Jason Bevan

Hollywood Storytelling Secrets for Business Creativity

Jason reveals how the some of the best known film-makers, cast and studios he worked with come up with their iconic film ideas and stories and how we can all use their simple, powerful techniques to rocketfuel our innovation and creativity. Jason was responsible for the creative development process at Warner Bros. Studios, marketing legendary movies in EMEA from the Harry Potter/Fantastic Beasts Films, the Lego movies, The Hobbit trilogy Joker, Aquaman, and Batman/The Dark Knight, right through to Oscar winners like A Star Is Born, comedies including the Hangover films and chilling horror titles like the Conjuring and IT franchises. He has worked directly with some of the world’s most legendary film-makers, storytellers, cast and film studios. From directors like Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan and Peter Jackson to legendary cast: Tom Cruise, Matt Damon, Johnny Depp, Morgan Freeman, Dwayne Johnson, Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt….even Clint Eastwood.

Jason worked with teams in 37 countries at Warner Bros. and was known for his passion for pushing creative boundaries on campaigns across all movie genres. Jason also worked for The Walt Disney Company in London and Paris and continues to work with most of the top film and entertainment studios on their “tent pole” movie titles as co-founder of Content Creator Studios, based in London and Los Angeles. In addition to speaking on the TED circuit and as an expert speaker for the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Jason has been on the judging panel for various highly regarded awards in the creative industry and conducts talks and masterclasses for major global brands, companies, governments, NGOs and renown trade and industry events/organisations worldwide. Jason is English-French bilingual.

Innovation & creativity keynote talks

Packed with insider secrets, movie footage and inspiration from 19 years working in the big film world, Jason shows how innovation and creativity has become one of our most valuable and potent business skills where humans still outperform the growing powers of artificial intelligence. He demystifies the psychology of how we generate ideas with simple logic and gives clear, easy to follow steps and tools we can all apply to our work and home lives, regardless of our walk of life. All taken from some of the most creative people in the film world; Jason’s talks show how we can tap into the creativity and storytelling skills we already have, but often don’t use…including people that don’t think they are innovative! It’s a chance to transform your thinking, identify what triggers your own ideas and embed a culture of creativity into your organisation, with a fun, uplifting and highly energetic, movie-led experience. Clear, practical tips are provided to take away that can be very quickly and easily used to strong and sometimes transformational effect.

Storytelling keynote talks

Jason has been lucky enough to work directly with JK Rowling and the families of other storytelling legends including Roald Dahl and JRR Tolkien. He saw how they captivate their audiences and readers by allowing their own personalities to drive what they write, giving exceptional passion, power and personal relatability to their characters and settings. He got insight into how they channel their physical environments where they write and their own experiences to inspire and energise their thinking; allowing them to find new, refreshing and potent ways to engage audiences imaginations. Jason shows how they and others did this, and most importantly gives five easy to follow techniques from the big storytellers and their creations that we can all enjoy and use effectively to inspire and powerfully communicate.

Ideation masterclasses

These sessions from 2 hours to 2 days focus on a specific brief; helping you push your creativity exponentially; removing barriers to traditional thinking like sticking to previous conventions and “train tracks of thought” or breaking down concern for airing genuinely bold new suggestions in the room. Jason offers highly effective, straightforward tools & working sessions to liberate your thinking, identify and break through restrictive tendencies and reveal undiscovered creativity in yourself and your team.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN JASON’S TALKS AND MASTERCLASSES

The insiders tips and “secret sauce” from big Hollywood movie studios and filmmakers on how they develop some of the world’s freshest, most ingenious ideas and storytelling for iconic movies; with clear practical tools on how we can all do the same.
How to embed a culture of creativity into your organisation and your own career by understanding how we all develop ideas, what triggers your own creativity and what may be blocking your ability to innovate.
Easy to apply techniques for everyone to move from ideas that focus on more routine adaptions and iterations of previous activations into brave, performance changing new thinking.

EXAMPLES FROM JASON’S TALKS

Jason’s tools for creating your culture of bold creativity are all backed up with engaging behind the scenes stories from his time working on some of the world’s best-known movies and people, showing how the ideation techniques led to iconic film ideas.

