From Film to Ads: Alex Cohn on Creativity & AI

Justin Levinson (00:00.728)

Hello everybody, my name is Justin Levinson and you are at the Agency Side Podcast. I'm really excited to have Alex Cohn here as my guest. is head of content at Zambezi. And yeah, we're super excited to have him here and hear his story. Thanks for being with us, Alex.

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Alex Cohn (00:19.669)

Yeah, pleasure. I'm excited to get into it.

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Justin Levinson (00:24.29)

Yeah, man. So the first thing I like to ask everyone on the show is how did you get into this particular space? Which is probably a long story, but I'll let you go at it.

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Alex Cohn (00:32.393)

Yeah, I mean, I don't want to do too long. I mean, it was a little bit of happenstance. It was a little bit of luck. It was a little bit of sort of weirdness. I mean, the truth is, I met, if this makes any sense, I met a guy in an ice cream shop that forever changed the course of my, I mean, it's not that dramatic, but I had recently moved to Los Angeles.

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because my son was about one and a half and my wife decided that she didn't want winter anymore. And I had been primarily doing TV and film in a lot of different capacities. I had done everything from starting out as a PA on like big Hollywood features and working my way up through the locations department. I had been an AD for a little while. I had a small production shop in Brooklyn where we did

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stop motion animation and puppet stuff. I had produced, you know, and done some documentary work. I had done TV where I mean, literally had done like a little bit of everything you can think of and commercial work alongside it, but really hadn't really had any real agency experience. I really just knew the production side really well. So

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I had been working on a show as a story producer in New York and met some LA people. I mean, I had friends, but I met some LA people who could bring, you know, was like, I want to move to LA, keep an eye out for me. And I got a job on a show out here with original pictures. no, sorry, that was the second one. I got a show.

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Alex Cohn (02:29.407)

out here with History Channel through Triage Productions. I don't know if they're still around. Anyway, I was working on that. And like I said, my kid was about two years old when I was on Abbot Kinney in Venice and ran into Chris Rye, who is the founder of our agency. And he had a daughter who was about two years old. And our kids start playing. And Chris being who he is, who is a loquacious sort of

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person who puts people together and that is his superpower is a connector of people was like, oh, what do you do? And I said, yeah, mean, a producer is like, oh, we might be looking for a producer. comes from a long line of real agency powerhouse. So started at Fallon, was at Nike, or sorry, was at Wyden and Kennedy in Portland on the Nike business. He and his partner,

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Um, uh, creative director. We're approached by Kobe Bryant to start an agency in LA. This must've been 2007, 2008. So they came moved, uh, from Portland to LA, uh, started this agency, had a few clients. And I don't know, they were like five or six people when I first, you know, we stayed in touch and he had a freelance gig and I came in and we did some.

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They had somehow with this like tiny little agency won the vitamin water account. And so I came in and we did, we did a vitamin water job that was kind of bananas with Gary Busey, Adrian Peterson. And I believe I liked to, I liked to claim to fame, you know, Jake might disagree, but I'm pretty sure we gave Jake Zemansky that I believe it was his first commercial.

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or it was like a short sort of funny film thing. He had just done some funny or die stuff and the high five guys and was just starting to like be a thing. I met the guys from Caviar who were great, who we owe a lot of our early, you know, we were early partners with them on a lot of things, Michael Sagal and company. And it was a great sort of thing. And we did that. And then that was like a freelance gig. And I went away and did another TV job. And then they call me back.

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Alex Cohn (04:53.953)

a few months later and they had something else. we had done the vitamin water job and Smartwater was having trouble with an idea. They had Jennifer Aniston, they had Smartwater, they could not sell an idea. So they called us. Our guys came up with an idea. Next thing we know, we're producing the Smartwater sex tape viral video with Jennifer. And...

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By the time that was over, which I think went three or four months longer than it should have, we had more clients and I was like, let's, you know, I was, I was excited. I was like, let's do this. And so I've been here ever since.

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Justin Levinson (05:33.218)

Wow, and that the vitamin water not to direct you but the vitamin you said Adrian Peterson so like the Minnesota Vikings running back at that guy that was okay so I just want to make sure how did they win? did how do you

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Alex Cohn (05:40.637)

Yeah, Adrian Peterson, yeah. And Gary Busey, would not wear the right pants because he kept saying, well, you're only shooting me from the top. I'm just going to wear jeans. Because I mean, talk about a character. was definitely, sorry, I interrupted. Go ahead, just.

