Re: Create boards for pitches

My studio recently took on a job for a fairly well known brand, and it being a reasonably complex motion graphics job we boarded it out. Here's what happened:

- We ended up doing 12 revisions to these boards because, no matter what we said, the client couldn't grasp that they were not meant to be exact to the letter, including the exact wording of on-screen marketing text, etc..

- They eventually asked that we modify the contract to guarantee the final product would match the boards, which we agreed to thinking it would benefit us by keep this rather flighty, disorganized client on track.

- Actual production begins. Client receives the first major draft, but there's a problem - our point of contact never showed their internal creative director any of the 12 board revisions, and he hates it (naturally)

- In the end, the client ends up forcing us to deviate so dramatically from the boards that the final product took a major hit in terms of message, cohesion etc. despite our warnings to the client.

- Once the job is wrapped, we are informed that they still need to show the execs (?!?!), and needless to say there is a 4-page list of changes that require retooling the entire project to accommodate.


The lesson? Boards are great, but it all comes down to your client and whether or not they are used to boards. They can end up introducing deep misunderstanding, get clients focused on the wrong things etc. as the many stories in this thread show.

If you're going to do boards, I would just be careful to inform your clients what the boards are and are not meant to be.

Brendan Coots

Splitvision Digital

www.splitvisiondigital.com