EP 17 - Process, People, and Parallels: The Hidden Symmetry Between Cinema and Insurance
At first glance, film production and insurance could not be more different. One creates stories for the screen. The other protects lives, health, and financial security. Yet both industries depend on the same invisible architecture: process, people, and trust.
In this Episode:
Francois Jacquemin and Neil Wirasinha explore the parallels between cinema and insurance. From creative production to risk modelling, they discuss how process, emotion, and trust connect both industries.
In my conversation with Neil Wirasinha, we discovered a surprising symmetry between these worlds, one that reveals how creativity and structure, when aligned, drive lasting success.
From scripts to systems.
A film begins with an idea. It is refined, tested, and presented to investors who decide whether to fund it. Insurance product development follows a similar rhythm: concept, analysis, risk modelling, and approval. Both require data and conviction. Both depend on leaders who can balance vision with discipline.
The moment a film is “greenlit” mirrors the decision to launch an insurance product. It is a test of courage, clarity, and faith in the process.
Emotion as a metric.
In cinema, emotion is the final benchmark. Audiences remember how a film made them feel. In insurance, trust plays the same role. Clients remember whether they felt protected, understood, and valued.
Neil shared how film studios analyse audience reactions to trailers, refining campaigns based on feedback. The lesson for insurers is clear: listening is not a marketing tactic. It is an operational advantage.
A process that protects people.
Both industries face pressure. Filmmakers navigate budgets and deadlines. Insurers balance regulation and client needs. In both cases, process provides stability, but people create meaning.
Leadership is not about enforcing structure; it is about ensuring that structure serves its purpose to support creativity, care, and collaboration.
The shared pursuit of trust
What unites these two worlds is not their product but their purpose. A great film earns an emotional connection. A great insurer earns confidence. Both outcomes are rooted in trust, built over time through consistency and care.
When emotion meets precision, and systems serve people, industries evolve. That is the hidden symmetry between cinema and insurance: a shared pursuit of excellence through understanding.
Timecode:
00:00 Introduction to Long-Term Insurance
00:28 The Creative Process of Filmmaking
01:08 Pitching and Risk Assessment in Film
01:45 Greenlighting and Production
03:34 Comparing Insurance and Filmmaking
04:13 The Business Side of Movies
05:21 Production to Post-Production
06:15 Marketing and Release Strategies
09:51 Audience Feedback and Adaptation
11:43 Emotional Connection in Insurance
20:48 Digital Marketing and Client Feedback
22:40 Conclusion: Similarities Between Industries
Francois Links:
Apple Podcast
Transcript:
That's what's amazing. You know, I, I thought insurance was long-term process because we, we insure a person for one year in, in medical health insurance, let's say. Yeah. Or, or disability or, so you, you insure for a period of one year, then you can, you know, change the contract or do so, um, and, and then a person can be, can be sick for one year and then you pay for three, four years.
So I thought it was long, like, you know, cycles are long, but seven years, my god, it's crazy. I mean. Here's the thing, it's such a creative industry that a filmmaker that has, has decided to make this movie and, and, and it's not a simple decision to say, decided to make this movie. They've been thinking about it with lots of things going on in their minds of when's the right time?
How would I do this? And, and, and so they've, they've lived with it themselves for maybe five or six years. My God. And then they, and then they push it towards, here's a treatment, here's the initial idea. On a, on a, on a very short read that they might share with a very close circle of producers, friends that say, I really like that.
And then what if so and so was in it, how would this work? And so it shapes up into, into a script. That script, depending on how it turns out, they have to go and pitch it. Like any business. Yeah. They go and pitch it. They pitch it to movie studios, they pitch it to streamers. Movie makers typically want to go to studios just because it's the art of watching a movie in a cinema.
You know, no distractions. The phone is away. That is the perfect way to see a movie. It's not the reality of how most films are consumed today, but it's, it's the reality. I'll come back on that later. Right? Yeah. Good, good. But it's, but it's a really big thing that they have to really, so they might live with it for three or four years. Some directors live with it for seven or eight years, and then once a studio says, great. We are thinking about do it making this movie, they will ask their internal teams a green light, uh, team, so to speak, to run the numbers. So first of all, they'll listen to the story. Hey, we like this story, really like it, but we're gonna run the numbers.