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Justin Levinson (05:51.086)

You

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Justin Levinson (05:54.988)

But, no, I was curious, how do you think that campaign was won, kind of like an unknown agency at that time landing that gig? How did that happen?

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Alex Cohn (06:08.022)

That, yeah, don't, I mean, that was a little before my time that they won. It wasn't just a campaign. We were AOR for I think three years. I mean, I think that the, don't, you know, again, like I wasn't there. I've heard stories about crazy cab rides and changing the creative like an hour before the pitch. like, you know, I mean, they were creative guys. They were young. They were startup-y. I think they had a lot of energy. I think they came up with a really great idea and a really great, so they did a series of these.

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big spots with like, this was just before I started, like Sarah Silverman was one of the voices and I'm trying to think. It was a few like big celebrities. It was a big CG spot that they had done with Siav. They came up with this really cool sort of like turning. So the vitamin water was like, wake up. You know, it had this like, this graphic turn sort of.

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I mean, it was just really, it was a cool, smart, sexy campaign. And we did Vitamin Water for a few years. So I was at the tail end of that. And then there was some change in leadership. But we stayed, we did Smart Water and we stayed, what was great is that the Coca-Cola company is really world-class in marketing and they have so many brands. So we popped over, we did some work for Sprite. We would do work for

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Justin Levinson (07:15.309)

Yeah.

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Alex Cohn (07:34.593)

gold peak iced tea, did some Dasani we had a bunch, in the early days of Zambezi, was the Coke ecosphere was really a really place where we grew up and we learned a lot. And a lot of our, even some of our current clients today are people who came out of the marketing department at Coca-Cola just because they, the way they approach marketing is really smart and they're well-trained and it's a real art.

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and a real science and yeah, we're really thankful for those early days and those connections.

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Justin Levinson (08:11.352)

Yeah, what is your, you know, I guess what is your kind of role look like in terms of like the scope of this as leading head of content? I'm sure you wear a lot of hats. What's it like to be you?

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Alex Cohn (08:23.519)

Yeah, I mean, these days it's different. I sort of play both sides, like some heads of production or heads of content out there, in that we have now a larger studio offering as well. So we have post-production, we do motion graphics, we have live action directors, not an exclusive roster, but a roster of... So we run that...

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for our own clients, but also outside of that. So we have some direct to brand relationships and even a couple of agency relationships where we serve as a production studio. And we do soup to nuts on that. So we can go anywhere from combining with Zambezi and doing strategy, creative production, post-production, finishing all that to anywhere along in the process. You want us to just shoot your spot and we just want to brag.

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We just want some Clio's for some spots we just produced with ESPN creative studios. And we had nothing to do with the creative. We'd literally come in like the production, like a production company. And we, you know, had a director who they, who they loved and, did it at Amy Hoffman. She did a great job. A series of spots with featuring Caitlin Clark and Camila Cordoza and Kiki Rice and like right time, right place, you know, promoting this.

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Justin Levinson (09:30.062)

Mmm.

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Alex Cohn (09:47.965)

ESPN documentary about the WNBA. So we just want a bunch of Clio's for that. Where we serve literally as the production. And I think we did some of the finishing. I think we probably did the color and some VFX, but someone else did the edit and so, you know, we, have a creative department. So we can function like that. But then obviously as an agency, we don't always work with that production. So we still partner with all the regular.

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people that you would think we're doing, have a job coming up with Tucker Bliss at Reset, who we've worked with before on a past campaign. So sort of keeping an eye on all of that is a full-time job. I'm a little less, you know, we have a really strong EP now. So I don't, I'm not as day-to-day in the agency side, because we try to keep that separation at church and state, but.

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You know, I'm still here and I still have that part of what I do, we have Jerry Lowe is our EP now and she's fantastic. And we, she runs a lot of the show and, but I'm there to chat about things or throwing a director that I think would be good if, if, you know, I an idea or something we're doing or some, you know, people I think would be helpful for whatever project. So we don't, you know, we, try not to discriminate.

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Justin Levinson (11:10.446)

Are you dealing a lot with the celebrity people that you're working with? Are you engaging with them and discussing things? Do you have lot of direct contact with those people?

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Alex Cohn (11:21.341)

Yeah. Yeah. mean, it all depends where that relationship comes from, right? A lot of times the brand owns the relationship with whoever their spokesperson is or a sponsorship. we have an upcoming campaign that I can't talk about yet that we sort of really help them decide who the right person was. We reached out to her agents. took

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two months to make the deal, like all those things and then running that relationship. So we certainly have that as part of what we do. But it depends. We just worked on a campaign earlier this year with Jennifer Gardner, where she is part of the, it's her company. it's, so Once Upon a Farm is her baby or all organic baby food brand. And so we're working with Jen.

