Digital Skills

This module was a test of our ability to work with and edit digital film. We were told we had to make a 60 second film on greed. After a bit of a slow start on the old the inspiration front, I actually really enjoyed this project. Though it was only a short film, I put quite a lot of thought into it's design. From the music choice to who out of my friends I was going to bribe into acting in it. Apart from acting i did everything else myself; writing, producing, directing, filmimg and editing. Though I have worked as a production assistant on a couple of films, I've never done any of the above before. It was really quite fun learning how to do them.

I hate writing, I really do. Between Dyslexia and ADD, it's a nightmare. Without fail my mind will wander off, even if its just further ahead than my typing, thinking on what I need to put down. The next thing I know I've written something that makes no sense, not even to me. Words written backwards. Sentences written backwards. Entire paragraphs missing, because I've got ahead of myself and actually thought i'd typed them already, then continued as if they were actually there. Trying to remember what was supposed to be there or what that weird word is, is often beyond me, forcing me to start again.

New York - DDB

The second agency we visited was DDB, this was an exciting experience because it is the home of modern adevrtising. DDB stands for Doyle Dane and Bernbach, and Bill Bernbach was the man who revolutionised the way creatives worked together and how adverts were designed. Previously art directors and copywriters were almost segregated and barely spoke to each other, now we work in partnerships and more successfully bounce ideas of each other creating bigger, better and more imaginative ads.

While at DDB we were given a tour of the graphics department and we were shown how they construct things in 3d now to save on time and money.

We also got the the chance to meet with three young creatives who talked us through their experiences coming into the agency and the projects they've been working on. I also stuck behind after most the group left to talk to them further, it quickly became apparent that if i'm to get a job in the US I'll need to create a quite heavily tailored book, as many of the products I've been working on aren't sold over there, so it would lead to some confussion. This is good to know long in advance. I've exchanged e-mail addresses with them so I can approach them for book crits once I have things in motion.

The overall experience left me thinking I definatley want to work in New York, the city is amazing, the people are stupidly friendly, and there is just so much opportunity.

New York - Mcanns

The main reason we went to New York was to visit agencies and see how the industry works in the States. The first agency we visited was Mcann-Erikson Worldwide. This was a highly interesting experience because for the first time we were shown much of what goes on behind the scenes. Mcanns create most of their adverts in house, and have TV studios, editing suites, printing offices and all sorts, all within the building. We got to speak with someone from their HR department, who explained exactly what we'd need to do to get a job in a New York agency, which was really good and we got alot of useful information, and because of that I'm now in the process of setting up a website to deisplay both my ad book in and my photographic portfollio. The reason for this is that in todays modern age this is the most efficient way of showing a company your work, especially when they're all the way accross the pond.

We also met a man called Bobby from Southhampton, who's working there as a graphics tech. It was really good to see him talk about his experience as a Englishman in New York, I think most of us found it quite encouraging to find him there, and it gave us hope of making it in New York ourselves.

New York - Time Square

I've got to say that Times Square is one of the most spectacular places I've ever seen. I thoroughly suggest that everyone go there to see it at least once in their life. It is so much more impressive in person than on TV, previous to going there I just saw it as an incredibly gaudy advert space, where as it's actually a stunning awe inspiring sight. It's like stepping into a scene from a sci-fi movie like the Fith Elememnt or Blade Runner.

While we were there we went to Red Lobsters, quite possibly the best steak I have ever had.