And the numbers are what films are similar to it. So you start to build out the risk cases. Yeah. And you kind of call the base case. This is the most likely outcome. And you put a, a set of film titles that are four or five film titles that feel like this is probably the outcome. Uh, and, and you put those titles together because you want to understand how much they cost to make. Yeah, how much are they going to make? Who are the movie stars? What's the, what's the global appeal? Does it have more appeal in America? Does it have more appeal in Europe? Or you know, China was a factor at points as well. And then of course, you have to think about like good risk assessment. You gotta think about what's the upside.
So what's the high cases? What if it works out amazing? How much could we make? And not that it's a greed mindset. They normally are a set of films that you go, if this really works out, not virally works out and and catches a moment, but planned growth and upside, what does that look like? And then you've gotta look at the downside as well. What if it doesn't work out right? What if it really, you know, it comes out of production and it doesn't meet the requirements of what we wanted? What's the worst way that this film works out? Or what are the degrees of that? Downside. So there's lots of risk taking in there. So a studio then takes the film, right?
You've done the risk model. You are, you sign up to, right. Here's the business plan. Hold on a moment here. Yeah. I'm the insurer. You're, you're the creative guy. And for the last three minutes, you just described how an insurance product is being developed. It's not far off, right? Yeah, there's an idea. There's some data. You run the numbers, you do a risk assessment. You look at the population, there's upside, there's downside. How much capital do you have to put up or what works? What doesn't work? Do you? Don't you have to put capital, because there's also some models where each could be self-sustainable and a business plan afterwards.
I guess you have target market. Exactly. You know, you, you, you underwrite your, your, your, your segments. You do, you do. It's, let's not forget the movie business is a business and everybody, not everybody, there's a large proportion of people that think it's lights, camera, action, glamor, and it is a passion thing. Don't get me wrong, out of the different people that can work on a movie, and I mean the, the real broad sense of people in production, people in operations, people in finance, people in marketing, the one thing that binds those people together is they are film fans, right? So, so you do get people that really love film that are part of film.
And you can tell a real film fan versus like a casual film fan, is when you ask somebody, what's your favorite film? They will never give you an answer of a single film. They'll say, kind of depends how I'm feeling. I can give you a list of 10, maybe 20. So that's when you know you've got film people. Yeah.
So throughout the whole process of risk assessing if we should make this film or not, it then goes through a process of once it's signed off and it's green lit at. A scenario, that's when the production budget gets released. Okay. That's when the process really starts to make an and production's the most expensive, like daily charge on a film because you might be shooting for six weeks, uh, in multiple locations, which means the pre shooting of that film might take six months.
The actual shoot of that movie in a very compressed world is like maybe. Three months or four months, and then some reshoots. Then it goes into post-production. This is the hard job of any content creator is, well, that's a long story. 'cause films are long. It's like, what's the shortest version? What's the, but also what's the most compelling version of that movie?
So it then goes into post-production, okay. Where special effects are added, other attributes are added, and then towards the very end of that journey. Which already from when they said, let's go make this movie. This could be a year and a half later, or 12 months later. So you choose the right time to launch it.
Yeah, so then you have to pick what's the right release date for this movie and a lot of production. Happens thinking about the right release date when you're in the summer months, when you're in school holidays, there's lots of up, you know, lots of opportunity. When you head into the end of November, Thanksgiving, there's Christmas, uh, holidays still to play out across international markets.
They're the high points. Yeah. And then you hit low points, right? Where you don't date a, like you wouldn't date a horror movie. Uh, in, in, in the middle of the summer because audiences want big blockbuster, wildly entertaining films. Most horror films are scheduled round Halloween, the darker months as well, so it makes sense. So, so exactly. So you've gotta, you've gotta, you've gotta make sure that the production process and the post-production process allows you to meet the needs of when you're releasing the movie. Yeah. You speak about rollout, I mean, in insurances like rollout. You know, go through all the, the process of product development.
