TATE USA Looks Towards a New Dimension
The visionary goals of founder and EP David Tate, seen here, and EP Rossi Cannon, are reshaping the company for the changed perspectives of the future.
TATE USA Looks Towards a New Dimension
The visionary goals of founder and EP David Tate and Partner Rossi Cannon
are reshaping the company for the changed perspectives of the future.
By Anthony Vagnoni
No one would call David Tate a mad scientist, although with just the right wardrobe and props, he could easily pass for one.
Soft spoken, with his gently clipped English accent and sense of humor – or humour, as he might spell it – the veteran production executive and founder of the L.A.-based production company TATE USA has been looking out from behind his boxy spectacles, and what he sees represents a new way of looking at the ad business.
It's a vision shaped by shared media as well as paid, by smaller yet more intimate productions, by capturing images in an immersive technology that draws viewers in regardless of their viewing environment and by fostering a culture of collaboration and creativity that becomes something of a hub for both new talent and established stars.
Helping him shape this new view is the Marty McFly to his Dr. Emmett Brown: EP and Partner Rossi Cannon. Talkative, hyper-energetic, with that staccato delivery that's well known in the L.A. production community, Cannon joined TATE USA in June of 2010, coming over from FORM. (See our story on her joining the company here.)
In a way, Cannon's arrival marked the beginning of TATE USA's grand experiment with broadening the shop's palette and moving more boldly into the brave new worlds of content production, social media, digital and stereoscopic 3D, Tate explains. Shortly after Cannon joined, the company signed 13 Keys to its roster, and has since then partnered with this nimble digital production studio on a number of jobs.
Indeed, the 13 Keys team, comprised of EPs and Directors Jeff Martin and Josh Falcon – backed by a host of editors, technicians, camera operators and the like – are now housed at the TATE USA offices in Santa Monica. Their work runs the gamut from broadcast TV spots and webisodes to documentaries, live events, social media campaigns and apps. They've shot web and TV spots for Vitro and the athletic shoe brand Asics (which won a Silver Lion in Cannes) and for Gatorade, they've been the main video content generator for the Vanity Fair Academy Awards bash (doing countless celebrity interviews in the process), even produced the live video streaming coverage of the annual NAB Show in Las Vegas.
Tate says that when Cannon joined, things finally started falling in place for his vision of what the production industry of the future was going to look like. "I've been trying to open those types of doors for the past few years," he admits. "But it wasn't until Rossi and I met up with the companies like 13 Keys and Status Creative that it all began to gel."
Status Creative is a boutique shop run by EPs and Directors Rob Bliss and Scott Erickson that specializes in social media distribution and seeding, experiential production, flash mobs and the like. Based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Status has a knack for getting its work seen on a big stage. It's perhaps best known for a project it created to promote tourism in its hometown. Dubbed the "Grand Rapids LipDub," it's an engaging, one-take video that features literally hundreds of Grand Rapidians parading around downtown streets, lip synching to a performance of Don McLean's "American Pie" in a seemingly spontaneous outburst of civic pride and enthusiasm.
The video, produced last year, has clocked close to five million views on YouTube alone and was covered by major TV outlets, newspapers and blogs. Produced on a shoestring with donated funds coming from local businesses, it was made in response to a reference made in Newsweek that Grand Rapids was a "dying city."
"Getting together with them brought together many of the things I've wanted to do here," says Tate. "Here were these guys who understood it, who were fluent in this new language and were out there doing it."
Talking about companies like 13 Keys and Status tends to get both Tate and Cannon rolling into one of these vortexes where they finish each other's sentences and bookend each other's thoughts. The two were brought together by a mutual contact in the business and realized that, while their temperaments are something like polar opposites, they share the same views on where the industry's going.
"In a lot of ways we're like the odd couple," Cannon jokes, "but for some reason it works brilliantly. We have a different way of seeing things, but the results are always the same. We understand the importance of cross-platform and integrated media, of apps and webisodes and stereoscopic 3D, etc. That was our common ground – our passion and interest in these new forms of media."
That passion isn't limited to just these players, either. In addition to 13 Keys and Status, TATE has also partnered in the past year with a Swedish multimedia and interactive company with the evocative name It's Showtime (the mention of which makes me think of Roy Scheider in Bob Fosse's "All That Jazz.")
It's Showtime is one of those digital hybrid companies that straddles the lines between strategy, concept and production, producing everything from web sites to apps, rich media ads, interactive online events and other genres of engagement, along with commercials and films. The company's work has won honors from a number of top European competitions, including Eurobest, Cannes and Cresta, and has been tagged with several FWA Site of the Day awards, much of it for a client list that includes Coca-Cola, Kia, Nike, Ikea, VW, Carlsberg and P&G.
