Norman Rockwell, Creative Director

The relationship of the well staged and photographed still image to creative direction in advertising and video / film is no more evident than in this article about Norman Rockwell from Photo District News.

Before he ever committed paint to canvas, he set up intricate photoshoots. These were as professional as any video or film shoot, and included casting, set design, lighting, and the directing of talent and expression.

It raises my estimation of Rockwell, perhaps because it makes clear that he wasn’t working from swipe files, but was in fact creating his own masterful photographic tableau’s. Take a look at the comparison of Rockwell photo to Rockwell painting. Each has their own genius.

He picked the right people. He directed the right expressions. He positioned them in a still life pose that rivaled the best photographers and painters.

Then, on canvas, he filled in the details, adjusted, added, enhanced, reimagined and yes, photo-realistically replicated what he had previously created in black and white.

It was quite a process. Probably not unique. But a definite unraveling of a great artistic process.

We need to imagine our own work in video and print as well as Rockwell did his. Great motion is made up of great moments.

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The Kind of Video You Need in a Depression: The Tribute

When times get tough, and we examine what’s really important, we realize the importance of friends, family, people and places in our lives.

We take a hard look at the “things” in our lives. We’re quicker to make judgments, and pare back frivolous things, and conserve and treasure more those things that provide the most comfort and respite. For some, they must have books. Others, perhaps movies or music. Some people must have live theater. We make our choices, we make adjustments in our budget, and we we’re happy for what we have.

This past few months created occasions where I realized the importance of one of my favorite kinds of video: The Tribute. “Tribute” is an all-encompassing name that essentially means some form of life story, family history, celebratory story, or honorary review.

It’s what got me into the business. When my father turned 50, I produced a slide show. A simple, single tray click-click that was (however) carefully timed to a full soundtrack featuring his favorite music, recordings of family members past, slides and pictures and press clippings of accomplishments, and even a part narration from a very bad imitator of Howard Cossell.

100 people were in attendance, and I was stunned by the positive reaction. I repeated the technique (this time with two slide projectors and a dissolve mixer to make the picures fade into one another) a few years later for a college event or two, and finally for my sister’s engagement party.

All of these are still dragged out of the closet and rewatched some 40 years later (they’ve been transferred to video, of course). Less and less of the original audience can be in attendance, of course, making these showings even more special. Little did I know what kind of investment they would be– an investment that grew in emotional value year by year.

Nobody lives forever. In the case of my father’s 50th birthday, well, he was gone just 11 years later. My mother died just 5 years after the event. I’m so glad I created that show.

Last fall, my brother, who has produced these kinds of videos since the mid 1990′s, called to say that he had a job he didn’t have the time to handle. Could I do it? I admit it, I asked: “How Much?”

But the how much is never the make or break in these cases. The customers (unless it’s a corporate tribute to a retiring executive) always think the price is too much, and we always think the hourly rate for the effort put into these is way too small.

Enter the recession.

The matriarch and patriarch of The Smith Family (we’ll call them) wanted to encapsulate their “story” for their four children and their dozen or so grandchildren. This was very proactive– they had an incredible wealth of pictures, and a dozen or so 8mm films no one had seen in ages, and in the case of the children (now in their 40′s and 50′s) and grandchildren, perhaps these had never been seen.

We took the approach of interviewing Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Theirs was a WWII romance, s New Jersey story, a suburban sprawl story, and it paralleled the story of the country tremendously. But mostly, there were their memories. Razor sharp, warm, and incisive.

I’m proud of the result.

Then in February, I turned 60 and for the first time ever, someone (my brother) produced a tribute video for me. I was blown away by the surprise, and even more blown away by his work.

Corporate videos come and go. This year’s “Exceeding Your Expectations” becomes last year’s news, management changes, the themes change, and the videos change. “More with the 90′s” becomes “Making it in the New Millennium”.

By families have more permanence. And yet in today’s digital world, who can make sense of, or even physically project, the film and slides and tapes of yesteryear? And beyond that, how do you make it a story?

I know how to– very well, in fact. As I pointed out– I’ve done it, and not just for families, but for corporations, civic leaders, and church dignitaries. Tributes focus on what’s best about people– their upbringing, their character, their accomplishments, their likes and loves, even what they learn from their mistakes. They become stories of character– and that is something companies should afford to pass along from department to department and employee to employee.

In the next few posts, that show the power of the Tribute– how it can emphasize love, prosperity, achievement, togetherness, and purpose.

Perfect for a recession.

A Primer on “Tribute Videos”