Um, and, uh, then it goes through, um, well, let's, let's say in, in a, in a big group. Yeah. So a local product will be, will be developed by the, the, the local companies. So it's, it's a, it's like a, um, a top down, maybe in the country, but both bottom up for, for, for the, the group perspective. And then, uh, they get, they get to have the product approved. Yeah. And that happens at the center. So it's a bit like your green light team. Yes. Um, and is is done by various people. Does it, does it mean the, the compliance, the risk requirement? Does it mean the standard? What, what does the group want to cover? What does, doesn't the group want to cover? Um, then, uh, there's the profitability element.
All the scenarios. Yes. And then. Comes the moment where you say, okay, green light, but it's not the green light light. There is a, a, you know, there's few staging posts along the way, I'm sure. Then, then, then, then you need to, to, to, to implement it at local level, you know, and although a lot of things have already happened in identifying whether it's fits in the process, uh, in the system, do you need a new system, uh, or a new element, a new development?
Access to that development. You spoke about competition for resources earlier in, um, in that situation, if there has to be a development, it's a, it's also a different budget, so it's a technical or it or digital budget that need to be granted as well. So it's not only about product. It's just the whole machinery fit within this, uh, this, this, this, this, this three line.
They're pretty the they're pretty impressive machines though, right? And they're rollout. Yeah. Yeah. The roll, the rollout's so critical and, and the rollout, I would say for a movie because a lot of the process that has taken place, we've found the direct, we've found, we've found the talent. We've got the movies in production. At no point yet. Has the, the team that's taking it to market has really been included because it's all been metrics based, you know, uh, dollar based. What's the income, what's the, what's the outcome when you take it to those local teams? That's why we have these film conferences where you bring in a movie star and you make them feel as inclusive as possible.
They've been part of, as you said earlier, they like the movie, so they Exactly. The emotions needs to be there. Right. This is the reason, and it's hard work, right? Working in the entertainment business, it's really hard. So for them, it's great for them to feel part of it. But it's not on every movie. So often when the movie is either nearing state of, you know, ready for the market or we share it with them always in English, it's, it's rarely translated because you, you wait until they say, let's translate it.
So you show them the first cut of the film or at the second cut of the film, and you wait for their reaction, and you're looking for two reactions. First of all. Did they like it? Like what's their actual emotional response to it? And different people react differently. The, you know, a Japanese general manager will share his thoughts in a different way to a Mexican general manager or whatever that might be.
Um, but once you step away from the emotional side of, oh, I loved it, right? You then ask them the, the, the, the one question, what's it gonna make in your market? Right. That is the moment that will either validate the scenario that you, you, you created, or it doesn't validate it. And it can either, the, the number they, they decide it's gonna make X million at the box office in our country, and it's always in dollars.
So sometimes the dollar fluctuation can make a difference. Um, but typically they have to sign up to a number that's managed by a head office team. It's, I feel bad for them. Right, because this film has not been made for your country and you're being put under pressure Exactly. To love it. Like it was homegrown in Mexico when actually it was more made for the European market.
That's, uh, funny insurance. There's, there's some similarities there I can see. Um, but it's, it's people business. I mean, we, we, yeah. You know, we, we cover, um, all my career. I covered people. So not, not things. Yeah, people. So whether it's life, investment, uh, health, uh, disability or accident, it is always very emotional things for, for, for people.
Because if you are sick, you know, your health can't get more emotional than that. You know, if you are healthy, yeah. You know, you, you, you can, you can be doing stupid things or even unhealthy, or, or, or, you know, eat too much or wrong or. Take too much risk, but when something's happening to you, then it's super emotional and, uh, well, I guess you mentioned earlier about the, you know, the emotion, you know, so, and, and because it's people business, because it's, it's covering people, the pe the, the, the, the distribution.
So where, how, because insurance is not. It's not bought, it is sold. You bring that product to people and, and I can see a bit that in the movie as well. Right. But you bring something and, and, and the intermediary, they need to feel they can sell that they can, they need to have the ability. To trans transfer that emotion to their client to say, look, you need to buy this product because it's going to help you somehow.