In addition to its budding social media and digital talent roster, the company is heavily vested in the stereoscopic 3D platform; indeed, Tate and Cannon were in Las Vegas this year for the NAB Show, not only to watch 13 Keys in action as they live-streamed the conference but to check up on the latest in stereoscopic technology.
To those who see the technology as a fad, Tate and Cannon have something to say. "We don't see it going away at all," Cannon states. "We're just seeing smarter uses of 3D." To her, the future of 3D is a broad application that ranges from high-end entertainment (think Scorsese's "Hugo" or Baz Lurhman's upcoming "Great Gatsby") to sports, games and more.
In the 3D realm, TATE USA has aligned itself with some top talents, as it's done in social media. The studio is working with the founders of 3DCC, one of the top houses for stereography and 3D technology, founded by William Reeve in Ontario. (For more on the TATE USA 3D offering, click here.)
It's also set to announce soon a partnership with James Stewart of Toronto's Geneva Films, about which both Tate and Cannon are very excited. "James is going to work with us in a variety of capacities," Tate says. "He'll be director, producer, creative director, whatever it takes. And he'll make the facilities of Geneva available to our clients here in the States. Our goal is two-fold: to produce not only original 3D content, but to offer state of the art 2D to 3D conversion as well."
The trajectory of 3D is poised for what Tate and Cannon describe as a quiet but steady ascent. "We think a major thrust of its growth will be in advertising, once the industry recognizes that it's the next place to go," says Tate. "People are talking about 3D as being the biggest change in the history of moving visual imagery since silent pictures turned into talkies, and I think that's true. It's going to get to the point where we'll be talking about 2D as old fashioned, probably within five years."
This 3D future may look very different than what some people think it will, Cannon adds. "It might not even be home TV viewing that moves the 3D needle, but tablets and smartphones and gaming devices, especially those that have auto-stereoscopic displays that don't require glasses," she says. "These advances, all of which are in the pipeline, will have a huge impact on 3D adoption."
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the company is still spending the bulk of its time producing more traditional TV spots and web videos for agencies and brands. In this regard, both Tate and Cannon say that the ancillary work in social media and other fields is helping grow the rest of the company's business.
And, just as they're reinventing the TATE USA offering in new media, they're restocking the director roster, too. Recent additions include the UK talent Frank Borin, who's known for his mix of live action and visual effects and his narrative-driven music videos, as well as Laurieann Gibson, the choreographer-turned-director who counts Lady Gaga and Katy Perry among her regular artist collaborators. The company has just added the Finnish director Rane Tiukkanen to its roster as well; he's a multi-award winner whose work reflects that distinctly Scandinavian perspective.
TATE USA's directors are keeping busy, with Steven Antin, known for his music video work with artists such as Christina Aguilera, his motion picture "Burlesque" and his sexy spots for brands like Skyy Vodka and Go Daddy. He recently collaborated with the agency Lambesis on a musically-driven Dasani spot titled "Twist," and has just been booked on a job for the high-end jewelry brand Tacori. And comedy specialist David Popescu, who's work includes the offbeat Thera-Gesic "Goat Tears" spot, has just booked a job for McDonald's.
Helping drive a lot of the company's growth, adds Cannon, is TATE USA's ability to package projects, a capability that's come as a result of working with teams like 13 Keys, which edits its own stuff, and the accompanying move into longer-format and webisode content. "We can now offer post, music, all the other aspects of the final product that they now offer," she points out.
Looking ahead, Tate says he sees a time when the balance of the company's work will shift towards the newer genres and formats they're exploring. "These are such exciting areas, but they're not fully understood," he observes. "Often, when clients ask for it, I think some agencies are tempted to recommend alternatives instead. But it's spreading, and it's going to be a larger and larger portion of our business."
What encourages him about this prospect is that he feels that he and Cannon have all the puzzle pieces in place with their current roster and affiliations. "What we have now is a menu that you can choose from," he says thoughtfully. "We can create the content, we can execute the content, but we also - and this is just as important – have the ability to manage the distribution of the content.
"That's what most people don't do," he continues. "They leave it up to somebody else, or they leave it to chance, to find its own 'viralness,' so to speak. And frankly, 'viral' is not a thing that clients are crazy about. They love the concept of it, but if they're spending money to produce something, they want to take whatever steps they can to assure that it gets out there and gets seen – that it does indeed go viral. And there are ways to help that along that most people don't employ, but we do. And I think that makes all the difference."
Published 13 September, 2012
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