Swietlik, Inc. was founded as a commercial post house 12 years ago by Dan Swietlik. (If you saw the logo, you would know to pronounce the name “sweet lick.”)
The company keeps a handful of top-flight editors in its hangar. The team boasts a wide range of talents with numerous Clio and Telly awards to their credit. Dan Swietlik says he prefers “strong editors with distinct points of view,” and he matches their skills accordingly.
Swietlik himself edited the international 7-Up campaign directed by John Frankenheimer, and did a multiple campaign for Acura, as well as campaigns for Honda and Gateway computers.
Recently, the Swietlik team assembled a dozen edgy PSAs with @radical.media for MTV's “Fight for Your Rights: Take a Stand Against Discrimination” campaign. Edited by Jason Painter, these 10-second spots are designed to provoke a visceral reaction to increase awareness about discrimination against gays and lesbians. Dan Swietlik talks about the state of the commercial world post-September 11.
VS:
What is Swietlik, Inc. and what services do you provide?
Swietlik: We're a commercial editing boutique. We're offline creative editors.
VS:
Do you do post as well? Online?
Swietlik: Yes, in the middle of this year we built out an online suite that we do a percentage of our work on. In the online suite we put in an Avid|DS system — Avid Digital Studio. Comparable to a [Discreet] Flame or a [Quantel] Henry.
VS:
Can you give me an example of what clients might be looking for when they come to you?
Swietlik: We do the whole creative process of the TV commercial. Basically, advertising agencies hire a production company to go out and shoot the commercial and then all that footage comes to us, and it's up to us to give it the structure, to give it musical direction, decide the pacing. We're really the architects of the commercial.
VS:
So do you get a chance to sit down with DPs and art directors in preproduction and agree on what you want?
Swietlik: We don't get involved in the preproduction that much, even though we should, and we're always willing to. If it's effects laden, and there's some complexity to what's going on, they will involve us early. But many times they have a shooting board or a script, and they just go out and shoot tons of footage, and then it's up to us to sift through that footage and extract the essence of the commercial.
VS:
So does the client come to you, or do you hire out to a production company?
Swietlik: There are basically two people who are potential clients, and that's the advertising agencies directly, or the production companies directly. I would say 95% of the time it's the advertising agency directly, with relationships with production companies who want to work with us so they will push us for the post. But we're more linked to the advertising agencies directly than the production companies.
VS:
When the agencies come to you, do they have a good understanding of what they want, and know in advance the look and the tools, or do you sort of pull something out of the hat for them and give them ideas?
Swietlik: It's really a bit of both, because they feel they have an idea of what they want, but they look to us to find something deeper or to find the unexpected for them. We're not hands. We don't just execute what they want. They seek out our opinion as to what the best end-product would be based on what they've produced.
VS:
How did the “Fight for Your Rights” PSAs come about, and what did you add to the look or the style of them that was beyond what the client was looking for?
Swietlik: That's a relationship we've had with a production company called @radical.media. One of our editors, Jason Painter, has been working with a directorial team at @radical.media on those. He provides a lot of the pacing. Some of the things that make those shocking and effective is the way they're cut. I don't want to say violently cut, but they're cut with a lot of impact. … They're designed to be something that makes your head snap back, so you can't be complacent in the editing. You've got to make stuff happen so that it gets noticed. That can be through musical choices, sound design, pacing — it's all part of what the editor looks for when he's trying to have this commercial make the statement that it needs to make.
VS:
Since these PSAs are on MTV, which is the channel that sort of redefined television editing 20 years ago, is that anything you or Jason had to keep in mind?
Swietlik: Sure. As opposed to it being a concern, it's more of a liberation. ‘This is going on MTV!’ There's a lot more creative license. They're not a corporate client who's concerned with a product and an image. They're taking this time to make a very powerful social message, so you open up the creative floodgates and go for it.
VS:
Is there a direction or a style in which commercial editing is heading now, and do you feel that your team is helping to define that style?
Swietlik: The styles are still all over the place. You've got the very quick-cut, effects-laden stuff that is sort of the eye-candy that was developed during the MTV era. But then again, you've still got the good old storytelling and humor. I do a lot of comedy — some Acura stuff that was comedy, some Southwest Airlines that was comedy — which means that, as opposed to approaching the editing with a ‘look at the editing’ philosophy, you let the story be the hero, not the editing. Many times, if the editing is very invisible, that's the best editing of all.
VS:
How has September 11 changed commercial editing?
Swietlik: September 11 has changed a lot, and people don't really know what the consensus of that is going to be. The general consensus is that it's going to be tamer, a little more friendly, humorous. People are trying to be very careful about being tasteful.
VS:
Were you in the middle of something on September 11 that shifted directions or needed to be rethought?
Swietlik: Yeah, I was, as a matter of fact, but I can't really talk about that one. September 11 did have a very direct effect on several projects that I was working on. The client decided not to air something because they were sensitive to what had happened and the style of the commercial.
VS:
In today's commercial landscape, is it easier or harder to work with all of the tools available? Is there more competition since more people have access to less expensive equipment, or have the tools just made your job easier?
Swietlik: The tools have opened up the editing process to a lot of people. But at the same time, it's like in the '80s, when the fact that everybody could move from a typewriter to a word processor made the act of writing easier, but it didn't make people better writers. The fact that somebody's got a Media Composer now does not necessarily make them a great editor. Editing is a craft. It's an art that you develop over years.
I embrace the tools — the gadgets and the gizmos. It's why we got the Avid|DS system. It's a much deeper toolset. I've spent years trying to make the Media Composer do things that it's not really capable of doing. And then I would walk into a Henry session and sort of start from scratch trying to finalize this vision that we've sort of roughed out in the Avid. Now with the DS, I can sit there with my own two hands and make the final vision — without having to sit with an operator and try and get what I'm thinking out of my head and into his hands.
VS:
Is there any direction you see the commercial industry going in the future?
Swietlik: No. I think, aside from September 11, getting back to the basics of making a good, entertaining commercial was a trend. It's more of a challenge because it has to be strong on paper.
VS:
Are you saying that recently people have been dazzled with effects, and now it's time for a return to basics?
Swietlik: The eye-candy is sort of — I don't want to say they've exhausted it — it's just natural cycles. It's getting back to basics. We spent a lot of time doing ‘let's dazzle them with imagery,’ and now people are saying, ‘Well, maybe we've done that for awhile. Let's get back to making people smile or making them laugh.’
Or getting them to look at our commercials like something they want to sit down and watch and walk away from having seen a short film. Rather than watching 30 seconds and saying, ‘Wow, that was cool. What was that about?’