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Justin Levinson (11:52.482)

Yeah.

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Alex Cohn (12:18.015)

And we have all the same machinations you have with celebrity where, you know, even her own company and the clients don't realize, you know, the cost of maybe her glam squad or her wardrobe might be, but that's just sort of how it is. she comes with, so we've done it both ways. We've certainly worked with lots of brands. And vitamin water was really good at that. having the celebrities as part of their deal and beats.

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as well. we don't have to, we know how to work with those celebrities, but we're not owning that relationship. And then others like this upcoming one that I won't talk about till later, where we help them own the, we sort of own that relationship and help the clients sort of run that maze. Cause it's new for them, right? It's like, well, how come it doesn't come together in like a week? We can just reach out to so-and-so and see if they want to do it and offer them this. it's like a whole.

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Justin Levinson (12:52.141)

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (12:56.919)

Hahaha

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Alex Cohn (13:15.659)

You know, it's like, it's a big, it's a thing. It takes a minute.

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Justin Levinson (13:16.948)

thing. Do you have a favorite part out of all these? You know, you know, I know these clients, the clients come with with various needs. And you kind of just kind of like ask acquiesce to the need. But is there like a, you know, a certain thing that you enjoy doing the most in your job or?

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Alex Cohn (13:35.733)

Yeah, mean, I think the most fun part is really putting the right team, the right people together. So whether that's finding like, there's this amazing up and coming director who would be perfect for this that you might not have heard of now, but they're going to be, you know, that's always super satisfying. you know, giving Jake Zemansky his and then watching his career just like.

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I can't even afford Jake now anymore. Most of my clients like, you know, or or seeing someone like Hiro Murai after they're like, you know, flying Lotus music video before Atlanta and being like, there's this guy you should you guys should check out. sometimes the creatives are. Open to that, and sometimes they're like, and then and then, you know, a year or two later, they're like, can we get them like you're like, I don't know if you missed your shot.

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Justin Levinson (14:34.456)

Missed the boat.

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Alex Cohn (14:35.441)

Yeah, exactly. So that's always fun. And again, sort of finding the right person for the fit, you know, whether that's a director on a roster or a new director that, you know, we're working with through Finn, you know, who's sort of up and coming. And then, you know, all the DP and PD, you know, production designers and like, sort of putting together that team and an editor and like all the sort of pieces.

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And then helping to, you know, with the creatives, you're, you know, making sure that you're always fulfilling the creatives and their idea, but where you can helping to shape around the edges or, you know, make sure that everybody is understanding what you're doing. So there's no, you know, part of, especially in advertising, the communication is so important.

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Justin Levinson (15:03.502)

Yeah.

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Alex Cohn (15:29.601)

Right. Because you're trying to get all these different people to see the same thing. Right. And the creatives have a vision, you know, and then the director comes along and they sort of collaborate and then the vision changes a little bit or, or, or expands a little bit or whatever it is, but it's so important, I think, as the agency producer to work with account and client to make sure that the client really sees clearly what

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the creatives and the director are after so that in the end, as I talk about it, sort of going through the production machine and it's like broken apart in a million pieces and you can't always identify like, this shot, yeah, it's gonna be, don't worry about this thing because we're gonna use it in this way. it's it's making sure everybody shares that clear vision so that when it comes out the other end and goes through the edit and gets realized, everyone is like,

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Yes, that's what we thought, not like, we don't want it like that. You have to change this and this. And then that's where things get like, you know, watered down and it doesn't do what it's supposed to do, or it doesn't say what it's supposed to say, or it doesn't look the way it's supposed to look. Sometimes that is because you haven't communicated it clearly to everybody initially.

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Justin Levinson (16:49.752)

So is that, would you say, like a high level of importance when you're hiring people and bringing people on your team that you want them to be really great communicators to get in front of all that stuff? Is that?

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Alex Cohn (17:01.983)

Yeah, think sort of creative community, like really understanding something and being able to imagine, visualize, explain, give context so that really everybody, and again, that's, you know, it's everybody's job, Creatives have to pitch it so that clients can realize that account has to support it so that directors have to be able to treat and do, but you're all working together, hopefully again, to like,

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Justin Levinson (17:14.466)

Yeah.

