The Modern Production Workflow Digital Content Creators Are Loving
In the age of a digital content boom, brands and agencies need to find new ways to produce digital content faster and cheaper, with talent that is precisely suited to the brand’s target audience. But finding the right fit that will actually deliver is a huge task among a vast sea of potential creatives online.
Spotting this emerging need in the market, Berlin-based creator platform and consultancy .fount came up with a new solution: efficiently matching their vetted network of digital creators with brands and agencies, while putting the creators in the centre of production and adding classical TV know-how when needed.
Acting as a production consultant, .fount’s creator-centric workflows allow creatives to do what they do best without the need for lots of back-and-forth with clients - ultimately leading to a faster, more affordable process and better creative outcome. A win-win for everyone involved.
To find out exactly how this has been working in practise, LBB speaks to the creators behind two recent social media and photography projects facilitated by .fount. The first by Chris Schwarz for MILES Mobility, a car sharing service in Germany: and the second by Linda Leitner, featuring L'Oréal Paris’ Elvital hair care for Condé Nast’s Vogue Germany.
MILES Mobility by Chris Schwarz
LBB> Tell us a bit about how you first came across .fount and joined their network as a creator?
Chris Schwarz> I’d come across .fount a few times and had been planning to reach out to them but they managed to reach me first. I was intrigued by their concept because a lot of big companies understand that content can be created in a more efficient way, and by one content creator, but they don’t often want to trust their whole campaign to one person. With .fount, they create that trust between the two and deal with the back and forth communication.
LBB> What was your experience like working on the MILES campaign with .fount as a production consultant?
Chris> .fount were very efficient and clear communicators and the whole process ran so smoothly. They kept everyone in the loop so I wasn’t pulled into too many unnecessary calls (which has happened before) and that saved a lot of my time. I was also able to communicate directly with the client when needed.
LBB> This was a “social-first” campaign for the brand. What was the brief from the client and what were the challenges you needed to overcome?
Chris> MILES Mobility needed lots of content creation from photography through to small clips and social media. They wanted to be able to use the content for the remainder of the year or longer, and create all this in just one shoot. So the two biggest challenges were fitting it all into one day, and producing all the various styles of content that would last months and months.
Usually when you shoot, you pick a day that suits the feel of the campaign - so if it's sunny, you can have warm and bright content, but if you need something for winter, you choose a cloudy, darker day. But with this shoot, we had to get creative and use the various light levels throughout the day to make the content work across seasons.
We started really early in the morning to get the colder style content shot, and then as we got to midday we could do some of the more summery ones. We also needed to shoot different cars, different models, and different scenarios that suit both business and relaxed holiday shots. And of course, we had to capture film, photography and social content simultaneously. Some of the time, I had my photography camera and mobile ready to shoot at exactly the same time!
Chris Schwarz - photo credit Philipp Gladsome
I also handled the post production for the campaign, which worked really well because I already knew the ins and outs of what the client was after. This helped save lots of time and I was able to get that done much faster than if we had sourced another editor.
LBB> What was the feedback from the client, they must have been pretty impressed!
Chris> They were! They joined us for some of the shoot and were loving the process and luckily also loved the results.
LBB> In the initial stages of the project, you took part in a workshop with .fount and the brand. What was that experience like?
Chris> The workshop was brilliant. Usually you’d have to go through unpaid pitching processes where you hand out your treatments but you’re not likely to get the job. With .fount’s workshop, the creator has been chosen specifically for the style of the campaign and that sets you up for more of a chance to win the project.
The workshop acted almost like an unofficial pre-production meeting where all the essentials are worked out. I got to speak with MILES directly about the ideas and about their expectations and we were all on the same page by the end.
LBB> And finally, what would you say to brands who may be reluctant to change their workflows to an updated approach like this?
Chris> I think everyone will come round to this way of working sooner or later. Audiences crave content, and there is so much out there that you need to keep producing in order to stay fresh in people’s minds. But at the moment, production is slow and expensive, so we need new ways of producing content faster and more affordably.
You need good content creators who understand the social and digital world and who know how to produce a short story that will catch attention.
Vogue x Elvital by Linda Leitner
LBB> Tell us a bit about how you first came across .fount and joined their network as a creator?
Linda Leitner> It wasn't that long ago actually, I think it was March or April 2020 and I was contacted by .fount who introduced themselves as a platform for creatives. I thought it sounded really cool and new and something that is currently missing in our industry - it's not like a production and it's not like an agency. It takes time to find jobs usually but just two days later .fount were in touch with a brief that matches my skill set.
LBB> What was your experience like working on the Elvital Vogue campaign with .fount as a production consultant?
Linda> It was really pleasant. Philipp Haeberlin-Collet (co-founder and producer) did a really really good job connecting everybody on the project together and kept us really up to date with briefings. It was a very open and transparent process with everyone on the same page.
Sometimes when you work with big production companies or big agencies, a lot can get lost in translation so it was nice to have a smooth line of communication when working with .fount.
LBB> What was the brief from the client and what were the challenges you needed to overcome?
Linda> The brief was for an Instagram / Tiktok reel for the new Elvital product with influencers and a really dynamic and energetic feel. It needed to be dreamy and soft but also dynamic for social media. This was a lot to think about and a lot of concepts to go through beforehand. But .fount made the collaboration between client, agency and myself really easy to land on the final concept and we were really pleased with the results.
LBB> What was your vision for this project and what were your favourite moments from working on it?
Linda> The project had a really creative vision for a hair advertising or commercially shot story. I enjoyed playing with the different styles - it was a little bit more creative than usual haircare stories.
The shoot days were really fun and the models did a great job. It was so well organised - I have worked on many shoots where time flies because you have so much to get through and you’re uncertain of which direction things are going to go. You don’t even have time to eat or drink! But on this shoot it was much more planned out and everything flowed really nicely.
LBB> What were the benefits of collaborating in a creator-centric workflow with .fount? Did it allow you more creative freedom?
Linda> I really like this concept of supporting a creator’s specific talents and connecting them with appropriate projects to create the best outcome. .fount is helping creators and clients who may not have come across each other to find each other.
