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Artistry
NICK SCOTT
London, UK
"Multi-award winning stories"

“Creativity is unconventional - so are we” states Nick when called upon to define Nick Studios’ winning strategy.

He could not be closer to the truth for Film Director and Creative Director Nick Scott has managed to make his small studio a multi-award winning firm specialized in brand creation and design.

Some of the studios’ clients are global companies such as Channel 4, Filmfour, Universal Studios, Sky, Star, Daihatsu, Virgin, Google and BBC, among others.

As Film Director, Nick seems to turn creativity and technique into wizardry forms as we see how his commercials and film clips become viral in a matter of days, generating million of pounds in free publicity for his clients.

Some of his achievements include the global launch of Land Rover's flagship hybrid car LRX (BIMA 2008 best film) and the launch of the Egyptian national broadcaster's Nile Sport (winner Promax Arabia best Id's).

The MTV Push Global brand design accounts for his most recent work.

READ INTERVIEW BELOW

THE MDM * CONTACT

1. MDM_ Nick, thank you for taking the time to tell Wonderlance MDM´s readers a bit more about yourself and your work, I know you are extremely busy these days. Walk me through your early years Nick, when did you decide to pursue a creative career?

1. NICK_ In secondary school I kind of didn’t really know what I wanted to do. My Art teacher and English teacher both tried to pursuade me to pursue higher education options in their disciplines. I sort of ended up going the art root (incorporating Art History) and then ultimately into Graphic Design as it offered the marriage of art & commerce. This ultimately was the closest practical thing to a marriage of words and pictures as far as I could see.

2. MDM_ On your own personal opinion what takes for a talented creative person to become successful?

2. NICK_ I guess success is a difficult term to pin down. I certainly have had quantifiable ‘success’ in terms of awards, feedback from audiences, viewers, clients etc. However I don’t particularly think of myself as successful beyond the parameter of a particular project and IT’S success in achieving a communal goal of communication.

To some extent I think conquering the fear of the unknown is the key if there is any. It’s basically a human thing, and I think the artists or historically people commended as creative, have been willing to leap and keep making leaps into the sometimes daunting ‘unknown’.

It may sound like a cliché, but beyond this it is only an individual that can define what success means to them. This could mean you take pride in the success of having millions of dollars of billings as an ad agency or success that you have the integrity to only pursue projects which push you or move your body or work on. I think the confusing area is economics as most of us need to be economically aware to survive in creative business. However the obvious example of some truly great artists show that they deliberately ignored economical practicality to be truly creative – Many of these are the ones we now look at as true genius as their whole life was committed to art. So to some extent, inner reconciliation of what satisfies you is success – I haven’t necessarily found this completely so I perhaps, in part, that success will always be a retrospective thing.

3. MDM_ Which project have you most enjoyed working on?

3. NICK_ Any within which trust is built. I get frustrated if this negotiation becomes somebody using you as a ‘tool’ to scratch their creative itch. I don’t mean necessarily given carte blanche but more that any project where dialogue, discussion and reason is undertaken and then you are trusted to do what you do and have done well time and again. It’s down to good management, listening and trusting between BOTH parties in the client/vendor contract.

The recent MTV work we did was rewarding as we given a huge amount of trust and support to shape and deliver something. Furthermore we got to tell a trans media story that involved elaborate filmmaking, cgi and graphic design across a much broader narrative that defined the whole brand.

4. MDM_ We are featuring The Google Story clip from Nick Scott Studio which got over 300,000 YouTube hits in a couple of days. Was the studio asked to take on this project directly by Google, the company, or did you know about the project and decided to submit a proposal?

4. NICK_ It began when I got a call from Rachna Suri the executive producer for Across The Pond/Google Creative Hub. I’d been referred by Chris Boyle, a friend of mine who was actually directing a Zombie movie!?! Google were looking for the conception and production of a brand film to encapsulate their epic rise. I was immensely interested in documenting such a modern icon’s progress – it felt like quite a responsibility to get it right. The end goal was a multi-use brand film.

5. MDM_ What inspires you?

5. NICK_ Ideas. But primarily ideas that are realized, this is what we aim to do. The nurturing of an idea to a satisfying working experience or story is what I think has excited humans throughout history. Whether this is the cultivation of a story around a campfire or a movie or anything involving new technology – the sweet spot is still about a human connection, the things that open that inner Pandora’s box and raise the bar of emotion or experience.

6. MDM_ Which would you say are the three main psychological factors that make people want to consume a determined brand?

6. NICK_ I think you would get such a different answer to this across the creative industries. This could probably be in danger of being a very long response full of waffle or rhetoric!

However, I think the common denominator to many of my answers revolves around ‘being human’. I see brands less as being about ‘consumers’ but more about audiences or tribes. I think some of the most interesting and successful global brands such as Apple work this way. Good brands are almost like patrons used to be to artists like Rembrandt etc. They become sponsors of artists, sportsmen, musicians , product designers etc. (even if this isn’t always directly known to the consumer).

