Interview with Ben Davies from The Neighbourhood

Interview with Ben Davies from The Neighbourhood



Tell us about The Neighbourhood and how many people work there. What are their roles?

The Neighbourhood was founded by myself and 3 friends in July 2006. We’d met at different stages working together over the last 4-8 years at a number of illustration and animation companies, including directorial roles at Hayes Davidson and Smoothe.

We specialise in directing and producing memorable communication and promotion in illustration, animation, motion graphics and film. Our clients range across architecture, broadcast and advertising and include Sony Playstation, CBBC, Urban Splash, Make Architects, AHMM, Derwent London, Manchester City Football Club, TBWA and Heston Blumenthal.

Myself and my co-directors focus on leading the company and projects creatively, technically and artistically. When we founded the company, we all worked on all aspects of our projects and development, but as the company grows we are becoming more specific in our job roles.

There’s now 11 of us working full-time in the studio, and we have a number of trusted freelancers and talented collaborators that we bring in for specific projects, ranging from motion graphics artists and photographers to composers and compositors.

5 full-time artists work predominantly in 3d illustration and motion graphics, with two ‘support staff’ (our Studio Manager and Studio Assistant) fulfilling a vital role in keeping our studio and projects on track and administered!

You choose to use a lot of motion graphics in you architectural films. Was there a conscious decision to separate yourself artistically, or do you feel that architecture is better marketed this way?

It wasn’t a conscious decision to separate ourselves artistically, we’re just doing what we believe in and what comes naturally and instinctively to us.

That said, we’ve always looked to come up with innovative solutions to briefs, both in terms of providing our clients with distinctive and appropriate creative and technical solutions, and also to keep our imaginations sharp and moving forwards.

In terms of our artistic approach, we always start with the project and the client, and have a good think about what are we trying to communicate? What are the main messages we want to get across?

Like with communicating or marketing any product, there are a whole range of creative options available to communicate the messages, and we try not to restrict ourselves to a particular approach. Sometimes we may conclude that the best way to get messages across is through ‘photo-realistic’ CGI, but just because this is possible, doesn’t mean that we should do it on every project.

Above all we strive to create something relevant and memorable.

As many talented studios mature they tend to migrate towards advertising and broadcast projects. Why do you feel that is?


I think that it largely depends on the aspirations of the directors and the team in the studio, but it’s natural in the evolution of any business to look at its client base and explore what potential exists to expand it, whether it’s a creative business or something else.

Within the architectural industry, I think there’s a widespread assumption that the advertising and broadcast world is more glamorous, more creative, and more lucrative, and in our experience that’s certainly true in some cases, but is equally untrue in others.

Ultimately I think the main reason is because architecture is a specialized industry, and talented people and studios have active minds and creative agendas, and are always looking for new challenges and new ways to express themselves. You can explore a huge range of work with architecture but ambitious people want different challenges too.



Do you feel that the traditional and dreaded “Walk‐through” will eventually go away completely and transition to more creative architectural films?


I think that predominantly they already have! Over the last few years we’ve seen a revolution in quality and direction of projects from talented studios around the world, as higher production values, increased technical capacity and creative flair have become valued commodities as clients look to stand out in the sector.

Film allows the director to manipulate space and time, and use these dimensions to provoke emotion within the viewer. The generic flythrough and walkthrough has no mystery, no suspense, and rarely therefore, an emotional response or engagement.

At it’s simplest level, a lot of architectural films we see now combine a narrative to help us experience a building, whether it’s a simple ‘day in the life’ or something more developed.

The LakeShore Film Styling Concept

Your Saxton project is definitely one of the most creative projects we have seen. Please tell us about the project and how you came up with the creative concept. What were the client’s requirements?


The brief from our client was the same as for a number of architectural film projects – we were asked to produce a fly-through! In this instance, it was to assist with marketing a new apartment development.

Through a process we dissected the brief, and discovered so many different messages to communicate, from the high quality design detail, huge public gardens, allotments for residents, proximity to the city centre, a developing community….. etc.etc. Rather than trying to cram all these messages into one long film (and therefore potentially lessen the impact of each message), we came up with the idea of making a series of short films or stings that can each concentrate on a single message.

