Pat Murphy:
Hi and welcome to the MCA Prodcast, your fix for everything innovative in advertising production. I’m Pat Murphy and I’ve been working in this industry for more than 35 years now. I’ve seen a lot of changes, but know there’s plenty more around the corner. Each week on the podcast, you’ll get to hear one of the movers and shakers who are shaping the world of advertising production for the future, and we’ll dive into some of the key challenges facing our sector today and how we’re best placed to overcome them.

Today we’re talking to Kai Hsiung, Global Managing Director of RSA Films. Having led RSA Films UK for 17 years, in 2020 Kai accepted the role of Global Managing Director, ensuring that RSA maintains its place as one of the world’s leading production houses and continues to create some of the most culturally transformative and influential creative across every medium.

In 2023, she became Chairwoman of the Young Director Award and has always been an avid supporter of young and diverse talent in our industry.

Kai, thanks so much for joining me here on our Advertising Production Podcast.

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
Hi, Pat, Lovely to be here. Thank you for asking me. I’m fascinated to know what you’re going to ask actually!

Pat Murphy:
Well, I’m going to start talking to you about your very first early years of your career. You went to Brighton Art College?

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
Yes, I did. I did a BA in Fine Art and Print Making. I was very lucky. I also did a year – my second year there. I did a swap to a college in New York but being the innocent and without, obviously, internet back then New York I thought, ‘oh, I’m going to New York City’. I actually ended up in Buffalo, New York, in a tiny little college in the middle of nowhere, but it was still a great experience. And then I went on to the Royal College of Art for two years to do an MA in Fine Art Printmaking, and because of that you obviously with an MA you’re allowed to teach at higher education levels. So I did then teach art for a couple of years on foundation, which I thoroughly enjoyed, but unfortunately, due to changes in contracts and things, if you didn’t have a full-time contract you didn’t get paid holiday. So I suddenly found myself without a job and in desperate need of work and ended up cycling past a shoot and was a receptionist at Guard Phillips Hughes and Lowe and hence my entry into… I did a little bit of time out and publication and deadline before that actually there was a little blip but then ended up at Guard Phillips Hughes and Lowe under the tutelage of Adrian Hughes. I don’t know if you know Adrian Hughes, producer?

Pat Murphy:
Oh I remember Adrian, yeah!

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
So he very much took me under his wing.

Pat Murphy:
We might have bumped into each other actually, because while you were probably there at Brighton, I would have been around the corner at the University of Sussex in Falmouth.
I was studying there doing TV and Film.

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
Were you? It’s a great college!

Pat Murphy:
And all of this time, I don’t know about you, but all of this time when I’ve been in our industry I’ve always wanted to go back and carry on doing the fine art that I was doing in those days. It was so much fun. I was a fine art painter. Do you still do any of the things you were doing at Art School?

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
Do you know, sadly Pat, I wish I could find the time to do it, but I think it really does need a bit more. I just can’t dip in and out something like that. I’ll need to wait till I can properly retire and dive in to do it full time, because I’d love to do it again. But yeah, but interesting, you’re a fine art painter as well. Do you do it now?

Pat Murphy:
One of the reasons for coming to live in Portugal actually was the chance to get my easel out again, but as things happen, I’ve just transferred the stress of the work from one place to the other and I’m hoping I’ll find some more time in 2025. Let’s see how things pan out

Now let me ask you another question. The cost of further education is skyrocketing as we know, lots of young people are turning away from the arts to focus on more commercial degrees, and I was just wondering what you would be able to say to somebody who’s deciding you know they want to decide what route they want to take about further education and, obviously, being in the arts… What are the benefits that you’ve seen that that’s provided you in in your career?

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
I think it’s one of the biggest crimes of this century that art subjects are not free. Well, any further education is not free for all because you see the amount of people and you probably the same Pat. I mean the amount of people you meet in this business who did some sort of creative degree, which probably wouldn’t happen now because, as you say, the pressure to do something that’s more commercially viable, but the time to grow, the people you meet, and I think it’s such an amazing discipline to be able to build your own structure, if you like, structure your life in a creative way, which then can be transferred, as we see, into film, tv, many other businesses that are very commercial.

But I think to say everyone has to do exactly the same sort of much more commercial and obvious pathway to a job is something that it’s just the maths doesn’t work up, it just really doesn’t. And I think it must be awful to be faced with the decision to pay a huge amount of money to do something that you think, o’h, I could just do at home’. But it’s not that, as we know, it’s the people you meet, isn’t it? And the discipline you learn from having to do a degree.

