago in favor of operating like most production companies who rent stages and equipment. “The brick & mortar was a great convenience for pre-production on complicated scenes but clients never understood the benefit,” says Deahl.
BDP Creative Motion has offices in Chicago’s Resolution Studios and at the beginning of the year opened an LA office. So, far BDP-LA has produced several jobs including Ruby Tuesday and Eggland’s Best Eggs.
Deahl often shoots on multiple stages or sets simultaneously, at times shooting a spot’s live action portion on one stage while shooting the food on a 2nd stage and effects on a 3rd stage. And to top it off, they have relationships with still photographers, who often come in to shoot print work on one stage while TV is being shot on another.
“It’s more of a cost benefit for clients, says Deahl. It’s harder for agency and clients to travel from shoot to shoot and be out of their offices for so many weeks per year.”
Working this way, they have the efficiency and control over a seamless look between film and print. Likewise, the key client executives can oversee both print and broadcast at the same time. “We work this way when the creative teams are different, and even if two separate agencies are involved.”
“The benefit of helping to integrate a brand’s look between advertising media goes beyond just production efficiency,” David points out. “Increasingly, in today’s parity marketplace, the look itself has become critical.”
“Every brand wants its own visual identity, and we go to great lengths to deliver that,” he says. “Often we’re not talking about a major overhaul they don’t want to change that much-they just want something that’s fresh but instantly recognizable and familiar to viewers.”
He approaches this with a variety of tricks, many of which have become almost proprietary information for his advertiser clients. Suffice to say, he employs a combination of traditional filmic techniques and technology, designed to provide brands with a look they can own-at least until their competition starts to copy it,” David adds.
“We approach this by giving our agency clients detailed presentations and scene descriptions, explaining how things are going to look and how we’re going to accomplish them,” explains David. “At times, we’ve been asked to come up with the creative look, they just tell us what their scene objectives are and we design the shots. You can often have more input on what a spot is going to finally look like in tabletop than you can in traditional live action project.”
Of course, much of this depends on his team, and clients are impressed with the people he works with, particularly the stylists and other crafts people. They collaborate with the director whether he’s shooting tabletop or live action, which he often does to better control both aspects of a spot’s visuals.
David is perfecting new looks, juggling the maze of technological issues facing the tabletop discipline, working closely with editors and digital artists (he prides himself on the quality of elements he delivers to post houses for the omnipresent compositing work seen in almost all spots these days) and patiently explaining to clients, both on the marketer and the agency side, the continual technical transitions the business goes through.
BDP has a reputation for producing quality work and agencies know that. So, when they need their products to be represented in exciting and dynamic ways they can rely on BDP to deliver.
Has it been a smooth road?
The ride from commercial print to shooting TV commercials has been smooth up until the proliferation of the internet, production budgets have been reduced and production value, in many sectors, has suffered. Agencies have equated the cost of media buys with the cost of production and when you can place something on the internet for pennies on the dollar, as compared to national TV, then budgets across the board get reduced. Of course, this makes no sense when producing a quality commercial and you need a staff of food stylists, art dept., grip & electric, camera assistants, DIT technicians, prop-masters, production team, craft service, storyboard artist, riggers, VTR, Assistant Director…. the list goes on and on. Most agencies are used to having these things but they want to pay as if you’re shooting it on your iPhone.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Video content will continue to be the most powerful driver of marketing and sales. As producing video content becomes less expensive and more prolific it will more and more be the go-to medium for lower tier advertisers.
Pricing:
- A generalization is the average production costs about $100K per shoot day for a food spot.
Contact Info:
- Address: BDP Creative Motion
12100 Wilshire Blvd.
West Los Angeles, CA 90025 - Website: BDPCM.TV
- Phone: 1-310-806-9448
- Email: david@bdpcm.tv
- Instagram: @bdp_creativemotion
- Facebook: @bdpcmfb.me/bdpcm
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