And, and there's a trust element that is, and trust is based, is based on, on an emotion. Do I trust that guy? Do I trust that product? I'm sure in am I going to be lots of money to get that coverage and to get nothing for the next year or two. Trust that something's going to happen. Trust is a huge thing in your industry.
I would say that it's bigger than the movie game, obviously, because what's the risk to the consumer? You pay on average $15 or 10 pounds in the UK or, uh, prices are going up across Europe, but the risk isn't so big. But actually it's also the time that you are taking to get there. So, so, so trust's a big element, but also.
For the movie machine. Right? So if I'm thinking about the general manager that's now watched the first cut of this film and has to think, oh, who am I gonna sell this to? Yeah. They have to think really. They normally will do it in collaboration with their sales team and their marketing team. Yeah. And often they will get a chance to watch the film with them, the movie with them, and they will say, well, who can we sell it to?
Is it, is it the older audience, the younger audience? What's the, what are the different segments of that? And then isn't that the same everywhere? Of course, just, um, let me rephrase this. If a film is being developed, there's been some focus group that say, okay, we're gonna target this audience. So you're saying that once the film has been, you know, all all edited in, in, in this, in a final product, it could be something else.
Oh, for sure. So you use, I mean, data points. I've been around the industry for a long time and, and even before I was in the industry. I mean, I'm, I, my first degree is in engineering, so I kind of really like the art of the number at times. So you, you will break a trailer. So think about a movie trailer that you see on a, on a, a brand new film that you know nothing about. A studio when they break that trailer, it's a very, very precise art form that first of all, even taking a movie down to that first trailer, it's taking that filmmaker's baby they carried for seven years and cut it down to something that's two minutes long that the filmmaker has to say. I'm okay with that going out there as a piece of marketing.
Yeah. Right. So it's a huge emotional departure for them. And then the responsibility for the studio is, let's make sure we break this as broadly as possible on multiple platforms, ideally in cinemas, of course. So people get to see it in a darkened room as the film will be consumed. But that's a very small percentage of the number of views you get on the first trailer. Yeah. It's normally, of course, on social media, YouTube, and, and then, you know, YouTube, thankfully on television is the same landscape, but when you, when you're thinking about mobile phones, you've gotta flip it and it's now vertical, so it crops off quite a lot of the story. So when you break the trailer, you break it against multiple audiences.
You spend a lot of money on multiple platforms. You break it and then you wait for it to go live when it goes live, and hopefully all the technical sides of getting it on platforms work well. It then becomes. Not just a marketing piece, but a research piece. So you break it against multiple audiences and then you look at how the movie, how the movie trailer performed against those audiences.
Did the old, did the older audience watch it through to completion? Was it expensive to get them to view it on YouTube and, and you have your own baseline data to say. If this was successful or not successful from an audience appetite point of view. And, and, and when you do that, you, you can, you can redirect exactly.
So you can do, do that. So it's not like there, there's a product and there's the way the, the media that is being used to, to, to, to push the product towards the client. And then you can see the reception of the, of the client. They can adapt it. You give the audience what they want. So a movie that I worked on a a while ago, secret Life of Pets, the first Trailer.
So we don't just look at how a trailer performs from the number of views or, or, uh, solely, uh, or the engagement rate in terms of did they watch it to the end, did they watch the first 20 minute, uh, 20 seconds, sorry. But you also look at the commentary, the social commentary, and, uh, and it, and it's, it's not new.
It's been around for a while. So even Secret Life of Pets in the very first trailer. There was a lot of social commentary around, I really love the, the poodle that's headbanging. And, and, and so he became part of the marketing campaign, but he plays a very small role in the movie. So when people bought their ticket, they kind of liked that there was this headbanging poodle called Leonards, but actually it was more than that.
