Mischa Rozema: “These days everything is a pitch.”
Mischa Rozema founded PostPanic in Amsterdam in 1997 and built the hybrid studio into a dominant creative force in the motion world housing a stable of dynamic directors, assembling a client roster of A-list international brands and developing breakthrough personal projects like “The Postman Returns.”
STYLE FRAMES asked Mischa to share his approach to the pitch process, his thoughts on it’s most troublesome aspects and to share some war stories.
On a scale from 1-10 how much do you enjoy the pitching process (1 = hate it, 10 = crave it).
Eight. I actually enjoy doing them. Also because I only pitch on projects that I like. Those first few hours/days at the birth of a project are the most personal and important to me. It’s the most creative part of the process; creating something out of nothing (or often very little).
And in the pitch process you’re still completely in charge. I tend to change the briefs completely. Bending them to how I really want to make the project. Later on you of course you have to share that control with an agency or client and deal with the politics of advertising.
What percentage of your pitches are paid vs spec?
Paid pitches are very much a thing of the past. Very rare these days.
How many projects did you pitch on in the last 12 months?
About 30
What % of your pitches include the following:
Do you find the creative freedom of wide-open briefs daunting or invigorating?
Invigorating. If a briefing is not wide open; I’ll make it wide open ; )
I believe you have to distinguish yourself in pitches and not literally do what’s being asked. Otherwise all parties involved will come up with the same end result. You have to find a unique approach that only you could think of and makes the brief even better. Otherwise I feel it would be useless to start the pitch in the first place.
If you could change one aspect of the current pitching process what would it be?
These days everything is a pitch. Some agency’s just try out stuff without their clients knowing about it. So there’s no budget or foundation for an actual project. Just because the agency has some time to fill and clients to suck.
The worst thing is when they ‘forget’ to mention that (a.) This is a pitch. (b.) There’s no actual project, we’re just goofin’ about. What agencies often don’t realise is that pitches are a big investment for small companies like us; they cost time and money and lots of creative energy. So we have to pick our battles wisely. It really does hurt when you get screwed over like that both financially and professionally.
Complete these sentences:
1. If I was not a animator/designer/director I would be… really unhappy!
2. My favorite method or ritual for generating ideas involves… Lot’s of sketching and music.
3. The tools I rely on most to create my pitch art are… My brain and the amazing people I work with.
Tell us a pitching war story.
We once had a pitch that stretched over 6 months. Every time the agency told us we’d win the pitch if only we could change something. This just went on and on. We went all out on this one because we got pulled in too deep to back out. After 6 months the whole project was cancelled. That was the day we changed our pitch strategy ; )
Another time, we presented our pitch on a conference call with a Spanish agency. When we were done and the interpreter was done, a five-minute-long flurry of full-on spanish passion erupted; they where arguing, screaming etc. We counted about 15 different voices! After 5-minutes, the riot died off into silence and the interpreter said dryly: “They like it.”
