Give Me Everything!

Imagine a race, climbing a mountain to the top. There’s only one prize; winner take all. Using every piece of relevant equipment you can lay your hands on, you fight your way to the top, making educated, but daring guesses as to which path will take you there. Finally, after exhausting every fiber of muscle in your body and brain, you reach the summit; only to discover that you’ve climbed the wrong mountain. Read the full article »

Been there, done that. Now let’s do something new

This isn’t a great time in the advertising business, but it isn’t the first time that things have sucked, and it won’t be the last. There’s always been recessions, downturns, emergencies, and whatever, that makes money evaporate, and makes us all feel like Chicken Little, crying that ‘the sky is falling’.

Of course, that knowledge doesn’t make it feel any better. The worst part of it (aside from the fear or the actuality of unemployment) is the damage that’s done to our creative spirits.
Even in better times, creative staffs are usually stretched so thin, that everyone is working 24/7 on more assignments then they can keep track of. Creatives on set are often spending the day staring at their computer screens more than they’re watching what’s in front of the camera. Their participation in pre-production is often limited to the pre-pro meeting. This is okay, as long as the director truly understands the needs of the commercial, and is watching the agency’s back.

But even when that aspect of the job is well covered, what always suffers in this situation is the time to reflect on what we’re doing. The time from when an assignment is given out, to when it’s presented, has been reduced to a joke; the time from approval to production is often even quicker; and the time from wrap to cut is down to one or two days. of course there’s additional time to fine tune and finish, but all the decisions have been made and cut into stone. Where is the time to step back and think about what we’re doing? That time isn’t scheduled, because it’s ‘non-productive’. The schedule is based on what is technically possible, and thanks to all of our digital aids to ‘productivity’, that schedule is getting shorter and shorter all the time, with the creative community chasing after it with our tongues hanging out.

Sadly, things aren’t going to change. As the saying goes: “Money talks. Bullshit walks.” Guess which category “time to think’ goes into? So the thing is, what we have to do, is try to be more creative than ever. To have ideas that are so different than anything else out there, that are so strong, that all the details of production become obvious.

Of course, this is easier said than done. But I’d rather be trying to hit the stars, than chase my tail, trying to satisfy a cobbled together list of requirements that inevitably leaves no one satisfied. In the end result, if a rat ever manages to win at the rat race, they’re still a rat.

Seriously Child-Like

For me, to be creative in advertising is to see the possibilities of the world through the innocence of child-like eyes. A dream-like state, accompanied by a lurking, knowing, sometimes cynical presence, that reminds the flower child that there are boundaries and goals.
There are glorious times, when the creative side breaks through with an idea so powerful, that, like a tsunami, overwhelms it’s confines. Those are the joyful times, that make work seem like play. Moments that we wish could last way beyond their shelf life.
We know it’s not a child’s game, but we play at it. Seriously.

Luckiest Guy In The World

I sometimes think that I’m the luckiest guy in the world. I’m asked to recreate the world in a way that makes it interesting, beautiful, meaningful, or funny. Not that it isn’t all of these things anyway; but I get to paint it with my own brush stroke. I get to collaborate with a community of vibrant creative individuals: Art directors, writers, actors, cinematographers, all adding their own magic to the brew. Of course there’s a discipline involved; it’s advertising after all, not a playground. But when the idea is strong, and the strategy is sound, there’s an incredible joy in bringing it all together, and onto the screen. Not bad, I think, for a guy from a neighborhood in Brooklyn where crime was actually considered an career path.

Avatar

I saw James Cameron’s latest 3D blockbuster, “Avatar” yesterday, at a screening at The Director’s Guild in New York. The Director’s Guild theater is large and comfy, but not too large. It’s got all the bells and whistles insofar as screen, projection, and audio are concerned; always screens a perfect print; always hosts an informed audience; and is free to all members. So it was the perfect opportunity to see this much hyped, long in the making spectacular.

