Beyond the Foggy Maze

Before joining McGarry Bowen, he worked for four years as a Creative Director at Wieden+Kennedy with his partner Angus Macadam. His ECDs were Tony Davidson and Kim Papworth. Kim was quiet and thoughtful. He listened carefully to others and respected opinions. Tony, on the other hand, would spit fire in meetings, expressing his dissatisfaction with his whole body. His catchphrase was "Every single one of these ideas is fucking shit!" They seemed completely different, yet they were also identical. Both adored the creative chaos. So much so that they named that chaos "The Fog."

When you feel like you've been searching for ideas for years. When you're faced with a mountain of proposals and have no clue what's right. That's when The Fog appears. As soon as Kim senses its arrival, he immediately sends a message to the entire team: "Rejoice! You're on the verge of something amazing. The Fog has arrived. Something incredibly interesting is about to emerge from this!"

To be honest, Angus and I didn't like this state. The Fog plunged us into the depths of fear. We believed the CD's job was to maintain complete control, from concept to production.

Years later, we became ECDs. Around that time, we encountered Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull's co-authored book, "The Pixar Approach: The Art and Science of Creating Great Stories" (2014). In it, Ed introduced the "Brain Trust." This group centered around five master storytellers working on the front lines. They offered advice when directors or producers got lost in the maze during the planning phase. Whether to take that advice or not was entirely up to the person involved.

Director Pete Docter was completely lost at that time. Taking the Brain Trust's advice, he made the decision to scrap the ideas he had been working on. Only two elements from the original concept remained: the film's title, "Up," and the giant pet bird character, "Kevin." The released film was hailed as an animated masterpiece etched into Hollywood history (Japanese title: "Kara no Tori no Tsubasa," 2009).

The place where Pete was lost and bewildered was precisely within the fog. It was what Tony and Kim called The Fog, something they cherished. Getting lost and lost again within the fog, and then escaping with great difficulty, yields unexpected and fascinating things.

So let's accept that the planning and production process is sometimes shrouded in chaos. Let's embrace the time lost wandering in the fog and even enjoy it.

(Supervised by: Dentsu Inc. Global Business Center
　Illustration: Junichi Mukai)