Pat Murphy:
Totally. I was also at Maidstone College of Art and in my class at that time was Tracy Emin, and I think she did okay!

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
Oh! She did all right, exactly! But would she have gone? Would she have if she hadn’t gone to art college? Do you know what I mean? Would she have been the person?

Pat Murphy:
Exactly.

Now you’ve been at RSA now for the best part of your career. What is it about RSA specifically that’s kept you there for so long?

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
Very good question, Pat. There were a few times when I did have an opportunity to maybe leave or go somewhere else, and everytime that I came back to working for Ridley and Tony it was like ‘how could I not work with such creative, incredible, talented people who are also amazing business people too’? They’ve got this art and commerce working so uniquely and the opportunities were always great. They trusted you as well, which was enormous. They never sat over your shoulder breathing down your neck telling you what to do. There was a huge amount of trust and I think I always came back to that. That was a great place to be. I think either you go and open your own business – this is a conversation I’d have and go right. ‘You either go and open your business now. Why would you go and work for X, y and Z when actually you’re working for two of the most you know revered people in this business’? So that’s always what brought me back to staying at RSA.

Pat Murphy:
I worked with Tony many, many years ago but sadly no longer with us. They say that many directors are very difficult to get along with. They can be very challenging. What’s it like working with Ridley?

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
Ridley, you can’t keep up with him. He is a ball of energy. He will always find the one question to ask you that you don’t know the answer to, which is very frustrating because you think you can be prepped and know what… but he’ll always find that one thing. You’re like, ‘damn, I just should have thought of that’. His capacity to grasp anything that you’re talking about and come up with some solutions is quite phenomenal. So, yeah, he’s very inspiring and even at his amazing age of 86, he’s still firing an awful synergy. I mean, he’ll be shooting a film, he’ll watch the rushes at night, he’ll then brief the editor and then he’ll check something of another show that his producer on a TV thing. That’s his day. I don’t know how he actually sleeps.

Pat Murphy:
I know lots of other people like that in the industry. I was talking to John Hegarty about that exact same thing only a few weeks ago. He’s still going strong as well. I think it’s a passion that these creative people have. It’s not really like a job, I mean. I know I wake up every day thinking, ‘crikey, somebody’s still paying me for this’? So I think it’s a bit of that, do you think?

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
I think so. He loves it so much and I think he loves bringing everyone on the journey with him and surrounds himself with incredible crew. He’s got a great team around him and I think, yeah, it’s not work. It’s an absolute passion for him!

I remember Jordan telling me a really sweet story that they were going on holiday. Sandy, his wife at the time, said ‘oh, we’re going on holiday’ and Jordan was a young kid. They got to the check-in and suddenly Sandy spotted some crew. She said ‘oh, what a coincidence. What are you doing’? Actually, they were doing a scout. He couldn’t. It slipped a little scout in while they were on holiday! So no holiday…

Pat Murphy:
One of the things that strikes me but, at the same time, excites me is innovation and change, and I think it’s a really exciting time to be in the business. It’s the reason also that I started this podcast nearly two years ago.

Given your time at RSA Kai, you must have seen a huge amount of change, though what’s been the most notable?

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
I think the two big things was obviously the switch to digital filmmaking. You know the sad death of film. I know it’s coming back a bit, but that was one massive change when I started, the switch from Steinbeck editing to Avid editing.

And then, obviously, the internet, which we know made the most difference to production, speed of production, communication, travel, everything. It just changed our lives enormously

Pat Murphy:
There was a quite a slow transition in the advertising business, though, if you remember moving from film to digital, that happened quite slowly. I used to love sitting there with my chinagraph pencil, you know, on a Steinbeck machine to do my editing…

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
and then looking for that frame that had gone, someone’s sitting on it, I know exactly!
And that moment when you’re waiting to know if the rushes are alright, could you strike the set? And I mean all of that time. And also I mean you know you’re trying to explain to runners now… you ask them for some pictures of a Swedish fjord or something, then off they go. We used to have to go to the Swedish embassy, book an appointment to go and find some nice slides, borrow them for a day, take them back. I mean it’s incredible, if you think the time, how everything has sped up, which obviously makes a difference to cost, it means things can be done much cheaper and faster. But I think sometimes, by stopping and slowing these processes down, gives you time to think about it.