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Alex Cohn (17:32.139)

have this shared vision. It doesn't mean you can't have those happy accidents and surprises and things that make it even better. But ideally, you build that shared vision and you build trust so that everybody's on the same page. I think we've all seen a great idea get, I say watered down or death by a thousand cuts or all these things. And it doesn't quite rise to the level that you hoped or wanted it to.

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And you know, you know.

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Justin Levinson (18:02.83)

Do you think it's the client that typically gets the pushback, that wants it their way and the creative people really have a broader idea of what they want or something more original?

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Alex Cohn (18:13.438)

Sometimes, I mean, it depends. It can happen for so many reasons in so many ways. Maybe the thing that you thought on paper was making sense doesn't make sense when you put it on film, right? Like that happens. Some things just don't come out the way you want. Some things change as they go. But I think that the job of

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the producer, the job of everyone ideally is to like bring everybody along on that journey. So everyone feels like, and it's, it's, it's tricky too, right? it is, it's not quite the same as entertainment where the only job is to entertain. have to do the entertainment and you have to tell a very specific story. are at the end of the day, selling something or imparting something or

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you know, communicating something very specific in some way. So that clarity has to come through. And again, that's everybody's job, but our job, think, as producers really is to support that like kernel of the creative idea that first got everybody excited to go do these things and making sure that that really, you know, comes through with, you know, putting that team together and helping the creatives and supporting that idea through the process.

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Justin Levinson (19:38.584)

Have you been nervous before with some of these big campaigns and these big name people come through? you ever feel a little, get a little shooken up?

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Alex Cohn (19:42.647)

Sure.

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Alex Cohn (19:47.177)

I mean, yeah, listen, every production has its like, my God, is this really gonna happen? And some go really smooth and some have crazy hurdles and challenges that you have to get around, get over, get through. You never know. And certainly I've learned that the...

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ease of a production or how smoothly it goes has very little, doesn't always have anything to do with how the final, some of the hardest shoots ever lead to the best and some of the hardest shoots ever, you can sort of see it and it didn't quite work out. You just never know. It really is strength and clarity of an idea and then

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and then just sort of smart, thoughtful decision-making, like, you know, great idea, great director, great talent, all those, you know, great art direction, all those things, if they come together, it can be magic, it can be amazing.

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Justin Levinson (20:59.218)

Does the product always go to the public? Is there ever a time where the product doesn't end up, you know, maybe it's an idea that the plant spent a lot of money on to make, but then they say, I'm not sure if I want to put this out, or is it pretty much, it's going out?

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Alex Cohn (21:16.009)

I've only seen that once where it didn't, and it was a little bit out of, I mean, it was a little bit, I'm not sure where, because I wasn't as close to the inner workings of what was going on. think that they, and we're not Apple, we don't make a bunch of stuff that never, that's what they make, they fully make everything and then only show some things, which would be, that's a nice luxury to have.

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I only had it once and it really was, think it was like a change of strategy so that we made the spot and then literally the sort of messaging that they decided to go out into the world with had changed. So the spot didn't really fit that anymore. But I had only seen that once. And then they, they actually ended up running the spot we had done for them the previous years. They liked it so much and it was closer to the messaging that they.

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Justin Levinson (22:00.696)

Yeah.

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Alex Cohn (22:13.815)

wanted to do, but I don't know that it was a product, like the work came out good, it just didn't, they just changed the thing that they were trying to say.

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Justin Levinson (22:22.263)

Yeah.

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Yeah, I was just curious because I know like, well, it's sometimes like the creative agency is long, the agencies that we work with sometimes for like editors and different, you know, they'll make a lot of different cuts and a lot of different things and that what they've done never goes to finish some other agency has it and it goes and so it's like they've spent a lot of time doing all this and it's like, well, that's that sucks.

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Alex Cohn (22:39.689)

Really?

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Alex Cohn (22:46.069)

We've certainly spent a lot of time pitching and we've certainly like, we're in a pitch now where that goes all the way to like full animatics. And they do that with three different agencies and it goes, you know, and Coke actually used to do that a lot. They were big on testing and doing a lot of stuff. they would, you know, it was a competitive, they would do competitive testing. So they would maybe have an idea from a few different people and they would go.

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They would build out animated animatics and then go into testing. And the thing that did the best would actually go into production. But I haven't seen a lot of, it doesn't happen a lot that I've seen where we would do the entire thing and then it all sort of dies, which is good. Which is good, right? mean.

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Justin Levinson (23:31.584)

Yeah, that's good. That is good thing.

