Jesus Rodriguez, SVP of marketing at FUSE and NUVOtv, says he’d much rather be the expert at high-budget projects. Unfortunately, in the TV and film world, creatives don’t always get that lucky.

Instead, with small budgets and few resources, Rodriguez has often had to come up with highly creative solutions for low-budget problems.

In Thursday’s PromaxBDA Master Class “Who Needs a Budget to Produce Great Creative?” Rodriguez shares some of his best tricks for the best product at the lowest price.

He has worked on television projects as director, creative director, client and production company – he’s seen the process from all angles. First and foremost, says Rodriguez, understand your project – your budget, your goals and what will make it memorable.

“We want to connect emotionally with our audience,” he says. “So we need to understand them and the project itself.”

For his work with BET for The Game, Rodriguez aimed to create an idea that translated throughout all platforms while also making sure it looks expensive.

The resulting spot features the show’s main characters on a life-sized chess set looking glamorous while teasing the coming season only briefly.

“You know you created a great spot when Chris Rock makes a parody of your spot on the BET Awards,” he says.

Next: Partner with a company you trust, and be honest and up front about budget restraints and shared goals. “Tell me the budget, cut to the chase – this will save time, effort, energy and frustration.”

Rodriguez says going into any project, trust your team – his team invested a small budget to create a library of images out of one shoot, using a day of work to last throughout an entire campaign.

The spot (not publicly available yet) is part of the Fuse rebrand, rolling out this year. Each spot, ident and image is from a high-quality shoot of talented dancers, shown throughout the campaign in stylized slow motion.

Next up: leverage new relationships, but be honest and follow through. “The next time when you have money, you can give your partners bigger and better projects,” he says.

Engage your talent – give them a sense of ownership.

“When you have no money to spoil stars the way they are used to, the way around it is to engage with them,” says Rodriguez. “Make them feel they are a true important part of the creative process.” That way, he says, they might be willing to help you more in the creative process.

DJ Skee was asked to climb the Hollywood Hills to get the perfect view for his spot for FUSE. He was happy to do it because he believed in the concept and he felt like he was part of the process.

One of the biggest things to remember with small budgets is to embrace new technologies that allow for low-budget productions.

“I know this is scary,” he says. “But soon we’ll see promos completely shot on an iPhone.”

Rodriguez’s advice is to not shy away from that progress. Create something interesting enough to get traction on multiple platforms no matter the technique or technology.

Before even stepping foot onset, create a space where creativity is celebrated.

“I want to be in a place where everyone feels comfortable expressing ideas and the environment is a creative one,” he says. Encouraging dialogue and an open-door policy helps a creative team share ideas and open themselves for better work.

For only $2,000, Rodriguez and his team at FUSE created an interstitial to extend the brand – make it feel bigger, grow and to put music at its core while branching out into pop culture at large:

And even before that, know your brand so you understand its limits.

“When you have very little money, you need to be incredibly creative, coming up with ideas that are sometimes crazy or a little silly,” he says. “But if you know the limits that you can play with, you know how irreverent or silly you can go.”

The entire budget of this promo below was $2.60. They spent it all on a wig that a NUVOtv executive wore in a spot for comedy on the network:

One of his last tips on the list is to simply celebrate writers. Nothing is more powerful than a good idea.

This next spot cost nothing. It took 20 minutes, but “The message was incredibly simple but I think it was incredibly powerful,” Rodriguez says.

In closing, Rodriguez says: “Be nice. This will take you places. When you’re nice to your clients, they will work with you. If you’re nice to your team, they will be nice back to you.” So when you have a small budget, you’re on a tight deadline and you have few options, people will be more likely to help you if you’ve already established good working relationships with them.

“Happy people create better projects,” he adds. “Fostering a creative environment where people are willing you work with you is worth millions of dollars.”

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