Pat Murphy:
I know it is better now, but I do have this emotional kind of thing about, I agree, the old, the old days and the old ways of doing things, and I kind of feel a little bit sad sometimes that we’ve lost some of those manual craftsmanship processes. Sometimes I look at my old reel-to-reel tapes that I had when I was in the sound studio, kind of going, ‘oh my goodness, I used to love it’, you know, editing those uh tapes, um, without going on to adobe audition or whatever it was, or call edit pro, as it then turned out to be.

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
It must be a bit like when plane travels started and everyone said you know, if you make a journey and you’re actually traveling on the ground, you see where you’re going. If you just fly there, you miss out on part of it. And I think there’s a bit of that, isn’t there?

Pat Murphy:
Exactly, you know. Are you excited about the very fast adoption of AI that’s happening right now. How does that impact you as a business?

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
Well, I think it’s obviously been a number one topic of conversation amongst many people and I think it’ll be really interesting to see in the next few years how it exactly impacts. And I think, obviously as a tool to help realise things, try things out, from our point of view that is incredibly useful. How it actually works as far as replicating or taking creative decisions, I think that is a bigger unknown and will be very interesting to see how that plays out. But as an immediate tool to help you think of an animatic now and all those things you used to have to do to try and imagine something, you can do something. I think that’s where it’s really really helpful at this stage, but whether it’s actually detrimental will be, I think, one need to see further down the line.

Pat Murphy:
Do you think that the type of craftsmanship is changing. So with these new tools and in particular with AI, is the new craft about prompting?

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
Yeah, it probably will be. And if you think for schools and education, learning how to debate and analyse is going to be so important. It’s not about memorizing things anymore because you can have things at your fingertips. So I think a whole process of education and how you use these tools to help you make a better world, you know, for science, etc. I think it’ll be.. that’s the positive side of it. There’s always obviously going to be a negative side too when people use it in a particular way, but I’m sticking with the positives here. It’ll hopefully help people to, as a global community, use things to, to work together to find solutions for things.

Pat Murphy:
RSA has produced some of the most iconic advertising over the years. One that we were involved with you on was bringing back to the screens recently was the Hovis Boy and the Bike campaign. We had a great time working with Casper and the rest of your team, and the BFI, of course, on the remastering of the original film and reconnecting with the old Ashington Colliery Brass Band. We recorded that original music.

That is such an iconic ad, but it kind of reminds me that really, storytelling is at the heart of everything. Whether it’s AI, whether it’s other techniques like virtual production, really it’s about how do you tell great stories, and we had that great conversation with Sir John Hegarty on one of my previous podcasts a few months ago. Even if you’re using AI, it goes out to get the bad stuff as well as the good stuff. So you’re still going to need great human creativity as an intervention in that, as a conduit to telling the right stories. Do you believe in that?

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
Absolutely. Absolutely! I think you know the people who are able to harness AI to help them storytell. I think that will be the smart people. If you don’t have that human creative touch to sort of sift through all the stuff you’re given… It’ll be like the best being the best editor in the world, isn’t it being the best curator? I think that’s where the skills, massive skillset will be very, really valuable. But the story you know that Hovis thing. I was fascinated when we broke down and looked how few shots were in that commercial. The client was like, was that? Surely there’s more storyboard here? And I mean, no, no, that was it. It was only eight shots, I think, or something like that. But the story was beautifully told, simply, and I think that’s something to really learn from, isn’t it. There’s so much fast whiz-bang at the moment and zooming around cameras and you’re like, actually, what was that about? Did I get the story there?

Pat Murphy:
I agree. I remember a film you did about a year or two ago. I think it was about a year or two ago. You did one for the Samsung s23 yes and it was a you know shot actually on the camera itself. I mean it looks beautiful, by the way. So I have to make an assumption that you did a hell of a lot of post-production on that to make it look so good. Is that true or not?

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
No, it really really didn’t. I mean, it was incredible If you set the camera up and we obviously had the best Samsung tech with us to help make sure that all the settings were really, absolutely acutely to the right for the lighting, etc. A bit like you would set your DIP guy would do, you know, a woman person for a digital camera. It’s the same sort of process. So you just make sure that the information you’re getting is absolutely at the optimum lighting and quality. And there was very little time for post. That came out probably about a month after we filmed it. So it really was – you saw it on the camera. Ridley was amazed. Actually he was like, ‘wow, that’s phenomenal what you can do now’.

Pat Murphy:
Just think how much cheaper you can make it now!