New York - Ground Zero

While in New York we visited Ground Zero, though the site itself currently can't be seen because of the boards put up while redevelopment and construction take place. St Paul's Chapel, which lies just opposite the site, is famous because when the towers came down, despite detritus and debris for streets around, the chapel didn't gain even the slightest mark of damage not even to the glass or woodwork. Since the 911 St Paul's has become the centre of remembrance for the the tragic losses suffered. The chapel is filled with letters of condolence and remorse. Though for me the most striking thing was the red vestment. The red vestment is a trainee priests robes that was left there and over time has had the badges of all the different fire, police, paramedic, and other search and rescue groups, from all over the world, that came to help, pinned to it. The vestment is hanging on a bust, completely covered in badges, and there are badges piled up at its base, because there was so many that wanted to help, and right on top of the bust in pride of place, is a police helmet from the Northumbria Police. I think this moved me more than anything else because seeing signs that people from my own local police department flew the 2000 miles to New York to help in the search and rescue, showed how much it meant to the world as a whole, and made it personal to me. In about a year and a half it'll be 10 years since the towers came down, and it's still effecting us now, at St Paul's there were still very clear signs that emotions are still very raw. Just stepping in there you could feel it. As a species we supposedly don't have any supernatural talents or 6th senses, but it's at times like that I doubt it, there are very few people that would of denied feeling all the emotion there.

New York - Guggenheim

I recently went to New York with other people from my course. As cliche as it sounds, we all had the time of our lives. Though the journey was long and tedious, we made the most of it. The first day we were there we went to the Guggenheim Museum (www.guggenheim.org). The Guggenheim mainly holds paintings and photography of a more modern nature though it does have some classics from the likes of Picasso and Van Gough. The building itself is a work of art, it spirals upwards getting wider as you go leaving a dramatic atrium in the centre, normally naturally lit via the ornate glass roof. Even without the art inside it was worth the visit, I've always had a love of architecture, and this was certainly a fascinating example. They've currently got an exhibition on called contemplating the void, which is all about art within and designed specifically for the atrium area. All the ideas and concepts were displayed in one of side rooms. It was really interesting to see what different people had come with and done. There were options from filling it with water and using it as a giant aquarium, to fitting trampolines so you could bounce from floor to floor.

Around the spiral was displayed alot of photographic work from artists like Ori Gersht, Roni Horn, Hiroshi Sugimoto (www.sugimotohiroshi.com), and James Casebere (jamescasebere.net). There were other artists on display, but I enjoyed the work from these four the most.

Northern Lights Film Festival

Jaimie and Thompson from the second year have been given the opportunity to compete against Cravens, a local advertising agency, in the Northern Lights Film Festival www.nlff.co.uk. The Northern Lights is a festival designed to celebrate the skills of film makers from the North of England in particular, but is open to anyone interested. Both creative teams were asked to design a tv and poster campaign designed to attract a Film Director into using Whitley Bay as part of a film set.

Jaimie and Thompson came up with the idea creating a film of their own, showing off all the sights but deliberatley badly shot and written, trying to show that they had everything you needed in Whitley apart from the crew.

I'm including this in my blog as Jaimie and Thompson asked me to help out in the production, it was a good laugh, and we had a lot of fun making it. Though I feel admitting to this might be a bad idea, but I was responsible for all the bad photography and filmography, which as a photographer doesn't look good.

But despite my best efforts to look bad I was conscripted by Northern Lights as the official photographer.

At the event at the Baltic around 50 people showed, we were supplied with free tea and coffee from Ringtons the official sponsor.

Jaimie and Thompsons idea went down really well and actually won the competition



Jaimie and Thompson being Interviewed




Jaimie and Thompson with their trophy

Copywriting and Art Direction

Next up copywriting and art direction. This module was designed to help us understand which direction we were going to go, skill and job wise. We were asked to design a three poster campaign for a Phillips HD LCD Wide Screen TV, in both visual comminication, and purely copy. Not an easy task. After speaking with various agencies by this point I'd learned that in your book, they like to see the occasional thing that is good but couldn't run, because of political, or social reasons etc. The reason they like to see this is it shows quite how broad and imaginative your mind can go. This is a creative industry afterall. So this in mind I decided to go a little wild, and do something slightly off the usual path. For my visual campaign I depicted a plasma tv where the image was so sharp that it was cutting it's viewers. While my copy campaign described situations where people were getting into unusual and embarrising situations with their tv's because the image was so real. I also designed a second copy based campaign showing sentences that were being cut off because the advert was too narrow, thus needing phillips extra wide 21:9 ratio tvs. All three campaigns went down well, and I was quite happy with the end result. I think I'm still quite definatley an Art Director but I feel like I'm actually starting to get a grasp of strategy.