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Alex Cohn (23:36.363)

That's the nice thing about commercials over entertainment and so, you know, you don't go into development hell for six months, then you're turning around a project like, but we're going to make something and it's going to make it in March and it's going to go live in May. Like, you know, it's just, it's nice because you get to keep going.

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Justin Levinson (23:41.948)

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (23:53.858)

There must be a real art to making something that tells that story in such a short amount of time, right? Because the things that you're doing are you got to get something across and it's not like you have all day to make that point.

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Alex Cohn (24:04.951)

30 seconds is an art form. I mean, 30 seconds is definitely an art form. you know, there's less commercials these days and there's more other kinds of content, but to tell a succinct story and have a point in 30 seconds or 60 seconds or whatever is not the same as doing a movie or a short film or any of those other things, you have to be really thoughtful. You have to indicate, you have to...

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do things that will read, you know, this is gonna read quickly like this. It's gonna, you know, it's, if you do it like that, it's sort of too subtle. You know, you have to be, and you can be subtle in some ways, but you have to communicate quickly and you have to communicate to people who are maybe not paying super close attention, I always think. think sometimes we get, you know, we get into an edit and people watch it back.

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six times and you know, and it's like people are, I don't know, there was a movie, it's like the TV something with Sigourney Weaver is like the big TV executive and David Duchovny was like the artist, you know, EP trying to make his show and she said something like, TV is what, you know, people watch TV while they're doing other things. They're not.

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They're not paying, not necessarily paying close attention or listening or wanting, you know, that's the whole evolution of interactive and what we're doing now, right? It's not a one-way conversation anymore. It's a two-way conversation in most cases, in most of what we do these days and inviting people in. So I just think you have to be so clear in your communication that you can't, you can't miss it. You can't miss what we're, we're trying to say. That's why like high concept, like big.

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stuff that you can't miss is really great creative. I think if you try to be too subtle in a short form, like a 30 second, know, people just, they're not paying close enough attention to get what you're doing. You gotta be a little more, a little old.

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Justin Levinson (26:05.068)

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (26:19.34)

Yeah, think, I imagine the editing, the editing down of the ideas must be, I mean, I always think of that. I don't know if it's Abraham Lincoln's quote or not, I think it might be invited somebody else, but it's like, I would have written a shorter speech if I had the time. Yeah. Mark's saying.

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Alex Cohn (26:31.319)

Had more time, yeah, Mark Twain, yeah. I would have written you a longer, a shorter letter, but here's a long letter. I didn't have time to write a short one.

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Justin Levinson (26:39.956)

Yeah, and I imagine that's that. do you find that you're really... Is there a lot of research that goes towards the demographic that you're going after with a certain production that you're making that you are telling to these people it's going to be this, this is what's going to get their attention?

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Alex Cohn (27:00.597)

Yeah, of course. Yeah, of course. Yeah, of course. And listen, some clients are more data driven and research driven than others. Some clients are just like, we just want a funny idea or we just want this idea. I I'm a big fan of not skimping on the strategy and like really finding out who your audience is, who you're talking to, what their...

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Justin Levinson (27:13.452)

Yeah.

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Alex Cohn (27:30.079)

what their demographic is. that you make anyone into a monolith, but it's, know, if I'm talking to like middle school kid, you know, or am I talking to the mom or the dad of the kid? Or am I talking to like a single, you know, urban, you know, hipster person in their twenties? Or am I talking to a 60 year old retiree in Indiana? Like it makes a difference.

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in terms of the story you want to tell or not even that, just like, and it's not in a manipulative way. I just think it's, you know, and there are universal stories and so I don't want to get too caught up in it, but I do think it's good to know who you're talking to and what you're trying to say and just make that again, you have 30 seconds to tell the clearest, most concise and also, you know, entertaining too, right? It has to.

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be interesting enough that you're going to remember it or watch it or whatever. So yeah, I I think you should consider all of those things. And some clients are more into that. It's obviously a cost, and it takes time, and it takes effort. But I do not think that there is a substitute for really good strategy and unlocking some real insight that really turns something on and

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and lights people up and go and people go, yeah, I get it. And it's really good. If you do it right, it can be really powerful and can really help brands. We talk a lot about working with high performing products and making sure that their marketing is not like performance like DR, but like...

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Justin Levinson (29:01.58)

Yeah.