Kai-Lu Hsiung:

Well, I know! But he still managed to have a lot of crew I bet I say it’s still. That’s the thing, it’s still the lighting, it was the, you know, the styling, all those other things. I think that’s where the camera, though, had come down to this tiny little thing, but there was still a lot of need for all the other crafts people around it, which is interesting.

Pat Murphy:
But it does make you think, though, we are now, because of technology, we’re democratizing filmmaking or making great stories because technology is not a barrier to making stuff, really, it’s just about great storytellers, is that correct?

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
It’s the story. It’s absolutely the story. And forgive me if you’ve heard this already, but Ridley’s story that I love about storytelling was when he was at the Royal College of Art. He was actually studying graphics. He wasn’t studying film or photography, they used to study graphic design.

He’d walk past the office and there was somebody had a lovely Bolex camera in their office sitting behind them and he said, ‘oh, can I have a go with that’? And the tutor said ‘well, what do you want to do with it’? And he said, ‘well, I want to have a go and make a little film’. The guy said ‘come back with your story, tell me what you’re going to do and I’ll lend you the camera’. So he storyboarded out Boy on a Bike, came back, showed it to the guy and he gave him the camera and he spent the summer with Tony filming it and, lo and behold, it’s in the BFI to this day and his first film.

But that, to me, is the quintessential story to say don’t just take it. We’ve all got this camera, as you say, in our hands now Pat. We can all go and make stuff. How many people must be downloading god-knows-how many images and things that they’ve been doing on their just back from their holidays. But if you haven’t got a proper story, then you’re not going to have something of worth that people would be able to talk about in 60 years time.

Pat Murphy:
I completely agree. One of the trainings that I did when I worked at J Walter Thompson, the beginning of my time at JWT and I went out to do film out at the Shepperton Film Studios and we did this thing about prep work and actually it’s all about the prep, getting the prep right, getting the storyboard right. Everything has to be perfect before you go into production. I think water world was a typical example of where you get it wrong because I think they started filming before the story was completed. So, yes, so the prep work is absolutely critical, isn’t it?

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
It really is. It is. And then I think the other thing that happens in production, where I think people are so attuned to be able to adjust and adapt, as you say, the weather changes, or an actor gets ill, or you’re constantly you can be all prepped, of course, but then on the day things can happen that will just throw you and you have to think on your feet. You’ve only got that day to film, you’ve got to make it happen. So I think production I always say if people want to get into production is common sense, is almost the number one skill set. If you haven’t got any common sense, then don’t even think about getting it, because you really have to think on your feet and you won’t always, however much prep you might have done, you will still be thrown a curveball on the day.

Pat Murphy:
And I know that directors get obviously all the glory, but in our world, in the advertising business, I often think that the advertising producer is the unsung hero.

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
Yeah.

Pat Murphy:
The person who puts it all together. What would you say about the advertising producer now? What is their role today with all of this proliferation of channels? And it’s not just about making one TV ad anymore. How easy is it to be, and what do you look for when you’re trying to find new people to join your team?

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
It’s an incredibly hard skill set because you’re having to manage so many different people, and I think this is where, if you are working with an agency producer, if they’re a really good team, you can actually work together to make it happen, because they’ve got things coming at them from their client and their agency and their creatives. We’ve got crew and directors to worry about. So when the two people work together, it’s absolutely essential because there will be the number of deliverables will keep changing. You’ll suddenly get a BTS crew arrive. They’ll want to be over there. Then you’ve got a stills person…

So I think what we’re trying to do at RSA is absolutely encompass all of these skill sets in our team so we can simplify it for the clients and go ‘look, actually just come to us. We’ve got all of this offering for you, which will streamline it’, because it’s terrible to see more people flying in or arriving. They don’t need to! We can do it. So I think that’s our version of streamlining to help answer needs of clients, because the list is long, as you’ve probably seen, of deliverables.

Pat Murphy:
Now we talk about RSA, but actually you’re a much bigger group in reality. It’s called The Ridley Scott Creative Group – you’ve got three commercial production companies RSA, Black Dog, Darling and of course you have Scott Free. With all of these different companies that you have within the group, what’s the difference between them all?

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
So we’ve kept brands… so like Black Dog, being this sort of younger, culturally relevant – it’s not just music video, it’s fashion. I suppose younger is probably the simplest way to define that brand, even though it was started by Jake over 30 years ago when music videos first started. RSA is the sort of bigger, overreaching, longer – since 1968 as you know, started in commercials. Scott Free is the absolute film/TV giant doing things like Gladiator 2, which is coming out in November, very excited. And Darling – they’re part of the division, have joined us for nearly seven years now. I think you know we welcome working with lots of different people. It’s a sort of umbrella for quality, and I think ‘stronger together’ is always a phrase. At the moment we need to sort of band together to help share resources. You’ll get a better production if you can all work together to solve problems, really.