Strategy

Strategy in advertising is the core element that copywriters deal with, as an aspiring Art Director this isn't really in my field of expertise. But it's something that would be very usefull to learn. We were bombarded with various different products, each of which we were expected to come up with at least 30 Strategys that were useable as Strap lines. Strategey in advertising, like strategey in anything else, is a plan of how you intend to do something. In advertising this is often said within the advert usually as a Strap Line. A Strap Line is a short simple sentence that infers what te product is about. For instance Nike; just do it. Basically saying we've provided you with the gear, no more excuses. Trying to say that in such a concise way, that also attaracts the customer is a difficult skill. A good strategy spawns ideas for adverts, almost out of no where. At the end of this module, I was still not even vaguely good at strategy, but at least I was improving. I fully intend to conquer this beast of a concept.

London Week Trip 1

Yay London again, this time for a week, the extra time was put to good use but the coach there and back was a bit of a drag.

While in London this time we were meant to visit RKCR/Y&R, MC Saatchi's, Dave Trott at CST, and We Are Fallon. Unfortunatley Saatchi's dropped out last minute, which was quite disapointing. However all was not lost.

The first night we were there, we went to see Y&R. This was a great experience, as I was previously unaware of anything they'd done, when they'd actually produced several of my favourite ads including the mouth watering food ads for Marks & Spencers, and fairy tale saga for GHD. Y&R have set a pressident for high visual ads with good use of light and colour. This visit was also good because instead of the usual heres our work lets see yours presentation, we got to have an informal chat with a Junior Creative Team over a couple of beers. It was nice that it was more relaxed, but what was better was that they were still fresh into the company. They had insights based on recent experience on how to get into the industry. They talked to us about book crits, and placements, and both the fun and hardships of being new to the company. It was a very pleasant and useful experience, and the free beers didn't go amiss either.

The next evening we went to see Dave Trott at CST. Dave Trotts well known in the British advertising industry as being both a very skilled copywriter and a no-nonsence boss. We were asked, as all students visiting Dave are, to create an advert for the G-Wiz, a horrible little electric car with practically no benefits. Dave always gets people to work on this for several reasons; 1st being it has no previous advertising on it so theres nothing to be influenced by. Secondly he's already heard everthing about the car so he won't be surprised; and finally it lack of redeeming features forces students to really dig deep into research to find anything. It's nigh on impossible to come up with a right answer. My work was nothing to be proud of, but I'll describe it anyway. I found out through research that cars in London produce enough fumes every year to cover the entire city with a solid layer a foot thick. I also descovered that G-wiz don't advertise to help keep the cars costs down. So as a result i desined a web banner (one of the cheapest forms of advertisement, as you only get charge if someone clicks on it). In the banner was a load of churning smoke escaping slighty from the box. Anytime you'd run the curser over the banner it would turn into a g-wiz and would clear a path through the smogg. once your curser had left the banner it would clear itself up reveal a line that said "London produces enough fumes every year to bury the entire city in 12 inches of ash. Help Clean up YOUR City. G-Wiz" if you clicked anywhere in the banner or escaping smogg it would redirect you to there home sight. It wasn't my best work, and Dave didn't think that many people were that botherd.

However Daves aim was to teach us a few things about copy, strategy and ads in general; aswells as get us to realise how much competion there was in the industry so we'd have to work hard, not just at our work but at selling ourselves and standing out in the crowd. He also drilled home the nesecity for persuasion in a ad, something that is often forgotton.