The story is rather juvenile, although that is beside the point. Knowing the plot won’t ruin the film for anyone. The story takes place in the future, on a distant planet, where a mining consortium is digging for a mineral that’s worth untold gazillions. Because the human-like indigenous folks object to the legions of humongous bulldozers ripping up their planet, there is a military contingent accompanying the miners. This is a mercenary group, much like The Blackhawk Corp. armed with all the latest technology, and populated with highly trained killers. There’s also a small scientific unit in this operation, that runs a program, utilizing creatures called Avatars. These are the bodies of the local population (that I guess are created by cloning the local’s DNA), that are somehow controlled by Earthlings who are ‘linked’ to the bodies via lying in an enclosed coffin-like container that contains some sort of mental teleporting equipment. The idea behind this operation is for the Avatars to befriend the locals (called Na’Vi) and convince them to allow their world to be destroyed in the interest of capital profit.

The star of the film is an ex-Marine, who is a paraplegic, having been shot in the spine during an earlier war. This guy has a twin brother, or I should say, had a twin brother (the twin has recently died) who was a scientist, and was supposed to slip off to become an Avatar controller. Because the ex-Marine has the same DNA as his dead brother, he is the only one who can operate the teleporting unit that was built for his brother. The fact that he’s not trained for the scientific, or sociological aspects of the job, are outweighed by the cost saving aspects. His lack of mobility doesn’t matter, because he only has to lay in his coffin in order to inhabit his Avatar.

The film depicts the Na’Vi as lovers of all life, who see all life on their world as interconnected. The Earth contingent (with the exception of the scientists) as depicted as racists and greedy capitalists, who have no qualms about destroying anyone or anything who gets in the way of making a buck.

To cut to the chase: The ex-Marine falls in love with a Na’Vi princess, and the Na’Vi way of life. He leads them in their fight to save their world, turning against his own species. Luckily he’s able to live inside his Avatar/Na’Vi body, so he can live happily ever after.

The film was a visual treat. Cameron created a drop dead gorgeous world. The Na’Vi and all the other creatures were beautifully realized. The 3D was superb. Even the 3D glasses were cool. Dramatically, Cameron knows how to push all the buttons that make you jump, squirm, or rejoice, and he does it well. So I sat through the film going through all of the emotional paces, and being totally drawn in to the visual. However, when the film was over, and the credits started to roll through, a nagging thought crept into my mind: Three Hundred and Ten Million Dollars to make this film (plus another One Hundred plus Million bucks to market it). Where was the moral message in that? In the light of all that’s going on in our world; with the very existence of whole nations in peril, by threats that require huge sums of money to defeat; how can the investment of such an immense sum into entertainment, be justified? What kind of hypocrisy is at play, when the message of the film is to save the world from greed, yet the process of creating the message uses up so much of our world’s precious resources?

On the way home, another thought came to mind. The film’s greatest appeal will be to a younger audience. An audience that probably has some sympathy with the film’s message. If the film is successful, it will reach millions and millions of these young people. If, in some way, the film swayed them to be more active in dealing with the existential problems facing our world, and contributed to the creation of a stronger movement, then maybe, just maybe, all of that money would be wisely spent. I just hope that’s what happens.

The Zone

I once read about ‘the zone’ that athletes enter while playing their sport. At first it was reported by distance runners, who said that they sometimes entered a trance-like state, where they were detached from themselves, feeling neither pain, nor effort. Then, athletes in other sports spoke about being in a similar zen-like state. I related to this from my younger days as a cross country runner, and as a passionate, schoolyard basketball player. If I was playing b-ball with a tight group of team mates, and we were reading each others’ moves, passing the ball to the open man, and seamlessly switching from offense to defense, it felt as if my body and mind had surrendered themselves to the game.

Then, I discovered the same condition occurring during my creative process. First, in my painting class at university, I’d sometimes find myself totally lost inside of my painting, intuitively creating colors, shapes, and spatial relationships. Then, as an art director, working with certain writers; we’d ying and yang on our assignment, and sometimes would build our solution with us finishing each others’ sentences, and not knowing nor caring who thought of what. When it happened like that, the cosmic energy that we created usually flowed right through to the agency chiefs, and on to the client presentation. It was an irresistible force. When I see that same energy jumping out of a script or storyboard, my heart starts beating faster, and my adrenaline starts to pump.

These days, I often find myself in the zone when I’m on the set. Artistic, intellectual, political, and physical problems are all meshed together all needing to be solved. Driving the crew against a time crunch, inventing visualizations, finessing performances, while ensuring that all of the collective decisions are making the commercial as good as it can be, requires using every part of my being. When it’s going right, and all of the players are meshing, it puts me in the zone. For me, it’s as good a time as I can have, without taking my clothes off.