As well as communicating the main messages effectively, This approach was also more versatile for both publicity and for the client, with smaller 'bite sized' movies allowing the client to target their communications to their customers more effectively. And, we also looked at the potential channels for communication too, beyond the distribution convention of DVD and website.

This led to our films working successfully to market the scheme to the primary demographic of young, media savvy purchasers, through youtube, ipod downloads, and hourly screenings on the large outdoor screens in central Leeds.

In addition to the films communicating the project itself, they also served as ‘branded entertainment’ in their own right, communicating the strong brand and distinctive presence in the market of our client, Urban Splash.

At one point there were up to 12 different films proposed, but these distilled down into 6 tightly focused messages. As you can imagine, the client’s first reaction to making 6 films rather than 1 was skeptical – but as a very open minded client, they trusted in us.

This approach also allowed us to flex our creative muscles and create a diverse range of narratives and executions for each film.

 

We often hear people tell us that their clients do not allow them to create more artistic briefs. Do you think this is common place or a reaction to not being able to think outside of the box? How do you approach the creative brief with your clients?


I would wonder about how many of those people you refer to have actually tried to justify a more “artistic” brief with a client, and really thought about it from a client’s perspective. Does the artistic brief really add to the client’s proposition?

A client will rarely come to us and say ‘give me something unusual’ for the sake of it. Of course, they will want something distinctive and creative, but above all they will want something that is effective and solves their problem. As they are not generally experts in illustration or animation (that’s our job!) – we usually guide them through an appraisal of the options and benefits, and how our ideas will hopefully be effective and add value.

At the early stages we will look at the project at different levels. This involves both immersing ourselves in the detail of the project, but importantly also standing back from the project and considering the overall context. Once you start taking the broader view - of the client, what they do, what they are about, the market, popular culture, comparable projects etc – it becomes easier to devise and build your own brief and response to the project. It also gives clients the confidence that you understand their proposition and can solve their problem, and starts to build trust.

Do you have a formula that you use when approaching a new brief? Walk us though how you develop your ideas.

It’s probably not particularly specific to us, or any different to many creative studios – the most important thing is to give ideas time to grow and flourish – although this is something that we’ll usually be under pressure to do quickly!

We’ll usually start with an obvious question - “what’s the story”? We look for a hook, a vibe.

We consider many things, to form a “melting pot” of different things, from information about the ‘product’ and the client, the market, the competition, the budget level – all in the mix with things we’ve seen lately that we love, new tools, new ideas, things we’ve been talking about for a while, things we wish we’d done on other projects, ideas from the worlds of advertising, broadcast and visual design, and the occasional wildcard or ‘hunch’ !

Sometimes something will jump out very quickly, sometimes it will take longer. Sometimes it’s something that one person will passionately believe in and develop, sometimes it’s more of a team brainstorm.

Then we’ll test these ideas, we’ll challenge them, we’ll research them.

We’ll pull out lots of reference – movies, film, animation, audio, sculpture, photography – and build mood boards of ideas.

It’s not just with moving image work either. With still images and illustration, we spend a lot of time at the early stages of the project mocking up and referencing composition, lighting, detail, mood and atmosphere, to consider a set of images which will tell a story together. We try, where possible, to resist the temptation to get everything in one shot.

Once the spark of an idea starts to take shape – a difficult stage is often communicating these to the client as the ideas are often raw and still evolving, and a client’s decision making process will often be driven by timescale and cost. As a result this often means taking ideas quite far before being able to confidently cost against them get the client to sign up.

We invest this time as we believe it ultimately adds value for our client and also for us, as all our work shapes our future as a studio. One side-effect of all this can be that it certainly can create more work, and you have to watch for some clients taking advantage of that! Thankfully, most of our clients respect how we work.

I guess it depends whether you’re in it just to make some money or for the love.

How much time do you spend outside of paying projects working on developing your skills and experimenting with new ideas?


It was a fundamental part of our business plan to try to provide the right structure and mechanisms in the studio to develop skills, experiment with ideas and work together well as a team. We call these initiatives Neighbourhood Learn, Neighbourhood Watch and Neighbourhood Play (more about those on our website).

These initiatives are all about looking at everything in our studio and culture in terms beyond than the financial pay off, and all about us and our team. Of course, we need to have a sound commercial business which is robust and profitable and all of those things, but as part of that we place great importance in investing in our people and our ideas, and hopefully create a place that people want to be. We believe strongly in the value that self-generated work can bring to a creative studio culture and also in attracting commercial work.

