Instil Image Co, Toronto

Pamela Post, Producer; Dave Todon, Photographer; Mike Halbwachs, Digital Artist

Instil Image Co | Toronto

How you got into advertising …

We all have backgrounds in photography. Mike started doing Photoshop and a little shooting for a small photography and design studio right out of college. Dave was shooting a lot of editorial – skateboarding, fashion etc. I (Pamela) was doing a lot of things out of school until I landed at Instil Productions – where I met these guys.

When Philip closed up shop almost a year ago, we started up on our own.

A run-down of the most recent campaign I worked on…

A couple of images that we did with Jacob Gawrysiak at Sandbox for Heineken and their winter cities campaign just came out. We were supplied with images of a pint and a bottle that we were tasked with making look very cold. We shot snow and frost in the studio and combined that with a digitally created environment. We are really happy with how they turned out.

The best piece of creative work around at the moment is...

Dave was just showing me some very cool stuff Faig Ahmed is doing with rugs!

The next big advertising trend is going to be…

About the team and how the work is done – artists taking a collaborative approach. It’s not just about a photographer, or a specific digital artist anymore – it’s a group of people with different skill sets, working together. Particularly since advertising now has to fit so many different platforms.

The piece of advertising work I wish I had thought of is…

Mike was pretty taken with the Snickers ad, from BBDO New York, showing retouchers getting confused when they’re hungry. It’s brilliant and a lot of fun.

My favourite digital tool/app at the moment…

I’m (Pamela) currently partial to Runkeeper, Dave’s a big fan of the Apple Remote app… Mike likes Photoshop, a lot.

In a film about my life, I’d like to be played by…

The fellas are thinking Betty White could play all three roles.

A word or phrase I overuse…

Is probably something glib… we should work on that.

My last social media update said…

Can’t recall but, Mike’s was pretty good “I’m so tired. I stayed up late last night watching Under Siege.”

My dream collaboration is…

All of them! We’ve been super fortunate to work with some very talented art directors and creative teams, and we hope to work with many more.

A great piece of advice I received…

Say yes, and then figure it out.