Though he comes over as quite intimidating and in your face, to the point I actually considered planting him on his arse, he was actually very inspirring and taught me alot about creating adverts and writing stategy. It was better at the end when he revealed his true colours and had a chat with us. His talk lasted 6 hours finishing at midnight, but I'd happily sit through it again.

On the wednesday we went to Fallon. We were asked to design an advertisment campaign for Innocent Smoothies. In the proposition we were asked to push the healthy aspect of it, and that if you feel even a little heathier, you act healthier and more positively. I designed a series of tv ads depicting people in depressing stituations, having just missed the bus, getting caught in the rain, etc. however instead of getting down through the situation, the people drank some smoothie and took on a positive and slightly innocent attitudes. The man in the rain went puddle jumping and the man who'd missed the bus skipped to work Michael Macintyre style. The adverts were accompnied bythe Strap line " Take a Innocent outlook". The ads didn't go down too well, as they thought it was too much of a leap that innocent would make that much differently. Though these ads wern't my best work I disagree with that point, as I as an adult have done those kinda things anyway. Also many ads in the past have had unbelievable reactions to a product, for example Weetabix. I kind of felt let down by the critique, as it wasn't very useful in improving my work, but you can't win them all.

Branding Essay

We were asked to write a 3000 word essay on Branding, I'm not keen on writing so this was not fun, I did quite well on the essay despite prior objections. Though my written research could of been better. All in all though, a lot lees painfull than I imagined.

London Day Trip 2

The second time we went down to London in Febuary 2010 was to visit BBDO AMV and Dare. We were given a live brief from AMV for Think!, a government sponsored program to raise road awarenes. We were asked to design an advertising campaign to raise Motorcyclists and Drivers awareness of each other. I designed a pair of TV adverts each in the design of a computer game, each portraying roads from either the cyclists or the drivers point of view but narrating it form the others. The advert was designed to portray that the other person on the road is in fact an actual person and could even by your friend. I did this as most road accidents accour within 7 minutes of the home, so the odds are fairly high of you knowing anybody else involved. I also tried to portray the strengths and weakness of both cars and bikes in the form of game mechanics, for instance motorcyclist tend to be much more aware of the road than drivers, so i showed this as a Radar etc. The Ad was well liked by Phil Martin and Brian Campbell, the creative team that was working on the same brief, though they said I could do with teaming up with a copywriter, just to refine the details and script. I agree, though my undersatnding of copy and strategy is improving, it'll never be my expertise. Their critisisms were much appreciated. AMV were also kind enough to give us all layout pads and pens for free.

In the afternoon we went to see Dare a digital agency. Though we didn't have a brief from them, they did give us some intersting insights into how digital media works, something non of us had really experimented with yet. I found it quite intersesting as a whole.

Visual Communication

One of our modules was on Visual Communication, this was one of my favourite modules because though I'm not the best artist in the world, i think in a very visual way. Due to an over active imagination and a knack for understanding what looks good, normally within seconds of being given an idea, i have hundreds of concepts crossing my mind. For this moldule we were given V05 volumising shampoo to advertise over 3 posters. I designed a campaign based around oceans of hair, ie my three concepts portrayed models each a silhouette of hair filled with either, the ocean, outer space, or the sky. I quite liked the end result, and intend on mac-ing them up for my book later.

Creative Thinking

Our first module in this course was on Creative Thinking. We were asked to look into different styles of thinking, and different ways of looking into things. Not only did we look into Lateral and Critial thinking, two terms coined by Edward de Bono to describe the ways we think, but we looked into methods of making us think differently, or at least harness the thoughts we were having. We were given various exercises to help us in the future when trying to generate ideas. First of which was to find an object for a pound, and think of 50 differnt ways to use it. This exercise was interesting and forced to look at something for more than its standard use. For instance a lighter is used for lighting cigarettes mainly, however it could be used to wedge a door or fight a vampire. The second of our exerices was to write a story in for frames based off a single randomly chosen sentence. My group was given the sentence "Oh my god, I've just eaten my cat", the rules were simple with four pictures and a little text per picture, we had to create a story that included that line. We wrote a story about a loan shark who tricked a late paying loaner in to eating his own cat as a punishment. On top of those exercises we looked into; mind mapping, and a few other tricks to help us out.

