Martin Schmid
Zoran Bihac
Dietmar Dahmen
Florian Sigl
„A commercial of 20 or 30 seconds represents the length of time it takes for the door to open in an Ingmar Bergman film.“ Professor Volker Schlegel (+2006, long-standing head of the Filmakademie’s Advertising Film department)
When students in the Advertising Film department are coordinating their current projects, some of them use two mobile phones and make up to 70 phone calls a day. Yet the effort is worth it. Productions of the Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg’s Advertising Film department frequently win major awards at festivals world wide. Apart from this, the Filmakademie is the only school in Germany offering Advertising Film as a project-based study program.
In this two-year project-based program, teachers of the subject area provide answers to all technical issues and support students in developing ideas and the resulting projects. Students are introduced into the unique world of advertisement and its particularities, such as “Directors Interpretations”, “Pre-production Meetings”, “Conference Calls”, “Frame Objectives”, “Consumer Benefits”, and many other technical terms incomprehensible for outsiders.
After having acquired the basics of the advertising industry and its peculiarities, students have to consider elements as established formats, lengths and perspectives when realizing an advertising film. This opens their minds to new and provocative staging and approaches.
A general understanding of the market as well as knowledge of the brand, core brand and the product have become integral parts of a successful career as director. Also the sensitive observation of communication in advertising on an international level is indispensable. New trends emerge over night; self-established standards become outdated and are frequently replaced. What’s new today will be old tomorrow. In connection with the acquired basic knowledge, new ways of perception develop that are later required on the free market.
The multi-purpose nature of a film is becoming increasingly important in a time of tight budgets. Not only the 30-second television version, but also the internet version, the trade-fair version and the adaptation of single ideas or of the whole film to other media is gaining in significance.
Within a substantially changing media environment, the so-called “Creative Producer”, creator of Advertising Films, with his/her broad general knowledge of the advertising industry and particularly with his/her knowledge on the wide range of possibilities of adapting films to all relevant new media, has become indispensable. Modern advertising campaigns increasingly follow their own new rules and are no longer confined to traditional media structures. New trends are more and more often generated in the internet, are based on video games or result from general developments and sentiments in the public – and the modern “Advertisement Communicator” has to respond to this. The new study program for (creative) producers of advertising films takes this development into consideration and provides an up-to-date training focusing on cooperation with directors and producers. Here, the diverse programs offered by the academy come into contact and the creative potential generated leads to new and unique ideas.
Principally, the advertising film projects are tied to a specified time frame and budget. The advertised product can be freely chosen. At the same time, the instructors advice students when selecting the product and the type of spot.
The objective is to ensure that students go through all steps required by the professional production process: from the generation of ideas to briefings and production meetings in which content and ideas are re-clarified to casting presentations. Discussions within the group on the current state of the production, editing, the choice of music and finally the end product guarantee a workflow that accords with the present professional requirements.
Practical project work is accompanied by seminars and presentations of guest teachers from the advertising industry covering all relevant topics. Exercises on break-up of scenes, lighting, packshot directing and camera operating are also part of the training program as is the close collaboration with students from other departments that are relevant for modern advertisement and communication.
The effectiveness of this educational concept can be seen not least in the awards won by numerous students of the Advertising Film department in the course of their studies, as already mentioned, including prizes at the Cannes Advertising Film Festival, the First Steps Award and the Art Directors Club Award. Even established advertising filmmakers are impressed by the list of prizes that confirms that this program provides the building blocks for a successful career as directors and producers in the advertising industry.
by Martin Schmid
