From surviving to thriving – Stink Films reviews its Covid journey

From cancelling a multi-million dollar shoot after a crew member tested positive, to spiralling production costs, global production company Stink faced its fair share of challenges during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

But thanks to the support and shared knowledge base of a network of worldwide offices, prior experience of remote production, and an ‘adapt or die’ mentality, it found silver linings came out of the crisis. 

The Stink team explain how bespoke technology solutions produced standout campaigns against the odds – and how the legacy of remote working has transformed the production landscape.  

The Nike spot, Shanghai Fast, was directed remotely by Nicolas Winding Refn pre-Covid, in 2017.

What were your first thoughts when the pandemic was officially declared and countries started to go into lockdown?

Daniel Bergmann: I did expect it to be quite a serious situation, even when it was originally contained primarily in Asia, so I wasn’t that surprised. Also, we got a heads-up from our Shanghai office about severe lockdowns in Wuhan province. I’d also travelled in Asia during the SARS outbreak, but there were fewer restrictions and face masks than we saw with Covid. 

Before the outbreak of Covid, how much had Stink been experimenting with remote production?

DB: We first debated the notion of remote production after 9/11. And the team at the Shanghai office was already acquainted with remote technology before the pandemic, because they’d worked on a Nike ad that was partially directed by Nicolas Winding Refn from his base in Denmark. 

The Budweiser quarantine spot from April 2020 marked one of the first uses of iPhone tech in remote production.

With China being the first country to lock down, what lessons was the global Stink network able to learn from the Shanghai outpost? 

DB:  Shanghai wasn’t the first office to shut down, but they did warn us after Wuhan shut down that something was coming. In 2020, it was actually still possible to shoot in China on location – even while US and Europe were closed. Los Angeles was actually the first. We developed our strategy and protocols mostly in LA and then our other offices, particularly London, followed very soon. 

Our international network of offices gave us information from people on the ground about what was really happening.  

But yes, we made our biggest remote project with our Shanghai office, mostly because we had to shoot all around the world with our director based in LA, the agency in China, and the client in Sweden. 

Our international network of offices gave us visibility and information from people on the ground about what’s really happening rather than watching the news or hearing it second-hand.

What sort of technology did you use to overcome the challenges of remote production – from pre-planning to editing stage?

DB: We had a number of different technologies depending on brand and location. Our Los Angeles office worked with a creative technologist partner they sourced within the first two days of the first lockdown. 

Mungo Maclagan, Executive Producer, Stink LA: The technologist created some bespoke technology to be able to monitor and control the core functions of iPhones. This was before pro-level drop kits [contactless production solutions for remote video capture] had made it to market, so the fastest and easiest way was using what was inside people's pockets – namely iPhones. 

Whatever we were shooting, instead of just saving it to the phone, we could actually record it and send dailies that were high enough quality for the post house could to use.

It was set up so that he could tap into the user's personal phone as they filmed themselves, stream everything and basically record it all, then save the data and send it straight to the post house. So whatever we were shooting, instead of just saving it to the phone, we could actually record it and send dailies that were high enough quality that the post house could use as holder footage to start building out the edit.

Fran McGivern, Managing Executive Producer, Stink LA: We changed our sales tactics immediately, creating a Covid Production Capabilities sales deck and presented it to over 30 agencies. We had just done two remote campaigns and were able to use those as examples. Our global network was also key – each office had case studies based on their local capabilities and protocols. 

Stink's Shanghai office had experience of remote production when it produced the Volvo S90 spot, Breathe, directed by LA-based Eliot Rausch.

Were there any projects that had to be rethought or approached in a completely different way due to Covid restrictions? 

DB: Breathe, for the Volvo S90, was a job out of our Shanghai office and our director was based in LA. It was one of the first remote feed productions. Our Shanghai office had previous experience with remote filmmaking which is why we were able to get the project off the ground so quickly.

 The turnaround [for the Budweiser spot, Checking In, That's What's Up] was just seven days from when the job was awarded to when it was shot. 

FM: One of the first times we used our new iPhone tech was on a Budweiser shoot. We had to teach talent how to film themselves using their own phones while the director communicated with them through Zoom. The agency and crew watched a live stream from the iPhones through Zoom. The talent then uploaded the footage to Dropbox after each day of filming. The turnaround was just seven days from when the job was awarded to when it was shot. Then we had celebrity shoots that followed two weeks later.

What would you say was the most technically challenging project produced by Stink during the pandemic?

DB: Probably Volvo and AirBnB. Volvo was a very technical shoot including very specific car angles, night shoots, and underwater cameras. It was nine shoot days over the course of three weeks in May and June 2020. They shot in Shanghai and Denmark with a remote director who was based in LA. 

In the absence of Covid, the AirBnB job would have been impossible to pull off. 

We shot AirBnB remotely on numerous locations around the world with challenging time zones, aggressive schedules and directors based in São Paulo. It was 19 different countries in a week and a half.

MM: In the absence of Covid, the AirBnB job would have been impossible to pull off. But I think Covid helped to accelerate people's understanding of the technology and its availability in multiple markets that wouldn’t have had the capabilities pre-Covid.