Associate Art Director (Manager), Regional Brand Creative, CCH - North America

Description

Responsibilities:

General Production:

• Manage multiple productions across brands simultaneously. Anticipate changes, risks, and roadblocks and proactively take steps to mitigate and resolve or escalate when needed.

• Own and manage relationships with external vendors, agencies, and freelance production talent.

• Operate with a resourceful mindset, maximizing production value while working efficiently within timelines and budgets.

Pre-Production:

• Review shoot briefs and work with brand partners to ensure shoot needs including creative direction, product focus and assortment, budgets, timelines, etc. are clear and complete.

• Partner with Director of Production, art directors, and creative operations to turn briefs into production plans, including timelines, budgets, and resources.

• Build production schedules and timelines for both the internal creative team and any external talent and partners, develop cost estimates and budgets.

• Source and coordinate with crew, talent, photographers, videographers, stylists, and other vendors. Partner with Director of Production to negotiate budgets and with procurement team, when needed.

• Work with art directors and internal stakeholders to ensure mood-boards, creative direction, and shot lists are aligned with the brief.

• Lead pre-production meetings and coordinate across departments, stakeholders, and external talent and production partners.

• Coordinate product samples with brand teams, ensuring items are ordered, received, and stored ahead of production.

• Secure COIs, permits, equipment, and catering, when needed.

On-Set:

• Provide shoot supervision and overall production oversight, managing productions end-to-end.

• Coordinate internal team, crew, talent, photographers, videographers, stylists, hair & makeup, and agencies on set.

• Manage and track shot progress, deliverables, and budget/resource allocation, keeping production pacing on schedule.

• Run set-readiness checks and quality oversight, troubleshooting issues and facilitating live problem-solving.

• Keep the team and stakeholders updated throughout the shoot day, managing time, approvals, and on-set logistics.

Post-Production:

• Coordinate wrap logistics, invoicing, budget reconciliation, and expense tracking.

• Manage handoffs to edit, retouch, color grading, sound mix, and motion graphics teams.

• Plan post-production review sessions, consolidate feedback, and coordinate revisions through to final approval and delivery.

• Partner with CCH DAM Manager to maintain master asset management, usage rights tracking, file delivery, archiving, and final asset distribution/ rollout.

• Run production debriefs, capture lessons learned and team feedback, and report on project closeout and campaign delivery.

Studio Management and Production Process:

• Assist Director with maintaining the creative photo studio space including equipment, props, product closet, and expendables, and update/refresh as needed. Help to manage product sourcing, inventory, and organization for recurring productions.

• Build and maintain relationships with a reliable freelance crew network; assess and onboard new vendors as the studio grows.

• Work with the Director to continuously assess and refine both internal and external production workflows. Identify and propose improvements that increase production efficiency and content quality over time.

• Maintain production process documents, training materials, and resources, and support onboarding of new team members and partners to production workflows and best practices.

Qualifications

Qualifications

• 3+ years of photo production experience, ideally in-house or at an agency, managing photo and video productions from concept to delivery.

• Understanding of production processes from large scale campaigns to quick content capture, and experience managing multiple shoots at once.

• Proven ability to manage timelines, shot lists, and production crews end-to-end.

• Knowledge of up-to-date industry standard rates for talent, services, usage rights, etc. Strong negotiation and budgeting skills and experience working on productions with large campaign budgets as well as tight, scrappy budgets.

• Ability to help translate creative vision into efficient, cost-effective production execution, while maintaining brand standards and aesthetic.

• Existing network and relationships with photographers, retouchers, stylists, talent agencies, and other production-related partners.

• A proactive, collaborative, solutions-first mindset with a calm, composed presence on set and a can-do approach.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

• Experience interfacing and building relationships with multiple stakeholders and functions across a large, matrixed organization.

• Knowledge of varying file formats and resolutions for social, digital, print.

• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced environment, juggling multiple projects and priorities at all times, with resilience, adaptability, and a solutions-oriented mindset.

• Experience with Wrike, or similar project management tools are a plus.

• Knowledge of photo, video, and lighting equipment. Experience managing a photo studio space a plus.

• Some domestic travel might be required.

Equal Opportunity Employer

It is Company's policy not to discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, age, sex or gender (including pregnancy, childbirth and related medical conditions), gender identity or gender expression (including transgender status), sexual orientation, marital status, military service and veteran status, physical or mental disability, protected medical condition as defined by applicable state or local law, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local laws and ordinances. The Company will endeavor to provide a reasonable accommodation consistent with the law to otherwise qualified employees and prospective employees with a disability and to employees and prospective employees with needs related to their religious observance or practices. Should you wish to apply for this position or any other position with the Company and you believe you require assistance to complete an application or participate in an interview, please contact [email protected].