It’s always tricky to plan these ideas and projects alongside the pressures of commercial work and deadlines, but we try and seize the opportunity to develop speculative and development work as we believe it has real value.

We’ve seen this pay off for us in terms of a number of awards and profile that have come our way for two of our internal projects in particular. Our most recent example from our Neighbourhood Play strand, is a short animation called Stories from The Neighbourhood, which has won quite a few awards now – more about that later.

What sources of inspiration do you draw upon when coming up with your creative briefs? Can you breakdown a few projects into their original inspirations?

Lakeshore

When Urban Splash approached us with Lakeshore, they already had a great promotional film (by Uniform) which clearly explained the project spatially and architecturally as a regeneration project.

We didn’t want to cover any old ground, and as our work was part of our client’s marketing campaign we wanted to find more of a human angle.

There were a few key starting points.
1. The original building was built in the 1970’s as an iconic vision of a contemporary workplace.
3. The owners of the building also used it to house a collection of pop-art.
2. The conversion of the project into apartments looked to turn perception of the building into a “contemporary manor house” sitting in extensive grounds.

Referencing the UK TV series ‘Life On Mars’ gave us an interesting angle. In a reversal of the main scenario of the TV series, we thought it would be interesting if we explored Lakeshore through the eyes of a character transported to present day from the 1970’s, play on the idea of Lakeshore’s history as a 70’s icon.

As we explored this further it opened up all sorts of creative and fun possibilities – as we thought our main character could explore on a journey of surprise and amazement as he sees what has happened 30 years in the future.

As we considered his journey through the project’s parkland landscape, we thought about all the things that could happen there, from the unexpected to the surreal….. from fishermen, tai chi, birdwatchers and picnickers through to rollerskaters and Victorian ladies and gentlemen taking a stroll (!)

Graphically, the inspiration of pop-art allowed us to develop a stop-motion graphic treatment, enabling us to incorporate a huge cast of characters shot within our studio without need for expensive models, lighting and camera setups.

 

Hertel

When we first received the call and outline brief from Hertel, we were a little unsure whether we were the right people for the job. Hertel are a global industrial services company – they do things like decommission oil rigs and clean and maintain industrial plant – and they wanted us to produce a ‘corporate video’ to communicate what they are all about to their 15,000 employees.

I think one of their first comments about what they wanted involved a ‘talking head’ from their CEO. So….. we weren’t sure.

We thought, surely we can do something different, something unexpected. Just because there’s a convention for ‘corporate videos’ doesn’t mean we should follow it.

We started by getting inside their company, where they came from, what they are about – and digging around for a possible story to tell - a hook. After looking around, one nugget that we found was that the whole company was formed in 1895 when a man from America fell in love with a girl in Amsterdam and decided to start a company – so it’s essentially a love story!

Thankfully we had a very open minded client who was happy to entertain our ideas.

So, we started there, and after a trip around one of their oil refineries we developed a script and a cast of characters to tell their business story from 1895 to present day – with an informative yet playful approach.

They loved it, so much so that we’re now working on another companion piece for them to use at Christmas.

Do you prefer to work for architect/developers or ad/creative agencies? Why?


There’s no real preference to be honest. We can have beautiful or terrible client experiences in any sector!

We’re happy to work with people from these and many other walks of life – our clients have also included music festivals, football clubs and Michelin-starred chefs!

The main quality we look for in our clients is for people who really care about and really believe in what they do. Projects will always benefit from personal and company chemistry to produce a richer result.

For the launch of your new website you created “Stories from The Neighbourhood”. Could you tell us a bit more about this project and how you came up with the concept?


This project was part of our “Neighbourhood Play” initiative.

When we first started we didn’t know what we were going to do. We dipped into the bottomless bucket off ideas which are always knocking around in the studio.

We had a few pop-up books in the studio at the time, and loved the associations and memories that these brought from our childhood – for some it was perhaps our first experience of 3d animation!

As I mentioned before, “realistic CGI” is just a part of our toolbox. We wanted to explore using the same high end 3D tools to create a more ‘analogue’ and endearing aesthetic. A look more akin to stop frame animation and traditional illustrations in the pop up books that fired our imaginations as children.