And I think that’s part of the group mentality is, under this umbrella you can get all these disciplines. If someone rings us up and go ‘oh, we’ve got an experiential, screen to be filled in the alternate, can you do it’? We’ll just go yes, we can, because I know within that group we will have the right resources to do it. So I think it’s just about saying ‘yes’.

Pat Murphy:
So when you say that, because the agency and their clients are always looking at producing a multitude of assets, sometimes hundreds of assets, and more and more personalised as well, is that something also that you desire to take on, or do you just want to do the kind of big stuff and then hand it over to a transcreation or a kind of a versioning agency?

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
No, I mean as much as possible. We’ll do everything we can, and if it feels like it’s better served to go somewhere else, then we will do that. We’ll look at everything. It’s a sort of solution-orientated discussion when we get a briefing and go ‘well, what can we do’? Of course we’ll try and do as much as we can, but sometimes it’s better to go to outsource

We’ve been working, it’s no secret. For instance, Eurostar came to us to do a brief. They tried with an agency, I’m not sure who – to celebrate 20 years of Eurostar and they looked that Jake Scott had directed the original. So we banded together with the creative team that we’ve got in-house and Jake to come up with an idea and shot it. It was great and we’ve done lots, you know, since then versioning and branding. But they wanted so much we had to say look, ‘sorry, we just can’t keep up with your workload’. So we handed that to Hogarth. But we still work on the main creative tent-pole idea and then the assets are now going through Hogarth. So I think that’s a good example of showing we could answer a problem, help them with the creative thing. But yes, because there was France involved as well, and Belgium and Amsterdam. You can imagine with Eurostar it was just a bit too much for us, and then we’ve put our hand up and go ‘you’re better off going somewhere else for that.’

Pat Murphy:
We’ve talked about how brands are looking for different ways to cut through the clutter and the different forms of content. Branded entertainment we were talking about earlier, you and I, before we came on the call. It’s a fusion of advertising and entertainment designed to engage the audience in a less intrusive way, building a connection emotionally. Arguably, RSA and the associated group of companies are well positioned to take advantage of that. And what are you doing now and what are the challenges around branded entertainment?

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
It’s a great subject, Pat, and the big thing we’ve been trying to do we set up an unscripted division within RSA and we’ve set up a creative within RSA which work on between them. They will look at – if a brand comes to us, we’ll work out if it’s an unscripted thing, is it something that’s more episodic. We’re going to try and tackle that problem to help, because the journey with branded entertainment, as you said, there’s branded content and there’s branded entertainment and I think they’re quite different and it’s trying to explain to a client and ask them what do they want? Do they want to be on Channel 4? Are they trying to be on Netflix? Where is the platform? That’s a very big question. If it’s purely for their own website, for instance, you can tackle this in a very different way. Amazon are very adaptable at now working with brands on content. So I think you’ve the first thing is to find out what that client wants and then we’ll try and address the problem.

The other thing that happens as well has been when a brand has come to us and they you know they’ve got very clear idea. They want to make a feature documentary, for instance, and then we’ll again get the right team together work closely with them and it’s for everyone to understand that it’s not a quick. It’s a different result from a 30 second ad. You’ll make your bigger piece but you can cut your 30 second ads from that.

It’s a really interesting question Pat, because I’d say there’s no project that is the same at the moment and that is exciting but challenging. It’s not like one size fits all. It’s not the process of ‘here’s your 30 second script’, make it and off it goes. These are are really really interesting fluid projects that can change and you go on a journey with your client when it’s a branded content piece, and I just think that everyone just needs to get that right group of people together and you’d get some really exciting results.

Pat Murphy:
You talk about your clients in those particular situations. Are those agencies or are they the agency’s client?

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
Both, I’ve said there’s very successful branded pieces that have come via an agency. We touched on BMW earlier. That was via Fallon America. They had the basic idea but they came to us to hire A-list hollywood screenwriters and directors and you know. Another one was Phillips. I don’t know if you remember that Philips thing we did, that was DDB. They had the basic idea for Phillips TVs but then we executed the eight short films using the same line.

