The help. This week: Marcelo Páez, film director & producer.

By Gonzalo López Martí / LMMiami.com

In this business we rarely ask the opinion of the artists-for-hire who help us bring to life our lofty, world-changing, award-winning ideas. Namely film directors, photographers, web developers and so on. We expect from them to hit the ground running, give us exactly want we want, when we want it, at the price we set, no questions asked. This series of articles will humbly attempt to right this wrong.
 

• Marcelo Páez founded, owns and operates one of the most important film production companies catering to the US Hispanic market today: Miami-based America Filmworks*.
• Marcelo has produced &/or directed hundreds of TV spots, TV shows, short films, documentaries, branded content pieces, webfilms, live concerts & music videos in various languages for dozens and dozens of brands and artists, from Pepsi to AARP, from Univision to MTV, from Julio Iglesias to the Rolling Stones.
• He has made his money and won his awards.
• He could easily play the part of the pretentious auteur living in a rarefied artistic atmosphere.
• Yet nothing could be farther from the truth.
• It can safely be said that pretty much everybody in our industry owes Marcelo a favor: his track record as generous advisor, mentor, sponsor, cheerleader, therapist, godfather and lender of last resort to young talent, starry-eyed creatives, down-on-their-budget clients and newfangled agencies is second to none.
• Let’s see how he can enlighten us.

 
Q: What’s the difference between producing TV and producing advertising?
 
MP: TV is action. Ready, shoot, aim. Advertising overthinks everything. TV people mold their opinions during development and after they see the ratings of the show. Nielsen is the ultimate arbiter of TV taste. Paradoxically, ad people can be way more biased by their own personal taste & opinions. The ROI of an ad campaign is based on sales and awards can be subjective.
 
Q: Are we using advertising properly?
 
MP: Our business is too selfish. I keep trying to change it, to make it more community oriented. We should do a lot more PSAs. Advertising is a powerful tool and we only use it with the bottom line in mind.
 
Q: Do you see increasing crossover potential for Hispanic professionals? For example, are Hispanic directors being hired by mainstream agencies?
 
MP: Absolutely. It started a while ago. We are not a minority anymore. Guillermo González Iñárritu directed the biggest advertising super production of all time: Nike’s TV spot for the FIFA World Cup of 2010. Alfonso Cuarón is a Hollywood demigod. Two words: Robert Rodríguez. These guys were ad film directors -still are-, jumped to independent filmmaking and became full-fledged movie powerhouses. Now more then ever, big mainstream budgets are betting big on Hispanic talent. Some of the big directors of photography in Hollywood are Hispanic: Academy-award winner Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki is Mexican and Ang Lee’s go-to director of photography, Academy-award winner Claudio Miranda, is Chilean. Roberto Orcí is one of the busiest and most sought-after TV showrunners/exec producers working today. Forgive me for stating the obvious but a reasonable command of the English language is critical. Otherwise there’s too much friction in the process. However, the picture is not that rosy (pun not intended): I have a general-market ready roster of directors. Still it is a tough uphill battle to land them projects in this new Total Market environment. General market agencies can be very protective of their turf.
 
Q: What are the advantages & disadvantages of shooting in LA, NY, Miami, DF, Bogotá or Buenos Aires?

MP: By default I try to shoot on US soil, meaning Miami, where I live and work. US crews always result in the best production values. LA, needless to say, is the global capital of our industry. LA is costly though. Talent & crews are unionized. Miami allows a bit more leeway to reduce costs. In our field, for obvious reasons, shooting in Mexico is attractive. The talent pool is quite favorable. Spain has become very attractive too and Latin American countries are always an option. Standards and regulations are less strict in Latin America, which allows to save money. Ultimately, cold hard numbers dictate the location. A production must be cost-efficient while offering the best location for the execution. We have recommended Canada, South Africa, New Zealand and Puerto Rico in the past. I can’t repeat it enough: this is a resources-based business. ROI rules.

Q: Mention the best campaigns you have seen recently.
 
MP: “Epic split”, the acclaimed European spot for Volvo trucks featuring Jean Claude Van Damme. It reinforces the old bedrock premises of our racket: a simple idea based on the core product benefit, using a celebrity for what he is actually known for, in one simple beautiful spectacular take with kick-ass social media resonance. In the US Hispanic market, Marca Miami did a great job for the Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking. I also love lots of great ideas outside the TV or film categories: “Sweetie” for the Dutch NGO Terre des Hommes, the digital campaign to crack down on webcam child sex tourism; the Brazilian campaign to raise awareness about organ donation lead by eccentric billionaire Chiquinho Scarpa; Nivea Brazil’s print & mobile campaign allowing parents to monitor their kids on the beach.
 
Q: Mention the worst campaigns you have seen recently.
 
MP: Can’t recall. I simply don’t remember bad campaigns. That’s the very definition of bad advertising: zero memorability, oblivion, indifference.
 