The secrets of how the Harry Potter films became the gold standard for magical creativity and storytelling, by creating an atmosphere and team spirit so strong and filled with positivity and creative freedom that the cast film-makers and crew genuinely became and on set family, united by their own creativity. How they inspired Jason to create touring Harry Potter trains and trucks filled with film sets, cast and live animals.
How the film-makers of the Dark Knight trilogy designed and created one of the most legendary film cars of all time in the director’s household garage with the batmobile. They showed the huge power of being “naïve experts” and used their lack of knowledge of the rules of car design to their advantage to create a car totally unlike any other, that went on to change the look of supercars all over the world.
How director Todd Phillips showed exceptional creative bravery by giving up the majority of his substantial directors fee, to secure his creative vision and additional funding for the first Hangover movie. The film went on to become the biggest R rated comedy of all time.
How Jason took an opportunity with one of the world’s best known Formula 1 teams with an appetite for bold ideas and used it to completely change the face of the team’s cars, drivers, garages, crew and team motorhome floating in Monaco harbour for the Superman franchise.

EXAMPLES FROM JASON’S MASTERCLASSES

Brain warmers: fun sessions to stretch your thinking and get the positivity, team collaboration and creativity going in the room, with enjoyable, brain-stretching creative challenges.
How to clarify and hone a creative brief to transform it into a true ideas launchpad. Directing your thinking at the area of real business need, with realistic objectives, firmly grounded in strategic and data insight.
Idea blockers: establishing what obstacles innovation and creativity may be facing in your organisation and specific next steps to overcome them.
Rule breaking: Identifying the rules that your organisation and sector/industry may have traditionally respected can be broken going forward with new ideas. How to learn from competitors and disruptors. Specific tools for managing an aversion to creative risk.
Building and stretching: How to develop, strengthen and extend more conventional ideas into concepts that can legitimately change performance and achieve significant competitive advantage.
Evaluating your ideas, identifying the highest potential concepts and honing them down into workable action points with clear deliverables and assigned champions to push them forward.

“As innovation and Creativity become even more critical for successful businesses, the tools and insights Jason shares from his creative career are engaging and important. All delivered with energy and passion.”
– Chairman & CEO BT, and board member of numerous global businesses.

“I’ve worked with Jason for nearly 20 years and his creative energy and innovation have been inspirational to me and countless leading brands. The skills Jason addresses are critical for anyone pursuing business success.”
– Global Chief Marketing Officer, Netflix.

“Jason’s talk is truly uplifting and engaging. With his genius use of visuals and clear delivery, I was able to learn the exact method the most creative minds use to generate the next BIG idea.”
– President TEDx Oxford.

“Jason, thank you for joining us. Your presentation was truly inspiring and thought provoking. It was a pleasure to have you with us!”
– Regional & sector leader, partner PWC.

“Jason is a Master of Innovation. In his talk he shares his passion for creativity and how to think differently to be truly innovative. He reveals tips of the trade from 16 years working with some of the
world’s best known creative movie makers.”
– Global Chief Marketing & Innovation Officer, KFC.

“A terrIfic talk on developing creativity, providing some top tips on how people can generate ideas for themselves and put them into action.”
– Chairman, Theatre Royal Haymarket Masterclass.

“Jason your presentation was excellent. You were rated 4.6/5 overall by our delegate survey.”
– Helga Maerte Ferdal organiser, Dialogkonferansen, Scandinavia’s biggest marketing conference.

“What really works about Jason’s style and approach to creative thinking is that it has relevance and inspiration for everyone – regardless of your role or skillset. He makes challenging your behaviours and thinking differently feel very achievable, with practical how-to tips as well as bringing the gold-dust of behind-the-scenes Hollywood! I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend him.”
– Claire Roshanzamir, Group Brand Director

“Jason captivated the attention of our 950 attendees at the annual NXT Nordic conference in Oslo. Jason’s thoughtful and inspirational keynote on storytelling gave our audience not only useful insights into the creative process of the great moviemakers, but also key take aways on how to apply it to their own work.”
– Catharina Meinich Langfeldt Head of content