Often those to me have been the best partnerships. Another one I can think of is Sainsbury’s With Christmas in a Day, we obviously did the ad campaign but we managed to also get a 40 minute documentary which still runs at Christmas on Channel 4, like 10 years later it’s become a sort of Christmas film, if you like. Again, they’re all different but they come with an agent. That was Abbott Mead. So I think often the best approach for us has been when an agency has a relationship with a client and together they come to us and go ‘this is the core of an idea how can we all work together to make it happen’?

Pat Murphy:
Now let’s touch on a slightly sensitive subject, if I might? This subject is a conversation that’s been going around now it’s actually been going on since about 2017 really, which is about the in-housing of production into agency world. I’ve had numerous conversations with Steve Davis at the APA and I spoke to Matt Miller of the AICP when I was in Cannes this year and also on my podcast. This is becoming a big issue. One of those is the nurturing of new talent coming through. What’s your view about the agency world now really wanting your business, because they’ve made some very clear statements about what they want to bring into their organisations. How do you feel about that?

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
Well, it is a desperately, as you say, a tricky and difficult subject Do you remember in-house, was it Triangle Studios Saatchi’s had?

Pat Murphy:
That’s right.

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
I mean, there’s been various versions of this for many years.

Pat Murphy:
Most agencies always had a little bit of a production unit, I mean I had one when I was at Leo Burnett called The Orchard, but it was never set up to compete with production houses, as they are now right.

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
Totally and it’s suddenly grown and grown and obviously we saw COVID as another way when everyone was like, ‘well, I can do production’. Plus what we’re saying about the ease of digital things makes things much easier. But what I think is the biggest issue and you touched on it just then, Pat, is that the great talent to nurture and build them through a career path, if you like. I think really takes A- commitment, money, time, dedication, and those young directors benefit from being within a production house to do so. If our business is cut off so dramatically by the lack of commercial production because it’s all gone in-house, we will become just agents. We could be very good agents and management for people, but we won’t be able to afford to grow and nurture that talent and I think the knock-on effect will be really noticeable in a few years. Because, as you say, before it was the sort of noticeable in a few years because, as you say before, it was the sort of packaging or versioning or that type of thing that was done in-house. Now it’s proper competition and the amount of times we’ll go into a pitch and know that we are one of three companies, but one of the companies is the in-house and then you’re like ‘do I really want to share my treatment’, knowing that the in-house person or whoever the director might be freelancers is obviously their usual rather than in-house director, but they will hire a freelance. It’s not a very level playing field and I don’t think it’s. We always try and not do it.

Pat Murphy:
There’s a couple of things at play there. First of all, I think it’s a massive conflict. I have to say you know you’re Poacher and Game Keeper at the same time there. If you’re seeing stuff for the budgets and the treatments that are coming through and you’re also having the opportunity to have a play at the budgeting as well with your own team is a conflict. It has to be seen that way.

But secondly, the agency is also your client many times, so that must be difficult sitting on your side of the fence. When you know that, do you want to bite the hand that feeds sometimes?
Kai-Lu Hsiung:
Yeah, exactly, it is a very difficult position to be in. Recently something else happened which is I wonder if this is going to be in trend and I’d love to know whether you think it is.

So we’d been down the line with an agency and pitched on the job to quite a long pitch and just before it’s about to confirm, I got a call from the agency – I think it was the MD and Head of Production to say that the client has decided they’d like to decouple and just pay the agency for their strategy and creative and now move forward with the production just with us. And how did I feel about that?

And I was like ‘well, that’s quite a hard decision because you bought me the job. Obviously we’ve worked with you, don’t want to upset you, but if you’re saying this is the only way the production can happen and if not they’ll take it somewhere else, then I’ve got to say yes and let’s work together on this’.

So we managed to find a sort of middle ground where some of the agency were involved in the shoot, but not obviously as much. I left them to do that deal. But that was another very I’ve had that when it’s been known from the outset, but not obviously as much. I left them to do that deal, but that was another very. I’ve had that when it’s been known from the outset, but not literally. It was the day of we were about to sign contracts that the client decided to change their mind.

Pat Murphy:
I mean, let’s be realistic here. At the end of the day, the agency does bring something to the table and jobs are being made. So one of those things is client service, right? And whether it’s the expertise of the client service person inside the agency, or whether it’s the producer themselves who often acts as a kind of client service person these days as well and managing that relationship as part of the process is critical. So if they’re coming to you directly – I hear this often when clients to go working directly with production houses – some production houses are not geared up to manage the different types of stakeholders that a client might have on their side of the fence.

