In season 2 of the 360 interviews, we have decided to chat with Iain Ross – Creative Director at Motorvated Creative.
Tell us how your interest in the creative world started.
From a very young age, I was fortunate enough to be influenced and inspired by the creative professions due to my uncle owning and operating a successful advertising agency in the northeast of England during the 70s and 80s (which also had an automotive account on the client roster).
Design, advertising, film and photography were always part of the broader family vernacular and it was no surprise that my brother and myself – after leaving school, sought out ‘creativity’ as the basis for our higher education/degrees and future careers.
What was your route into the industry?
Whilst studying Graphic Design, Advertising and Communications at Northumbria University, I took my passion for all things design, film, photography and music to its next level, by being lucky enough to land a 6-month placement working with Vaughan Oliver at his V23 studio’s, working exclusively for 4AD records. This working relationship developed into a firm friendship and after university graduation, I continued working with Vaughan in a freelance capacity, whilst I worked at Ranch Associates (formally Red Ranch), which was my first full-time ‘designer’ role after university. These were formative early years for me, a small but very busy and dynamic company with creativity at its core. And such a varied client base gave me a proper grounding and so many opportunities to work on such an intriguing daily diet of work, from corporate blue chip, FMCG, charities, and publishing, to working with the Arts, through to highly creative work for the music, film and television industries as well. The ‘Ranch years’ really were such fun and highly creative formative years.
But as a young designer, I always knew that I also wanted to be involved in the advertising sector as well, my early years of family exposure to the world of advertising was the catalyst to experience and be involved in that side of the creative spectrum. My wishes became a reality when I landed a designer/creative art director role at the highly respected creative agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty, being so fortunate to be involved in some major clients and memorable campaigns for Levi’s, Polaroid, Speedo and working on my first car account, with design and photography work for Audi during the 1980s.
The industry has changed massively in recent years from traditional shoots to full CG productions, what are your thoughts on this?
I have been involved in ‘filming and photographing’ cars in the studio and out on location since the late 80s, but also been involved in the fledgling CGI side of things since around 2002. Becoming increasingly familiar and excited with the world of CG imaging, as an inquisitive early adopter I was keen to grow my involvement with this side of the industry – the mix of ‘analogue and digital projects and productions became a relatively balanced one from around 2008. This was the case as clients and the wider automotive industry became increasingly familiar and trusting with what CG could offer their brands, and as new and creatively/technically talented people became involved in the sector, and with software developing at a fast pace, coupled with general CG production costs coming down as well.
However and from my own personal and professional experience, the Covid years changed the creative/automotive industry in so many ways and really accelerated ‘CG’ as a new and more prevalent norm for creative-automotive ‘production’. With production travel massively impacted all over the world, with no cars being shipped to locations and with seemingly all productions coming to a grinding halt, the creative-automotive industry had no choice but to fully adapt, embracing the notion of creating CGI cars and fully engaging in the expansive world of back plate libraries, like Domeble’s.
For over two years, this was virtually the only way automotive brands could create assets to advertise and communicate their cars to the customers – a new production process for some brands but a way of working that is now fully understood, accepted and appreciated by all. The upsurge of ‘CG’ in the Covid years is a necessitated development that I feel has become the new and increasingly prevalent normal way of doing things moving forward.
Do you think a client’s perspective on creating content has changed recently in terms of creativity, timelines and budgets?
Yes – and in many ways. As clients are now more open and receptive to working with CGI and back plates etc, plus they’re gaining knowledge themselves regarding the inner workings of the process and the technologies involved, they are impacting the work more. With this knowledge, I’m finding some clients have greater respect for this type of work and the overall process without getting too involved in the actual production, whereas some clients are realising that the work is infinitely editable and try to steer and influence the work themselves more from the onset.
Regardless of how clients involve themselves in the process, and with CGI development continuing to move at a pace, the old client/supplier adage still remains the same, the expectations are still ‘high’, they’ll always want ‘more work’, they’d like it produced ‘faster’ and at a ‘cheaper’ cost to boot. I think this will always be the way, especially with technology making production processes faster and more viable to achieve more within shorter timeframes.
You still create your ideas/briefs for photographers, clients and artists as line drawings and illustrations, as well as photo-finished comps, what dictates how you approach a creative brief?
My creative approach does depend upon the actual client I’m working for and the creative execution, the ideas communication process and presentation expectations that they feel comfortable working with.
Most clients welcome a bit of both approaches, often starting with looser-drawn scamps that are supported with detailed directional mood images to move and communicate more rapidly in the earlier stages. Then processing through to rough Photoshop-type visuals that are built from potential back plate selections, prior to creative sign-off and the start of the production.
With most automotive brands embracing the CG production route, working with ‘heights and angles’ references images of their cars, placed into a concept location scenario (being either drawn scamps or digitally comped visuals), provides clients a clearer understanding of how the image will progress and come to life, with the reference that they can ‘see their car’, which often gives the client greater confidence of how the images will progress going forward.
A lot of your recent projects have been created from backplates and 360° HDRIs and look fantastic, what advantages and limitations do these scenes present?
During the Covid years when there wasn’t the option of travelling to shoot real back plates out on location, it proved to many creatives and photographers how extraordinarily good it can be working with back plate stock and 360 spheres – with automotive clients are also now fully realising the huge potential of this approach.
As much as I do love being out on location shooting real cars or location back plates for CG car renders, I do also love working with the bought back plate approach. The amount of choice that a library like Domeble now provides is huge and the selection, quality and uniqueness of back plate stock is seemingly always growing – where there’s always something new to discover and think about.