Clips from "Stories from the Neighbourhood"

Once underway, like many of our projects, things snowballed from there. We didn’t place constraints at the start – and we ended up in a world where dancing hula girls are carried over volcanoes by pink flamingos and cloud dwelling gorillas hijack airborne pirate ships.!

You could say it’s a neighbourhood of our imagination!

We didn’t stop there, we couldn't resist creating a bespoke 3d pop-up style DVD case to package to disc. And, we’re delighted that we’ve picked up a number of industry awards and nominations for the project too.

When you work on non‐architectural projects, are you influenced by your architectural roots? How does it affect your approach to a brief?


We can’t help but be influenced by it – it’s part of our studies, our passion and our work to date. A lot of our thought and our graphics are spatial; three-dimensional; and about creating ‘worlds’ – whether they are faithful representations and visualisations, or surreal and conceptual.

The architectural roots within a number of people in The Neighbourhood also gives us quite a broad outlook. During studies you’re exposed to everything from philosophy to structural mechanics, to art history and literature.

Also a lot about architecture isn’t just buildings and design – it’s also about responding intelligently to a brief, constructing a response, justifying those ideas, and then meeting a critical deadline! All of this also stands us in good stead today.

Clip from Sony PSP Commercial in the UK

Do you think it’s a necessity for studios to expand towards more agency type work, to remain competitive and survive slow economies, or was this strictly an artistic decision on behalf of the Neighbourhood? Why did you move in this direction?


Not a necessity, no. I think it’s more important to find what you are good at and what you enjoy and take it from there. There are exceptional studios around the world focusing purely on architectural illustration for example, and doing incredibly well at it. There is always a danger that by trying to spread your approach too thin you become a jack of all trades and master of none.

However, we did think that by having clients across a wide range of sectors, this would in theory leave us slightly less vulnerable to a downturn in one of those individual sectors. Naturally, we’d need to be strong in each of these areas too!

We always took the attitude that if we’re really good at what we do – a trusted pair of hands if you like – then in tougher times clients will be more confident and sure that the investment they are making is worthwhile.

This seems to be paying off at the moment as we’re continuing to expand our team despite everyone talking about the economic slowdown. We feel that the “downtimes” create more opportunities. You just have to be more creative.

Which project thus far has been your favorite and why? What type of project are you still looking forward to working on?


It’s hard to pick one out to be honest. Different types of project offer different challenges, and stand out for different reasons. One constant is that we believe that there should be something to be gained and learned from every project.

We’ve been very happy to have been signed by Bermuda Shorts – one of London’s foremost representation agencies for commercial and music video work – and we’re looking forward to further work and opportunities that are opening up with them, following on from the TV idents we’ve just completed for CBBC.


If you could give one piece of advice to professionals in our industry what would it be?

Create your own opportunities. Take risks. Have fun!

Where do you think the architectural industry will be in five years and where will your company be in five years?

Architecturally, I think there’s a lot of exciting opportunities opening up with intelligent use of interactivity, and altering perception and experience through new formats such as 3d displays and projection for example.

In architectural promotion and marketing, the world is being flooded with illustration and animation, and the impact of these is already waning – particularly in very crowded market places – as we see a lot of repetition of ideas and executions. As CGI becomes increasingly prevalent, it is already the ideas and the approach that are the key to creating something distinctive.

With our company, we’ve only just celebrated our 2nd birthday, so projecting 5 years ahead is quite far! At the moment we’re continuing to build our profile and client base, and we’re moving into a new larger studio in the new year to accommodate our growing team.

Most importantly though, we’re continuing to concentrate on doing the most creative and best work that we can, and keeping as true as we can to our original ethos when we set up the studio.

Clip from Sony PSP Commercial in the UK

What projects are you working on now?

We’ve just completed our first worldwide TV advert for Sony PSP, which is currently airing on TV screens across worldwide territories, and we have a number of other commercials currently at development stage.

Clip from Sony PSP Commercial in the UK

We’re producing a series of images and films for a large commercial project in the city of London, an really exciting project for the tallest building in Africa, and also an incredible rotating tower, in where else but Dubai!

….and a very special creative collaboration with Heston Blumenthal, recently voted the world’s no.1 chef with 3 Michelin stars to his name – watch this space!

To check out the Neighbourhood, stop by their website