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
Totally. I mean, we can hire in agency producers. There’s a lot of freelance, but it’s what you’re saying. It’s the relationships, isn’t it? So the long-term relationships and the trust that the agency will have for that client they’ll know much more than we will because we’ve just been brought in at this point, but it’s highlights, I think, how everyone is trying to save money, so I think the client’s gone ‘Oh, I can save some money doing this, so let’s just try this as another way of doing production’. Do you know what I mean? So you feel it’s happening on all fronts really, and I think the saddest thing I think will be the, the demise of many production companies if this continues, because I think I’ve spoken to a few production companies who have their revenues are so down this year. There was obviously a bit of bounce back after covid, then there was the wars and various things, but I just think we’re seeing an erosion of revenue because it’s going in-house. The amount of work that we’re seeing is now in-house, and I think that’s going to have a very detrimental effect on production companies moving forward.

Pat Murphy:
Well, I hope the I hope the debate continues and I’m always happy to get involved in that conversation because I always have strong viewpoints on it. I want to make sure that there’s still a very strong independent production community. I think that’s a really important thing, so that’s my view.

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
It really is. And also, you know they just can’t move as quickly as production. As you know, an agency is a much bigger organisation and until they give their in-house production a bit more autonomy to react to, like I was saying, the problems on a day when you suddenly need a private jet because the talent’s stuck, I’ve had to get our credit card out to pay for it because the agency couldn’t. So if you think that’s, even when the agency’s working with us, they couldn’t, even though it wasn’t in our budget, for instance. So it’s just that fast-paced thing that happens with production that I think the production companies are just better equipped and trained to do than your big agency production.

Pat Murphy:
Saying that would you like to work more directly with clients.

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
Absolutely. Bring it on, Pat, We’ll work with anyone of course. And we do, and I think there are certain clients that come to us because they know the pedigree and they want a particular director and they’re quite clear about what they want. It probably leads us down this branded content route, a bit like Samsung. They knew what they wanted. They want ready-to-direct something that showed the phone. Dark interiors as well as exteriors. That was the brief. And no guns. ‘Okay, simple, we can do that’. So hence the Samsung idea that came out.

But I think we’re in a very privileged position at RSA because of that, because of the, as you say, the group, the Scott Free, the film people around and the longer content that we do. I think people see that we could maybe answer things that maybe other production companies couldn’t.

Pat Murphy:
We touched just a few seconds ago on nurturing new talent, bringing new talent into the industry, and you are chairwoman of the Young Director Award. What’s your view on the talent that’s coming through at the moment? How do you find new great talent?

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
Those awards are amazing, by the way. The entries, I was always astounded. It’s just the quality is incredible. So I think those awards are a very good platform. I think music videos used to be a great way for talent. Not so much, but they are another way that you do look. Short films are another. There’s something called have you heard of the Aesthetica Film Festival in York. That’s a great place to look for new talent and Nowness another great platform.

We found some directors through Nowness. They’re very good at curating, if you want, sort of the more fashion-y world. So I think there’s a few places you go looking, but it is hard because the directors often just want to make films. They don’t want to make short form, they want to… They’ve got the eye on the prize and you get some amazing young people are making features in their 20s. It’s quite incredible.

So harnessing that talent and nurturing it is a challenge. It’s very hard and everyone needs to live. You know what I mean? So trying to balance working, they all need a job, but they really want to make their films. I’ve got some great youngsters who just came to see me. They’re working full-time as a barista and in between they’re making their films. So people are resourceful, but it’s an expensive business. Let’s be honest, if you want to dedicate your life to it, I think – this is the thing. You don’t want it just to be wealthy, middle-class kids who can afford to stay at home and live off mum and dad. You need people from all walks of life, and I think that’s the big challenge for us now is to make sure we’re finding the voices from everywhere and helping talent wherever they might be.

Pat Murphy:
I agree.

When you get out of bed in the morning, Kai, what are the things that matter to you? In your life, not just necessarily in the business that you’re working in. What are the other things that might matter to you? What do you like to get involved in?

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
Well, certainly nurturing young talent. I’m also a school governor for a fantastic school in Tower Hamlets called ELAM. That’s been really interesting working with them and seeing that so it’s only 16 to 18-year-olds, it’s just like a sixth-form college. That’s been really eye-opening. We’ve got a setup with them where we take interns now from there, which has been really really beneficial, I hope, to both sides it’s been – a good deal is when it works for everyone! I think trying to expand the lens on the people that get into this business now is so important. I think it goes back to what we were saying, Pat, about education the fact that it’s costly. People are worrying about cost of living and therefore you’re not expanding the interesting people that should be coming into this business. It should be open to everyone and I think that’s, to me, something that I’m really passionate about.

