m25 posed a few questions about AI, Asia and the future of production to Kate Downie at Beautiful Pictures who’s expanding in the region
Kate Downie (pictured above left) is the Founder/Executive Producer at Beautiful Pictures, a production company with offices in Perth and Singapore. m25 put 6 questions to Downie to find out more about her and her approach to production in Asia among other things.
As an established production company in Western Australia, what major benefits are Asian clients likely to find now you are established in Asia?
We’ve all heard that Perth shares the same time-zone as most of Asia, but nothing beats having a representative on the ground who has the feel of Asia. They can be the person who can be called in the evening when there’s a late change or someone to call on to brief the initial stages of an idea. Beautiful Pictures provides that balance of local contact together with their Australian production base, creating a strong and responsive team committed to building up Asia production and creativity.
With the onset of Generative Al tools across the industry, how do you feel this will change the way you work and service clients?
Al Tools are a product of the world’s creative output to date, trained on novels, scripts, images and more. The tools can’t create anything new and the work they produce is derivative of the most popular results, not the most creative. If you want to visually recreate the feeling of being in a tropical jungle, immersing yourself in a Polynesian lagoon or discovering different POVs of existing landmarks, you need to film them. At present no tools replace what creative film director, an innovative director of photography and their crew can produce.
Usage on images aren’t owned by the clients if using Al, so there is no guarantee that a competitor won’t use the same image or similar. Having said that, there are a lot of repetitive tasks where Al tools can assist production, starting from initial production meetings with storyboards and layouts, generating ideas for wardrobe, props and locations from agency and production company briefs, through to final versioning and multi-language translation. Beautiful Pictures are up to date with existing tools and how they can make production more efficient, and are looking forward to seeing how emerging tools can assist in the future.
What strategic advantages can Asian advertising agencies gain by partnering with Beautiful Pictures for their production needs?
Australians are renowned in Hollywood for their can-do attitude. This is borne out of Australia’s relative isolation and the need to do it ourselves, or not get it done at all. The same can-do ethic is amplified in Western Australia and brings an innovative approach to production. The versatility of Beautiful Pictures’ production coupled with their creative visual directors makes them a perfect partner for any stage of the production, from initial concepts, workshopping them to fit initial scope through to innovative use of locations to recreate Bora Bora on your doorstep.
With a strong presence in both regions, we are fully equipped to produce high-quality productions out of Asia or provide comprehensive facilitation services for productions in Australia and New Zealand.
How do you manage producers’ expectations with the reality of what can really be done?
Expectations, their management and exceeding them are what generates repeat business and make successful businesses and what has led to Beautiful Pictures growth out of Perth and into the Asian market. You only get one chance to exceed expectations with your client. Transparency and communication between the agency and production company are key to defining those expectations, establishing cooperation and producing beautiful work together.
What projects are your favorite projects as Beautiful Pictures?
We love a challenge at Beautiful Pictures so the productions that are logistically fun and then of course look beautiful. Some personal favourites were shooting Citizen Watches in Iceland and Expedia in Mexico.
Lastly, how have you found the m25 experience since joining the roster?
We have just completed a very ‘cool’ project out of China via m25, that involved celebrities and a very tight turnaround, shooting in Melbourne. As I am very much known as a very ‘versatile’ and ‘can-do’ Producer, I was very able to adapt to the working style of the production team out of Shanghai. I’m very happy with the way the m25 model is working for me.