Dictionary Films & Cutters at Adfest: Take a punt and kick some goals

A year has passed since Peter Grasse departed Curious Film in Sydney to become Executive Producer of Dictionary Films Tokyo. He introduced the newly launched production company alongside his partners in post, Cutters Tokyo, at Adfest in 2016.

And he’d planned to return to Adfest, in part to celebrate that fact that he’d taken a punt going to Japan and kicked a lot of goals because of it, and partly because both Dictionary and Cutters had work they hoped would get some applause.

But when you take a punt and kick a lot of goals, you’re in demand and Grasse was booked to produce Japan’s first ever LGBT commercial. This, he says (and his first- hand experience of Japanese culture goes back further than the birth of Dictionary) is a real milestone in the land of the rising sun. On top of that, the spot is fresh and new, illustrative of why Japan and Dictionary led the pack in Adfest’s film and film craft finalists in 2017.

“Dictionary’s latest spot takes its cues from Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange and converts its now contemporaneous dystopian energy into ultra-necessary, Ultra Love,” Grasse explained.

Grasse has his eyes on Cannes.

In his place, Ryan McGuire, Managing Director of Cutters Studios Tokyo (parent company for Dictionary Films and Cutters), and also senior editor at the company, took the stage to present a compelling argument for the importance of the editor.

“Have you ever thought of the editor as a set of fresh eyes?” McGuire began. “Eyes that haven’t been blurred by the to and fro of opinions during pre-production and shoot. Eyes that haven’t sparred with the client. Eyes whose job it is to edit in the bits your ad needs to thrill its audiences, like feeling, rhythm, pacing and detail? The editor is the last key storyteller on a piece of work. He or she matters.”

Ryan McGuire

Stanley Kubrick understood the importance of the editor.

It’s a compelling argument for the editor. And there’s more. The editor is a brand master. He’s ulcerated over the tiniest details of the brand – 720 frames of the brand’s details in a 30 second ad, 144 in a 6 second YouTube teaser, where every frame counts. Cutters did several versions of the last Suntory ad for Hakuhodo, every version ingraining the brand’s salient and subtle assets into an editor’s brain.

And he’s focused on the advertising objective. If the ad is doesn’t do what it’s meant to do in the real world, he doesn’t succeed. And he doesn’t get booked again. Simple.

Finally, he’s an asset manager. If you’re faithful to your editor…if you use him time and time again on a brand’s campaign, he comes pre-loaded with vital information. Your content will get better and better, faster and faster. The value of that can’t be overstated, McGuire, contends.