Pat Murphy:
The big question I have is how do you find the time for all of these things? And you certainly don’t have the time for keyboards anymore. Because I discovered that you were a keyboardist in a pretty successful pop band, right?

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
Well, they were definitely successful after I left! I did music – my A-levels were art and music and I played the piano and so, through friends, I worked at the Greengrocer in North London. Anyway, I ended up being in rehearsing, enjoying the rehearsals with a band called Amazooloo it’s an all-female reggae band and I absolutely loved the rehearsals. We got our first little gig somewhere and I froze, I completely got stage fright and had to leave. And what was? Never asked back anyway, because I absolutely made a mess of it. So, yes, that was my little claim to musical fame.

Pat Murphy:
What was that big hit they had? Was it Too Good To Be Forgotten, wasn’t it?

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
Yes! Yeah, that was about five years later. They fired the lead singer when I was there and the woman who came in, she sort of helped turn the band around. But yeah, it was a good fun. The rehearsals were great.

Pat Murphy:
Do you still play the keyboards?

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
No, unfortunately, my husband’s a musician so there’s lots of chance to play. But he’s so good, I just sound so bad I don’t bother anymore either. So it’s the painting and the piano playing I’ve got to get back on track with, Pat.

Pat Murphy:
Brilliant stuff.

Look, we’re nearly at the end of my podcast. I’ve loved talking to you, but finally we have the question we have to ask all of our guests, since it’s become one of the highlights of this podcast Kai, what’s your favourite ad of all time?

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
It’s such a difficult question. I know I was warned that this would come up and I’ve been racking my brains going through my Rolodex of the wealth of fantastic ads and I love the idea of the Immortal Awards. It’s like what can you remember 10 years ago? And I, you know each. You keep thinking of what was the sort of thing that you remember each year of the awards and I have to go back to – I was reminded I hadn’t seen it for a while. Actually we were showing some clients some EV vehicle clients about showed them BMW films that Tony, Joe Carnahan and John Woo did back in 2000. And I enjoyed watching them so much and I thought, ‘god, that really was a turning point’. It was groundbreaking Watching Gary Oldman as playing the devil and with James Brown in a car on the Vegas strip. I mean, how much more entertaining can you get?

And I think to me that was such a turning point in what you talked about as branded content, branded entertainment. I thought that would change the dial and it’s taken so long. We’re still what, 24 years later, and it’s only still a conversation that people are going ‘Oh, what is it? Does it work’. You know BMW sold out all of those. They were targeted advertising. They sold out – was it the Z3 or 4? I forget now, I’m not a big petrol head, but they sold out after those three films came out. And this is before the internet!

They had to send DVDs through letterboxes, but they still worked

Pat Murphy:
I remember seeing those films first time round and thinking ‘I would have loved to have been part of that’. I would have loved to have been the agency producer making those films and they excited me at the time. And you know what? We’re going to post them up on the podcast website so people can have a chance to look at them again if they haven’t seen them. But I think they’re fantastic. What a great choice of best ads. Well, kind of not really just ads, are they? They’re kind of best branded entertainment, I guess.

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
Exactly A bit groundbreaking. I’d like to think they sort of set the bar. As you know, Cannes had to make a new category. That’s when they created the Titanium Award because they didn’t have a category where that would sit. So I thought well, that’s pretty good then, isn’t it?

Pat Murphy:
Brilliant stuff! Look, I’ve so enjoyed chatting to you. I could talk to you all day because we share a lot of the same passions and we know a lot of the same people. Maybe we’ll get a chance to do it another day in person!

Kai-Lu Hsiung:
That would be great, Pat, thank you.

Pat Murphy:
Today we talked to Kai Hsiung, Global Managing Director of RSA Films, and covered the production industry as a whole and what it takes to successfully run a famous and iconic business like RSA.

To find out more about the MCA Prodcast, please head to theprodcast.com, where you’ll find details on all my guests, links to their favourite ads and full transcriptions of all the episodes. If you’d like to feature on The Prodcast or have any comments, questions or feedback, please email us at podcast@murphycobb.com.

I’m Pat Murphy, CEO of MCA. Do come and connect with us on LinkedIn or Instagram, of which all the links in the notes for this episode will be there. We’d love to hear from you.

Thanks again to Kai, my team at MCA and to my production team at What Goes On Media. Thanks for listening. See you next time.