CREATIVE KEN HAMM
Scoopr Media was very fortunate to have the chance to pick the brain of Ken Hamm, the SVP, ECD and EP at The Studio @ iCrossing. His experience speaks volumes, ranging from writing & directing award-winning feature films to developing The Studio at iCrossing from the ground up. On top of his professional success, he has pushed his way into the world of photography with his “All the Lonely People NYC” series of street photography. Ken Hamm is a content creating inspiration! See for yourself at www.Kenhammphoto.com and on his Instagram, @Allthelonelypeoplenyc.
Briefly tell me about yourself.
I’m originally from Boston and then went to school at Allegheny in Pennsylvania. I developed a passion for feature filmmaking and made a short film in college. Then, bright eyed and bushy tailed, I moved to New York City 20 years ago to be a big famous feature film writer/producer/director. My first attempt was an impressive tanking. It was an amazing experience though. I mortgaged my life to make this Indie film, it took me two and a half years to finish it and in the end, HBO in Hungary bought it for about 1,400 bucks. (I’m huge in Budapest, I can’t even go there anymore.) In the end, I was physically, emotionally, spiritually, and financially bankrupt, literally. The learning curve was just straight up.
Then I made my living as a script doctor for a few years. The dot com era happened, and I started to write copy for different websites. One thing led to another, someone introduced me to a man by the name of Bob Greenburg who had an agency called R/GA. They had good design, good interaction, but what they weren’t really good at was telling brand stories. He liked that I came from a writing background and was a film writer and that I understood the web. So about nine years ago, he asked me to build a copywriting group, the first one in digital. I was really transforming that company from a tech and design shop into a full on agency. For all of my failures in feature film, it was like a 180 in advertising. I was at the top of my game.
After building the copywriting department, I wanted to get back in film so I started building what is now the Digital Studio at R/GA. I was writer/director for branded content. Then I left advertising to direct commercials on my own, I had a few successful pieces. I directed commercials for a while and then began directing television documentaries and fell in love with the process. I did about 20 or 30 shows for Discovery Channel, Science Channel, NBC news and CBS news.
Then Pat Stern became the new Chief Creative Officer here at iCrossing and asked me to come in a build a digital studio. I said, “As long as we can build and resolve a production model built on assets and built around social spaces.” So for the last couple years I’ve been building this different kind of production model. We’re asset focused. We’re certainly execution minded, but asset focused. We try to build asset libraries so our clients and our social groups can leverage those assets for extended periods of time and social engagements. iCrossing is strong at finding people and data, that’s what their roots are. The Studio was intended to tell brands stories. If you have an audience and you have a message, where the nexus of that meets is in material, like photographs, copy, video etc. I’ve learned to build a real proficiency in this.
Of everything you’ve created or brought to life, what are you most proud of?
I would say the film. I’m also very proud of this model here at iCrossing (building a content model in a space that’s highly competitive is a challenging thing), and my photography. But I think that failure of a feature was amazing. The learning curve was straight up and it made me the creative person I am today, which is pretty fearless. I think surviving the experience with that feature, I can walk into any room now, advertising wise, and be able to recognize the problem really fast and call it out in a way that everyone can understand it. The art of recognition is the art of success. If you identify what the problem & solution is, it makes things a lot more fun and a lot easier.
Speaking of your photography, tell me more about All The Lonely People NYC. Has NYC street photography been a passion of yours for long?
I came up as a writer and picked up photography 5-6 years ago so I could have a better dialogue with cinematographers and I’ve realized what a joy it is to take lonely walks and catch people doing candid things. Creating “All the Lonely People” and developing an audience around it along with developing a publishing calendar was a surprising source of pride. I’ve really enjoyed the dialogue.
In my photography, I can be as intentional as I want. And with social now, you have such amazing tools to reach people and to have a direct dialogue with them. When I made the feature in 1997, it took six months before I could even see my negatives because I had to raise the money to get it processed. In took another year before we could get into a feature film market where six people saw it. Then I couldn’t even get it on DVD yet. I couldn’t get it to anyone, anywhere.
Now, I think the democratization of distribution for content makers is a profound paradigm shift, and it’s instantaneous. I make things that make me happy and within minutes, I have processed them to my liking, put them out to my liking, and developed a connection with my audience. That didn’t exist eight years ago. Being able to advertise and promote your own content… It’s an amazing age for people that make stuff.
At Scoopr Media, we value “that genuine moment” someone has with a brand & we want those moments captured. Tell me about the moments you experience walking the streets of NYC that tell you, “Ken, you’ve got to capture this!”
It’s the same approach I have for my marketing and advertising work, and that is to know yourself. Who are you? What do you want to say? Who do you want to say it to? This all determines how you say it. I started this photo project as counter point to how structured & dictated most my professional life is. I’ve made it a completely intuitive process. Especially with a camera, I find that I can just listen to that hint of an inner voice that says point and press the button. I’ve published over a thousand photographs in the last four months, but I’ve shot over 80,000 photographs. I’ve just made a choice that this was going to be an absolutely intuitive process. I could in some ways close my eyes knowing when it’s time to shoot. I find that when I look at these photographs and the ones that speak to me, there’s always some little thing in the photograph that I didn’t see with my conscious mind that I think my intuition saw.
The users of Scoopr, or 'Brand Ambassadors' as we call them, use their creativity & judgment to capture brand moments. As an expert in the field, what would your advice be to these content creators?
I think folks should ask themselves, “What do I feel about this brand?” and “How does this product benefit me?” and that will lead them to a way to creatively express that. It has to come from the inside out. Clients tend to appreciate when I bring a little bit of myself into something. For example, how can I connect the dots between brand values and their initiative for speed this year and where they want to go with this new “football shoe”? If they can really search themselves, chances are they will create something that will be emotional and will generate a response from others.