Q: What’s the future of the TV landscape?
 
MP: Highly targeted, captivating, relevant content. Pumped through DVR, cable & streaming on mobile devices (pardon me for stating the obvious). We are headed to a landscape of niches. Prime time is migrating to the web. I record my favorite shows on DVR and I deliberately watch good commercials several times. Bad ads I just skip. Format wise, broadcast TV is trying to reinvent its model: applying clever narrative approaches (as in super produced soap operas) yet I’m not sure they will sustained in the long run. They are under a lot of pressure, home-made slices of life on YouTube are obtaining higher attention. Broadcast is not going anywhere but it will become a niche player like all the other outlets.
 
Q: What’s your take on social media?
 
MP: A necessary evil. It gives us the conceit of a sense of community yet it moves us away from actual communities in real life. I sense we are becoming too lonely. Social media makes us feel like we belong but on the other hand it alienates and isolates us. I’m not questioning its traction or firepower as a tool. It affects different generations differently yet we are all victims of FOMO and instant gratification. I try to keep an open mind but I’m very selective of the social platforms I join and follow.
 
Q: How are Latinas portrayed in the media today? Are we progressing?
 
MP: Stereotypes will always exist in a society, to a certain degree. It must be pointed out too that our ethnic particularities have given us a niche to operate in professionally and a very profitable market to call our own. It’s been a long road since “abuelitas” were portrayed in almost every US Hispanic spot. In any case, all things considered, the US of A might be the best place in the world today for a woman of any ethnicity to find empowerment.
 
Q: What about the self-image &/or projected image of Hispanic men? Are Latinos finally dropping their tough macho guard?
 
MP: Hispanics come in all shapes, sizes and colors. It is hard to generalize. The setting and the environment determine one’s behavior. Our behavior changes if we are in a soccer stadium or picking up our kids from school. When I cast male or female talent  for a production, I usually go in with a profile in mind and end up making an unexpected choice.
 
Q: When and how did you start in the business? Did someone mentor you or give you your break?
 
MP: Back in the early 80s, during my early 20s in my native Buenos Aires, Argentina, I sold insurance, I was a repo man and an office boy of sorts at various ad agencies. I also co-founded a bar on the side. The bar was the hangout of choice of various musical artists and rock legends. I led a bit of a double life. I did all the odd jobs you can think of in an ad agency. I’d run errands for ad people during the day and host impromptu concerts for local rock stars at night. I got to have a taste of the supposedly hard-partying lifestyle of advertising folk compared to the real hard-partying lifestyle of rock stars and rock star wannabes. In 1986 I got the proverbial “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity”: a job in Madison Avenue. A year later I flew down to Miami and decided to stay. I got a job at the communications department at FIU. I began to do music videos on the side. Yes, music is my passion. I also shot fashion shows. Amateurish jobs. Little by little I became a self-taught pro. I produced several jobs for Univision23/ I worked on one of the first branded content initiatives in Spanish-speaking TV: a P&G-backed show on Univision called Hablando. I still gravitated to music so I took the producing helm of Ondamax  for the network. I remember Pepsi and BK were sponsors. Budget for a motion graphics package was low so I did them myself at night. My animations were littered with errors due to my inability to fully operate the special effects equipment but people thought the glitches were deliberate esthetic decisions and they loved them. At the time, the concept of “guerrilla crews” was frowned upon. Now we’ve come full circle: impromptu, improvised guerrilla shoots are the norm.  Apart from music videos, I shot concerts, behind-the-scenes pieces, interviews, live feeds, award shows, press conferences and documentaries with Shakira, Savage Garden, the Rolling Stones, Ricky Martin, Marc Anthony, Jennifer Lopez, Destiny’s Child, Chayanne, Gloria Estefan, Ruben Blades and Julio Iglesias. Julio hired, fired and rehired me a few times.
To your question about mentorship and who gave me my break, I’d say there are no breaks in life, you have to find your opening by yourself. It is hard to find mentorship in adland, it is easier in the TV biz or the music biz. Maybe because the budgets are higher in the ad world people are less willing to take risks or make emotional decisions. Still, nobody will mentor you if you are not passionate. I mentored quite a few people myself and it feels great when someone approaches you out of the blue and says “thank you, I always remember you gave me my first job”, but still I consider it that person’s own achievement. I just guide them and nurture them, which can be mutual at times. A mentor is also an authority figure, not just an endearing, protective superior. Let me elaborate. There’s this great line attributed to Francis Ford Coppola: projects are never finished, just abandoned. A deadline is critical, most filmmakers tend to second guess themselves and dwell on the past. Many a director feels that with a little more time and money the outcome could’ve been better. Authority is also critical when, as an exec producer, one must set a deadline and say enough is enough. This is mentoring too.
 
*AmericaFilmWorks.com