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Alex Cohn (29:20.917)

their marketing and their communications are as high performing as what they do. And increasing their valuation. we work with TaylorMade Golf as one of our clients for the longest time. I think it's a little over 10 years now, which is kind of unheard of. But helping turn them from, I think,

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Justin Levinson (29:26.882)

Yeah

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Alex Cohn (29:45.727)

When they were sold off from Adidas, think they were worth like 425 million to a more recent valuation around 2 billion. But so to, right, to 5X there, you you have to be really clear with your marketing. And we've gone through a couple of different variations on like tone of voice and how we approach people and how we're talking to them. But finding an unlocking...

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Justin Levinson (29:54.083)

Wow.

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Alex Cohn (30:11.957)

like something through strategy, through talking to people, through audience, through, you know, and this idea of beyond driven that it's really in the golf world, it's really about R and D and it's really about giving like, work just as hard as you to unlock those extra, those additional pieces of technology to get your game a little better. And that we are as crazy about this game of golf as you are.

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has been really successful and audiences have really sort of sparked to that idea, but it took a while and it took lots of talking to people and lots of research and lots of not only data, but audience study and all those things to unlock this sort of strategy that then sort of becomes the North Star for everything we do. But it takes a lot of work.

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Justin Levinson (31:05.59)

Yeah, are you actually a big sports guy too that you're doing this stuff for you?

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Alex Cohn (31:10.655)

I'm a medium sports guy. watch, I'm not watching every single game every night, but I'm a main sport playoffs and Olympics and things like that. There are sportier people than myself, certainly, and we have a lot of them. But I have a general gist of sportiness.

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Justin Levinson (31:23.47)

I'm like, that's it.

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Justin Levinson (31:33.87)

Yeah. Do you see any big hurdles or I guess pain points in the industry at this point that you kind of feel are things that are looming?

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Alex Cohn (31:49.975)

Yeah, I mean, I see pain points. see there's, we can talk, we can go down the AI rabbit hole. There's a whole conversation to be had there. I think the pain points as I see them, I think, especially in major production hubs, you know, New York, LA, Miami, Chicago, those kinds of things, is that the cost of production has grown a lot and

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Justin Levinson (31:56.078)

Moon.

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Alex Cohn (32:18.645)

you know, we are constantly, you know, sort of fighting with ourselves. mean, I would like to shoot in Los Angeles. I would like to shoot in New York. I would like to keep, you know, production in these hubs where crews and talent and not only people live, but depend on, you know, this art form for their living and Hollywood and New York and places like that. You know, we really have.

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because I was from New York and moved to LA. So I'm familiar with both and we really, you know, there is a history and a lineage of making production. I mean, you can't, there's no substitute for shooting in New York City, right? It is a beautiful place to shoot. And even in LA, there are some things here. There's a quality of light. There's some locations that, you know, the talent you can get. All these things are kind of,

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Justin Levinson (33:03.267)

Yeah.

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Alex Cohn (33:18.094)

irreplicable and yet, you know, cost cut, not cost cut, well, some cost cutting, but downward pressure on budgets from clients who now, again, like don't can't just make a 30 or a 60 and that's all they do, right? They have to make constant content. So what happens is marketing budgets have to get spread over a lot more assets. So what they have in terms of budgets comes down.

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Justin Levinson (33:44.334)

you

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Alex Cohn (33:44.725)

And so it becomes really hard to shoot. So there's a lot more pressure to shoot overseas, to shoot in ways that are just trying to get, and costs have gotten really high. And there's a balance, right? Because again, do, like the cost of living in some of these places, if you're a grip or you're a gaffer or you're a makeup person, you need to get paid.

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But there's only certain clients that can afford those types of budgets. So I think it's a real challenge for, know, State Farm is gonna shoot wherever state, right? And they have hundreds of millions of dollars that go to media and production. But there's a lot of brands and a lot of clients who can't, you know, can't or won't spend that sort of money on production. And I think...

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Justin Levinson (34:25.474)

Yeah.

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Alex Cohn (34:41.591)

Yeah, I don't know exactly what the answer to that is. I suspect that again, just sort of transition to the AI thing that is going to be a cost saver, but that is also on some level going to be, you know, I don't know. I mean, I've seen in just a year, the quality, some of the quality is unbelievable for a nascent technology that has just barely started.

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Justin Levinson (34:44.429)

Yeah.

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Justin Levinson (34:53.4)

quality killer paper.

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Justin Levinson (35:02.53)

Yeah.