That was just part of the world. You give audiences what they want. Yeah, typically and, and sometimes a movie trailer becomes its own. Collateral to break through the competitive noise around movies. When I worked on the very first 50 Shades of Gray. Yeah, that's, that's actually super important. Yeah. The very first 50 Shades of Gray, which the first trailer was the most important thing to have out there, and it was the team behind it did a master stroke, so much so that it became newsworthy that.
TV channels, were carrying it across the world saying the first trailer for the first trailer for 50 shades have broken. It's been viewed over a hundred million times in the first 48 hours. These are metrics they wouldn't typically talk about, but our publicity teams would help fan the flames. Yeah. Of how big this event is.And what did that do to the competition of other studios thinking about opening a movie over Valentine's weekend? Well, they simply pulled up their movies and move them to a new date. Yeah. Because why go into battle with something that's gonna gonna change that? So, yeah, the movie trailer is, is a real battle piece.
It's a statement piece. It's a great time to learn as well. It's, it's very, it's very temporary though, in, in, in, in, in insurance. And finally, it's more, it's more long term. You can launch a product, it can take a while to, to, to, to take place. And, uh, but it's so much money that is pouring into marketing and brand recognition, especially for big brands.But you know, in, in Luxembourg working for the, the number one local player, they do the same at local level. So the brand is extremely well known there, and it's about steady. Yes. So I don't think that they want to be 50 shade of blue or, or something like that, or read. Um, they, they're much more into, into creating long-term trust.
And I, and, and, and I don't know. I don't know if it's it, it is definitely wished, but what, what bridges the, the, the, the, the marketing campaign there? I think the thing you've always, every single marketing campaign, right? And, and let's face it, at least 50% of the spend is on media that you get feedback on. So it's social media, it's all of that digital media that you can hear what your customers are saying. Okay. It might be less emotional than maybe a movie trailer, but it's still something, to your point, there's nothing more emotional than your, the healthcare and IT and human beings think more of their families than they do of their selves.
Yeah. So when you're trying to get the right healthcare for your family, you are really at your most vulnerable. Yeah. So there is gonna be a piece of creative storytelling in that moment that really helps go. Wow. I really love my family. I wanna spend more on it. You are not there going, I love my family, but I want the cheapest thing out there.Yeah. You are thinking that is not how the human brain works. You're thinking what's the most level of protection as a parent that I can give even to my dog or to my family, or to any of those things. You have emotional things around. So I think a lot, a lot of the digital marketing discipline is exactly the same.
Tell the best story that you can, hope people react to it, but also let people share their opinion on it. And, and, and that's, that's extremely, extremely important with, with the quality team that took over all the, the client complaints or client feedback working on improving it. Um, so the angle is somehow different. The, the angle, um, for, for insurance, I believe is, is to learn from, from from the media. And, and the movie industry on, on how to use and, you know, best react on client's feedback. What does that mean? We, we used to actually get the feedback literally Vibram and, and, and, and see whether, you know, what they mean.
And sometimes it was being, being changed and sometimes we didn't care about that because it was simply impossible to change all the process for, for, for, for one single request. But the vibe from it. It's, it's super important and, and, and, and, uh, if one client complains, it mean 10 behind have not received the right service. So you were super reactive to, to adjust and, and, and I think that in insurance, although it was very difficult to change that until now. That, uh, with the increasing ability with the, the, the new area of AI and the ability to hyper personalize, uh, the, uh, the contract to the client, the coverage, the client, but hopefully also the services, then listening to how the medias reacting towards client could also allow insurance company to provide the better service because all the timing and the length is different.
The client at the end of the day is what matters. Yeah. If it's a moviegoer selling a cinema ticket or somebody buying insurance, or even the stakeholders that are invested in those businesses, it's the same thing. It's exactly the same thing. Consumers are consumers. At the end of the day, nobody wants to go and buy something that doesn't speak to them. Nobody goes to buy something they're not gonna enjoy unless it's a dental plan. I don't know. But I think the, I think the similarities the, well, I'll tell you one thing, sorry, but I, I would prefer going to the movies than buying a dental plan myself. Yeah, I agree. I agree. But both necessary. Well, I always say dental is necessary too.