Jennie Wadhams is SVP, director of broadcast, D'Arcy Worldwide, New York. She has been with D'Arcy since 1998 and has been involved in projects for Capital One and Norelco to name a few. Her current project is to enjoy her new Saddlebred five-gaited horse, The Downtown Strutter.

Boards: What does your production department do particularly well?

Wadhams: I think we provide a lot of support for each other. The department is very friendly and non-competitive and we all share information and help each other out. And we laugh. A lot. I think this leads to stronger teamwork and better results.

Boards: What, in your mind, is the most inefficient part of the production process?

Wadhams: Pre-production, without a doubt. There is never enough time, especially for the creative department who are striving for perfection. You hate to be in the position of trying to fix something in post because you didn't have enough time in prep.

Boards: Give examples of production experiences you've had that illustrate what's right and wrong with commerical production.

Wadhams: What's right: Well, without being too specific, it's the job where there's real teamwork. And by that I mean everyone doing their own job, as opposed to someone else's! And working with people who are not afraid to make decisions. Commercial production isn't an art, or a science, it's a decision-making process. As a producer you try to put the right information and the best opportunities in front of the people you're working with, and then you try to help them make the smartest, most creative decisions they can, at the right time. As a production proceeds, the decisions should get easier and become more obvious, and you have more opportunities to get creative. Oh, and you always have to keep your fingers crossed as well!

What's wrong: Sacrificing character, story and creativity to accommodate a burdensome amount of obscure copy points that don't belong in a TV commercial in the first place (then throwing those copy points out in post because they're too burdensome...).

Boards: What should production companies be doing more of?

Wadhams: I think most of them are doing a damn good job, actually, particularly in the present economic climate. I think the competition is going to get even worse, and we'll continue to demand to see new talent from around the world.

Boards: What should agencies be doing more and/or less of?

Wadhams: More: Training, training, training. We aren't investing enough in people any more. It's going to get more and more difficult to get young talented people to stay in this industry.

Less: research.

Boards: What do you think the biggest changes in the production process will be over the next several years?

Wadhams: The continued advancement of digital communication. If you haven't signed up for BEAMTV yet, do it now. It's how it's supposed to work; it's what the Internet was invented to do.

Boards: What's one thing that you want to do in production that you haven't yet?

Wadhams: Work with an elephant. No one's writing scripts with elephants in them anymore.

Recent credits:

I don't do as much line producing as I used to, or would like to, but I get involved to a greater or lesser degree on everything that gets produced. We've done some challenging and interesting work on Capital One, Norelco and several Procter and Gamble brands, including Folgers, Pampers and Puffs Tissues.