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Alex Cohn (35:07.799)

So I don't know where it's headed, but I do worry about, again, like those gaffers and the grips and like a lot of the below the line people that when people just start making commercials and ultimately, and it'll probably start with commercials before films because, you know, right now, obviously there's cap, you can only shoot, you know, three to five seconds a shot, but that's fine for most commercials. And I do think that will be the

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the testing ground for a lot of this stuff. But when you start making commercials in the computer, maybe you still have a director, maybe you even have a production designer or a wardrobe stylist to sort of put the outfits on, and maybe you even have a DP. I don't know that you need that. You're not going to have any grips, and you're not going to have any...

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you're not going to have lighting because it's going to be four people in a room with a computer, you know.

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Justin Levinson (36:09.208)

He's an expert GP prompter who can put the best.

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Alex Cohn (36:14.071)

Yeah, mean, yeah, yeah, I mean, 100%. I mean, I still think the creative part and the decision making is still going to come from those creative people, sort of heads of department type level. But eventually, I don't want to be dystopian about it, and maybe this is five years, maybe this is 10 minutes, I don't know how soon that's going to happen, but you will be able to do a lot more without having to show up.

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at the food truck in the morning, get your burrito and then go to work.

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Justin Levinson (36:48.386)

Yeah. Yeah. I see it in every industry, seeing a lot in the recruitment industry, AI, you know, bots that are doing all kinds of things for us and changing the industry and changing the marketing approach and the it's pretty, pretty crazy. I lost my train of thought for one second, but I was going to ask you, yeah, the future has just gotten into my head all of a sudden. But

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Alex Cohn (36:49.919)

which is kinda scary.

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Alex Cohn (37:01.878)

Yeah.

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100%.

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Alex Cohn (37:10.493)

You

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Alex Cohn (37:15.275)

Right?

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Justin Levinson (37:17.23)

Yeah, so do you find yourself traveling a lot now you go into like Mexico City or going to all different kinds of places that are more affordable. I've talked to some people recently in some other big large design studios who have told me very similar thing where they're they're have to leave LA and do it shoots and lots of other places for for cost cutting and that stuff.

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Alex Cohn (37:37.931)

Yeah, 100%. I mean, we are lucky in the fact that we are tethered. We have a big shoot, like I mentioned, coming up with a big celebrity and we're not gonna go to Estonia to shoot that. Because she's like, we're shooting in LA because I'm not going anywhere. And so great, I get to stay home and do that shoot. we just got off a big.

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Justin Levinson (37:49.25)

Totally, I think I've told your clients already.

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Alex Cohn (38:01.463)

set of spots that we make for our clients at TaylorMade and the athletes again, we go to them and that's in Florida and that's fine and that's lovely. But we certainly do have to go to Canada sometimes. We've been to Eastern Europe, we can go to Mexico City or even Mexico City is getting expensive now because it's so busy down there. But it goes further. We've certainly looked at Chile and Lisbon.

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and all these other places where the costs are just more reasonable depending on what it is. If you have a one day or there's not enough savings, but anything like two days or more, the savings is significant. And the creatives push for it because they want to get more out of, they want bigger art direction budgets and they want to get.

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Justin Levinson (38:42.222)

Yeah.

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Alex Cohn (38:57.387)

You know, they want to have like bigger locations and they want to shoot three day, you know, where I can, we can maybe make two days work in LA. They can get three days of shooting and I get it, right? If I'm the creative director, I'm pushing for that. but it is. It's yeah, I don't know what the solution is there. You know, I think, you know, there's, there's union and there's non-union, but you know, the way that the only thing I can think of is there is.

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You know, what SAG has done is there is that sort of they have this middle ground, right? There's like the SAG contract and then you can sometimes budgets under, I can't remember what the number is. You can get a waiver and you can get SAG talent at a sort of discounted rate if they're willing to do it and your budget is X, Y, Z. And I think it would be, I don't know, it might be something that the unions might consider.

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you know, to do, you know, but it's crazy because I also know that then brands, you know, some clients who do have the money start taking advantage of that and say, you know, it's, really, I don't, cannot say that I know what the solution is. I do know that, you know, we want to, you know, every, we want to pay everybody a fair wage, but I do know that sometimes those big union spots are,

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Justin Levinson (40:10.285)

Yeah.

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Alex Cohn (40:25.001)

either out of range for some budgets. It's tough. It's tough.

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Justin Levinson (40:30.922)

Yeah, that's, that's, that's wild. I'm always like a problem solver at heart. So I'm always trying to figure out what people's interest is, you know, and I was here, you know, everybody I talked to, it's that, you know, costs, you know, you know, the people want more for less, basically, you know, and it's, and it's always, it's a constant battle.

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Alex Cohn (40:38.43)

what the solution is.

