Producer Notes

Why the ‘hero + cutdowns' model is quietly dying

For twenty years, brands shot one 60-second film and chopped it into fifteen. That workflow is now the enemy of the work.

Brand New Money Editorial25 June 20261 min read
Why the ‘hero + cutdowns' model is quietly dying

The old workflow: shoot one 60-second hero film for TV. Cut a 30, a 15, a 6-second bumper for YouTube pre-roll, three vertical loops for Instagram, one for TikTok. Ship. Sleep.

The new reality: every one of those placements has its own grammar. A hero film cut down to nine seconds vertical isn't a nine-second vertical film. It's a bad nine-second vertical film.

The producers who are winning right now are the ones designing for the platform first. TikTok gets a native concept. YouTube long-form gets an editorial cut. The 60-second brand film is the museum piece — still worth making, but no longer the sun that everything else orbits.

Producer’s Take

What we’d tell you.

Ask two questions before writing a brief.

One: which platform is going to do the heaviest work? Design for that one first. Everything else is a translation.

Two: are we shooting one film for eight edits, or are we shooting three concepts, each with two cuts? The second answer is almost always the better answer. And it's usually the same budget.

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