Also to in some ways it’s analogous with films or good stories. Good brands know when to be grand and complex and when to be blinding simple and lean. It’s this ability to adapt, expand and contract that in some ways ensures not only consistency but longevity. People are obviously hardwired into longevity through DNA. I think psychologically people ‘side’ with the smart tribes who have the perception of longevity as this resonates with some form of safety or comfort sought by humans. Mix this with some pursuit of creativity, then you have on a primitive level, safety of the body and feeding of the soul, things that have been identified to be innate human needs…all you need to do now is monetise it! …so I suppose;

i. Consistency/longevity (building for a longterm view)
ii. Endorsement of creativity and originality
iii. The capacity to make economic sense (invest in added value through creativity or lifestyle enhancement).

7. MDM_ As a Film Director, what movie would you have loved to have directed? And what type of movie would you love to direct if given the chance?

7. NICK_ This is SO difficult to answer, so in a stream of consciousness exercise…Midnight Cowboy, Bladerunner, American Beauty, The Elephant Man, The Godfather, La Haine, Amelie, Fight Club…

Given the chance to direct a movie would be a dream. In terms of type, I don’t really think the genre is as important as the fact that it’s a compelling story.

8. MDM_ In times of financial turmoil like the ones we are living through now, what type of media platform would you say that companies prefer to invest on, in order to reap any advertising benefits?

8. NICK_ It’s a given that the internet has become the most immediate and powerful mode of media at our disposal. It really lowered the barriers of entry for so many things; Music, film, art, advertising, commerce.

I think that what companies need to beware of though is that the craft or something shouldn’t necessarily be separated from the art. By this I mean that there are so many companies using ‘digital’ as a catchword that it kind of loses it’s power and becomes quite a vague term. It’s ironic that at the time of the first dot com crash, many big agencies almost took a ‘told you so’ approach to new media. However when the dust settled and web 2.0 showed that the promise of digital was very real, some of those played catch up and suddenly became experts in the field as if they’d been evangelizing non-stop.

I think digital is just another medium, granted, it is undoubtedly shifting the landscape and changing our lives. However the articulation of smart ideas and stories is what will conquer the medium and make it most effective. Like all technological breakthroughs of the century, it is in the hands of people that this stuff becomes really powerful. Look at Twitter, Facebook etc., there must be a correlation between the fact that the digital technology that is taking off is ‘social’ and also the fact that well articulated ideas and stories are some of the oldest social conventions that there are, made by humans FOR humans. So I think smart companies are thinking how they can harness the immediacy, distribution power and personalization of digital as part of tried and trusted mantras that strong ideas still prevail. Similarly smart and sound investment in creativity as opposed to seeing cheap or merely user-generated content as the way forward.

9. MDM_ As an artist, would you say that the Internet poses more opportunities than threats with regards to artists cashing on their talents or vice versa?

9. NICK_ Definitely. I think things like crowd sourcing are a real shady issue. Democratisation is great but the creative fields are so full of stories of how creative people have been exploited or are not commercially savvy. The internet poses a real threat in regards to this – I think there is a need to beware of too many film competitions, ‘make our advert’ etc. There are so many of these that it has to be assessed as to whether it is just a cheap way for companies to elicit great work from creative people for very little or nothing. For instance, if you’re a student or recent graduate, you may feel this is great to raise your profile – and it is. However if this became the norm, there would be no industry or set of established principles that form companies within which these graduates can learn and grow as the bedrock has been taken away. Clients may then be less likely to invest in time and professional services of entities that can really be creative AND help improve communications or business.

That said, smart clients will always be aware of this and the fact that the effort expelled in getting this stuff wrong can not only be expensive in terms of time but also money. I think it’s imperative that industry professionals monitor this situation and actually learn to say ‘no’ as it’s a slippery slope and creativity is the slipperiest of slopes for potential exploitation.

10. MDM_ Tell us a bit about the creative concept behind MTV Push.

10. NICK_ Push is dedicated to new music. It is committed to delivering the next generation of artists who will create the future of music, shape cultures and touch the hearts and souls of audiences.

Working with MTV’s World Design Studio in Milan, we developed the central theme of ‘Pin Art’ based around the premise that emergent stars of music are a force of nature - unstoppable in their drive and sheer talent. They ultimately leave an indelible cultural impression upon the world. This Pin Art idea also serves as a conceptual bridge between the execution and the property’s title ‘Push’ (in that Pinart needs to be pushed to work).

The Pin Art idea was rolled out across all elements of the identity from On-screen ‘bumpers’, promo and all graphic captioning and language.

The logo adopts the circle as a motif due to the circular ‘heads’ of the Pin Art. The marque inherently being a circle suggests that ‘Push’ is present in every single pin of the pin art and therefore present in every genre of music. This reflects a global outlook and the ability to be intrinsically at the forefront of new music.

Furthermore, this circle that was adopted in the graphic language was intended to strip the element down and serve as a bold, confident addition to the iconic block of the MTV logo.

Again, thank very much Nick; it is a pleasure to count with your creative genius and your expertise for our reader´s delight.

WATCH THE GOOGLE STORY by NICK SCOTT >>

WATCH MTV PUSH by NICK SCOTT >>

NICK SCOTT's WEBSITE >>

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