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Alex Cohn (40:52.373)

Yeah, of course.

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Justin Levinson (40:56.302)

But I guess on a lighter note, because we just have a couple more minutes here, what do do for fun? What gets you up in the morning outside of work?

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Alex Cohn (41:06.071)

What do you mean? You watch movies and look for directors to just, you know. Yeah, I mean, listen, I am I was born and raised on TV and I just love everything visual. I'm I, you know, try to think of myself somewhat as a film maker at heart, you know, as a producer and trying to always look for.

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talent and find new voices and find exciting things in entertainment. You know, I try to exercise and hang out with my family and all that kind of stuff. But in terms of the job and the fun part of it, that's the fun part of it. You get to watch lots of stuff and go, that's cool. Maybe we could maybe that person or this technique or we could do something with that and make something cool for this client or do something like this for that. It's always inspirational.

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to see what's going on out there and see. I do think that going back to the AI or whatever, there's so many new interesting techniques that you can do, whether it's with CG or just the way that even the physical equipment that you can use these days with motion control and.

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different kinds of steady cams and wire cams and all these kind of fun, cool things. And people are always pushing that envelope of what you can do in a, everyone's trying to make the longest, most complicated single shot take where you're going through these things or whatever. But it's so much fun to see how those things could come together and to try to borrow and steal and use different techniques in different ways.

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I don't know, there's always interesting, exciting filmmakers out there and it's interesting to see what people do and the stories that people can put together and I don't know, try to hook them up and find brands or clients or creative that can use those things and bring some of that fun entertainment style to what we do creatively and for the brand partnerships.

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Justin Levinson (43:18.222)

Yeah, man. Well, I really appreciate you coming on the show here. hope you hear. know one of my one of my kids is playing the piano up there, so we might have a little little film scoring added to our.

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Alex Cohn (43:25.205)

I dig it.

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Alex Cohn (43:29.031)

That's the goal. It's all right. I have a piano kid myself. all through COVID, would sit, you know, when we were at home, I would sit and people would hear him practicing in the other room as I was on my calls. became kind of an inside joke. It was really fun.

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Justin Levinson (43:42.412)

It's pretty fun. But sometimes when you're like trying to have conversation with somebody on a podcast can really like, can rattle your train of thoughts.

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Alex Cohn (43:48.615)

Yes, I totally understand. did want to mention the other fun thing we, just, whatever you can use this or not, we have, we did just put together our first pilot for a T for an actual show, like literally a TV show. So not, not necessarily a branded thing, but we worked with, tennis channel the last few years on a series we came up with for them called warm and fuzzy, which became a little bit of a hit for them.

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Justin Levinson (44:03.474)

cool.

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Alex Cohn (44:15.145)

And then they asked us to help them as they developed this new channel called the Pickleball channel. I don't know if you play.

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Justin Levinson (44:22.446)

I saw that on your, on your, your, one of your posts. Yeah.

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Alex Cohn (44:25.011)

Yeah, so, so yeah, so we actually, you know, I got together, got some writers that I knew from like TV writers, and we put together, you know, an actual half an hour show. We call it like the soup meets Sports Center meets pickleball. So it's a comedic show hosted by Paul Scheer. We're we're, you know, talking about celebrity talent, we're amazingly lucky to get Paul. And he's been great.

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Justin Levinson (44:45.902)

Cool.

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Alex Cohn (44:53.271)

And so we have a couple of episodes that are sort of pilot format. And then hopefully in 2025, we'll get an actual show going. then, you know, then we can ask for advertisers to come and sponsor our show rather than being the sponsors and doing the thing like this is an act, you know, it's an act. It's a nice step for us to sort of have something to say. We can we know how to do entertainment in itself and we know how to do brands.

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And then starting to look at ways to put those two things together is another area we're really excited about.

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Justin Levinson (45:27.758)

that's really interesting and excited to see that synergy. That's cool stuff. No, that's what this is for and it's exciting.

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Alex Cohn (45:29.142)

Yeah.

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Yeah. Sorry, shameless plug there for our new show. Watch, yeah, watch the Pickleball program on Pickleball TV if you get it.

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Justin Levinson (45:42.929)

Cool man. Well Alex, thanks so much for being with me today and chatting and excited to continue to chat with you in the future and have a great rest of your week. All right, man. Be well. Likewise.

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Alex Cohn (45:47.862)

Yeah, anytime.

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Alex Cohn (45:53.181)

Anytime. Thanks, Justin. Always good to talk to you, See ya.

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