Francisco Lima is MCA’s New Head of AI and Production Technologies
The newest addition to the Murphy Cobb & Associates (MCA) family is Francisco Lima in the role of head of AI and production technologies, signalling where the industry is going next and what clients will need most support with.
It’s a shift Francisco, who goes by Chico, is already keenly aware of thanks to his background in and implementing new technologies in production and hands-on filmmaking. He spent years as an on-set visual effects supervisor collaborating closely with directors, cinematographers and producers. This grounding has shaped how he approaches emerging technologies, ensuring tools such as AI, real-time engines and virtual production serve creativity and craft, not distract from it. He was also the global head of emerging TV technology at Hogarth Worldwide, giving him a holistic understanding and unrivalled expertise of the production ecosystem and the challenges within.
With the industry at a tipping point, “The existing organisational models and operational workflows no longer work nor deliver the speed and quality required for brands to engage, communicate with their customers, continue to be relevant and grow. At the same time simply sprinkling AI on these legacy models and workflows won't provide brands with what is required to succeed in the years to come,” Chico explains.
Pat Murphy, MCA’s founder, notes how “with the speed of technological change in our industry, and with some of the huge initiatives we have been working on in redesigning our client approaches to making and leveraging new content, it was imperative that we had knowledge on the inside of our business as a key capability.
“Chico and I have spent many years chatting about creative possibilities, the use of virtual production, and now AI. It seemed like he was the obvious choice for us to deploy across our existing and new clients. He comes from a strong production background, having been on set and understanding how and when to deploy the right new tools to tell the greatest stories without compromising. And with his understanding of downstream automation, and platforms, he is the whole package. In addition, he is just a great bloke who will fit with our culture of collaboration and transparency. A team player,” says Pat.
AI’s Open Horizon
What’s clear right now is that brands need all the help they can get when it comes to the open horizon presented by AI. Testing capabilities and applications is vital, perhaps even more so than deploying the new tech, especially when not backed by a robust strategy. Chico’s role will then focus on “supporting global brands to understand how AI, emerging technologies and other modern production methodologies, can genuinely work and deliver. Not just as quick experiments, or because of FOMO [fear of missing out], but as solutions that add value to the bottom line, consisting of repeatable and scalable systems, resulting in solutions that are effective in aiding brands to promote their services and products to their end customers with messages that are relevant and move at the speed of culture,” Chico says.
It’s a holistic endeavour consisting of “stepping back and looking at everything from ideation, to content creation, and localisation, to different studio models, automation, AI implementation and governance, including – most importantly – how to assemble cross functional teams composed of both in-house and external vendors and allow them to connect, collaborate and deliver high quality content.”
For Chico, the theory is all but one part, what matters is the practice. He’s excited by “the combination of vision, design and execution. I’m not joining to theorise, build decks and walk away; I’m joining to architect, orchestrate and implement.”
Technology has always influenced marketing, content creation, and their evolution. Right now, significant shifts are happening simultaneously, according to Chico. There’s AI-native production “where ideation, storyboarding, previsualisation, and post merge into a single, fluid and continuous process, completely redefining how content is produced, delivered and measured, and rebuilt,” he says.
Another is AI-orchestrated modular content ecosystems allowing brands to “move towards continuous content engines that can adapt, localise, and optimise in real time delivering relevant messages to different demographics” via multiple platforms. Other aspects aren’t new per se – like virtual production and real-time render engines – but are becoming even better thanks to AI. This results in “the lines between physical and digital production blurring, opening up huge creative and operational possibilities to deliver high quality content at the speed and at the scale required.”
Technology Can’t Replace Strategy
It seems like AI is everywhere right now yet it all starts to go wrong “when AI is treated like a plug-in,” cautions Chico. “You can of course just bolt it onto old vertical siloed structures and still feel some benefits, but these are all short lived and will keep the organisation from reaping the benefits of what AI can provide and deliver. If your organisational workflows, governance, and team models don’t evolve, AI will simply amplify what doesn't work for this new day and age, and result in organisations or teams operating and delivering the wrong thing faster.”
Another, perhaps more insidious misconception, is that “AI can replace strategic thinking, talent and creativity.” In Chico’s experience, the most successful teams “are leveraging AI to remove friction, and accelerate learning through the rapid prototyping, thus freeing creatives to focus on storytelling, craft and the exploration of multiple ideas, at a speed not previously possible.”
In Chico’s eyes, then, “AI will amplify creativity and not replace it.” And he doesn’t believe that AI will undermine craft. “I don’t see it that way at all.” AI simply lacks fundamental human attributes needed to create work that resonates. Though it “allows almost anyone to generate tonnes of content that looks good, it doesn't take into account the type of judgment, or emotional intelligence required to come up with novel ideas,” says Chico. “Craft is about understanding what feels right for a brand, a culture, at any given moment.
“AI actually makes craft more important, not less, and when used properly it will augment craft, not undermine it.” The tools will continue to evolve, become more powerful “but the human creative voice is what gives them meaning and gives it relevancy. The balance between craft and technology is a must and non-negotiable.”
Crucially, he’s an advocate for responsible AI which to him is all about clarity. “Knowing where data comes from, who owns what, which models are safe to use, how content was generated, and with humans driving the process. That applies from the very first prompt during ideation, conceptualisation of an idea, all the way into production and into final delivery, versioning and adaptation.” The idea is to design an AI framework that can leverage the tech at scale without posing a risk to brands. “When governance is designed with this in mind, it will unlock innovation rather than restrict it.”