I’ve never found this medium to be restrictive or to be a poorer alternative to actually shooting out on location. More than often, the choices of locations and lighting scenarios available to work with are perfect to answer the brief and I can find everything I need, especially when I often combine multiple location backplates together to create the uniqueness and individuality I’m looking for.
Real-time configurators and real-time productions are emerging and developing quicker than any of us can keep track of, where do you see this in the marketplace over the next few years, and how does it, (or how will it?) change your creative process?
Car manufacturers really started to understand the importance of their customer-facing online product choice configurators during the Covid years, as the traffic numbers increased substantially with customers not being able to travel to visit showrooms, dealerships or motor shows.
And together with the acceptance of customers now browsing for potential car products and purchases on their phones and tablets as the first point of interest, huge amounts of creative response, technical energy and budget are now being ploughed into manufacturers’ configurators at a pace, embracing the latest software and cache pipeline developments to deliver an elevated and responsive online experience for customers interested enough to browse for the product.
As the customer numbers, interfacing with configurator platforms continue to grow in line with the universal acceptance of online browsing and order purchasing, this medium will continue to flourish at a real pace, with ongoing technology developments fuelling this ‘new normal, with configurators being understood as being a hugely important digital tool in the overall automotive sales funnel. Manufacturers are now investing heavily with digital companies, car photographers and automotive image makers to develop their configurators to be as rich, immersive and as authentic as possible, where product realism and product believability is the required expectation for these digital showrooms.
From my own experiences, working on Configurator projects can be a unique experience per automotive brand, with the process and the aesthetic approach and results being heavily influenced by the render software platform and in particular with strict consideration of pipeline limitations and cache capabilities.
VR / AR – thoughts on where it’s at and future commercial integration – is this an area you’re exploring?
Whereas VR/AR has been around a while, with the onset and continued to roll out/acceptance of the ‘Metaverse’, the demand for richer, really immersive and personally tailored communications ‘experiences’ will reach new levels, being seen as standard and expected – and this is where VR/AR will help to fulfil those needs. A lot of automotive brands have ‘played’ with’ VR/AR, but mainly in more limited ways like motor show events, as it has been seen as both expensive and time-consuming mediums to work with. But this will change with the onset of the new and latest technologies, making it both easier and more cost-effective to work with, providing more and more VR/AR interactive and immersive opportunities at customer touch points, like local dealerships, CRM events and even customer in-home sales experiences.
VR/AR is a sector area where I have creatively instigated these types of interactive portals/platforms at motor show events for car manufacturers, but so far I haven’t been fortunate enough to actively work on the creative VR/AR communications content. Yet…
Where do you see the future of rendering and HDR development?
CGI is increasingly becoming a strategic/communications/creative/production approach of choice for car manufacturers, so this sector for static and motion imaging will most likely keep on growing year on year, in line with the continued progression and key developments in software technology that drives this growth.
From the commercial perspective, there will always be renowned professional specialist companies to provide car manufacturers and their agency partners with the digital expertise, platforms, assets and delivery that they need. But I’m already seeing more general advertising, communications and more traditional production agencies investing in specialist CGI staff and technology to also provide digital delivery as part of the broader types of comms and production services for their clients. With more service capabilities becoming available in the competitive marketplace, this will probably drive down production costs, thus opening up this arena to other commercial and manufacturing sectors that previously might not have considered CGI as part of their communications approaches.
Let’s talk about traditional image quality and HDRIs– how important is quality content and deep dynamic HDRIs as a foundation to your CGI image pipeline?
There is real competition between the back plate/HDR libraries with their imagery, not only for the range and a choice selection of the back plates/HDRs but also for the actual quality of the assets as well.
As much as the amount of creative choice is available, automotive image makers really demand the very best quality of the assets as well, as this imaging is often being creatively ‘pushed to the limits and asked to work very hard in the executions they’re performing. Thankfully, the high-end digital quality, large file sizes and HDRs that companies like Domeble deliver as standard, really help in what can be created and successfully adapted to work across multiple communications platforms.
It’s an ever-changing world, and an ever-changing industry we work in too, what do you think the industry will be like in 5 years’ time?
I hope that there will always be a place for static CG imaging, but when the ‘Metaverse’ really kicks in (and it will), it will catapult this industry to new heights and levels of commercial and creative importance, where richer/immersive/personal and tailored communications experiences’ will very much be the normal and standard public expectation, with digitally created ‘moving image’ being very much at the heart of it.
And finally, we’re delighted to announce that you’ll be joining us as a judge for the 2023 Domeble Symetri Student Awards. How important are awards like this for up-and-coming graduate talent?
Programmes like the Domeble Symetri Students Awards are hugely important for both ambitious students and commercial/professional organisations alike…
It is an ‘industry-facing’ opportunity for talented students to test themselves against their sector peers and to gain the deserved recognition for their work in this highly competitive field. Importantly, it is also the opportunity for commercial companies, creative/production agencies and even OEMs to see first-hand the great work that these talented students are producing.
Awards programmes like this are an investment in the future of the CGI sector, with the exposure of new student talent being a potential passport to new creative, commercial and even real employment opportunities after student graduation. This is obviously a fantastic benefit to the people just starting out in this industry, the ones that will be driving it forward in the years to come.
The Domeble Symetri Student Awards – watch this space, I know it will continue to be hugely intriguing…