T-Mobile Liverpool Street Station

Curses to Timing



This advert was filmed in Liverpool Street Station in London, about 30mins before we went through there on our way to Wieden and Kennedys. It was created by MC Satchi for T-Mobile, very few of the dancers were proffesionals, most of the initial dancers normal people who'd been given a tape with the choreography on, and had only been to one rehearsal, the night before shooting. Everyone involved had been told they had to get at least one other person dancing, which meant the end result was more than half the dancers were just passing through station and had nothing to do with the set up.

I really love this advert, it fits so well to T-Mobiles "Life is for Sharing" it must of been really fun to film, and if i Had been there, yes I definatley would of been dancing.

London Day Trip 1

Right there's going to be some back tracking here, as we'd already done a whole load of fun and interersting things before we realised what we were supposed to be doing with this blog. For instance we've been on several trips to advertising agencies to help progress our knowledge of how things actually work in the industry.

The first trip I went on was to London last year where we got visit We Are Fallon, the agency responsible for fantistic ads like the Cadburry's Gorrilla and Sony's Bouncing Balls, and Wieden Kennedy, who conjured up adverts like Honda's Cog's and the quirky Cravendale "Miiiiiillllkk" saga.

For both agencies we got live briefs to work on before we went. From Fallon we got a chance to work on Dairy Milk and their "Glass and a Half Full Productions". These adverts have included the drumming Gorrilla, which in itself has become an internet phenomenon, with people uploading there own versions, edited to different songs, some of which were so popular that Fallon released them on TV as well. When we were given this brief we were asked to focus on a moment of innocent joy, a moment that can be enjoyed without hurting or disturbing others. I started thinking of anything that made me smile, from a certain song to the first ice cold pint after a hard day. Eventually I started to think more on the innocent line, and how children and quite often animals react to discovering something new. I realised there are still things like that even as adults, and one in particular that though most of us have seen it before, every time it arrives, its like we've never known anything like it. I am of course talking about snow, everytime the first snow falls in winter I like many others get really excited, it's like I'm a kid again, and with childish immaturity I run outside, tilt my head back and let the snow fall on my outstretched tongue, with each flake eagerly await.ing enough to fall to make a snowman, or snow angels, and to throw a couple of cheeky snowballs.

With this all in mind I designed a series of TV ads showing people and animals alike just enjoying the snow, with each ad the people or the animals were a bit unexpected, a guy in a suit throwing snowballs, a cat making snow angels. Just enough to throw people off and to say we can all enjoy a moment of joy occasionally. I backed up the TV ads with a concept for an Illuminal piece, where a large transparent plastic cube would be place on highstreets around the country, at the bottom of the box would be a thick layer of artificial snow. People would be alowed in the box to throw snowballs or make snow angels, in exchange for an email address. Footage of the box would be put on http://www.aglassandahalffullproductions.com/ via a webcam, and people would be posted a link via their email.

I had another moment of joy, when my work was picked out as the best by Fallon, and would actually be considered for future ads. This was an amazing point in my life, and when I decided that I definatley wanted to work in advertisng. Though I've had plenty of ideas rejected or critisied since then, I still clearly remember that feeling of both extreme relief and exhileration, and will carry it always, letting it drive me ever forward.

After practically skipping out of Fallon and considering a celebratory pint, it dawned on me the day was not yet over, we still had Wieden and Kennedy to visit.

For Wieden's we were asked to design an advert campaign for John Lewis. We were told that we had to think of a way to get people into the stores despite the credit crunch, which was hitting the country hard at the time. During this exercise I really felt the pressure of a deadline, we had been given very little time for both Fallon and Wieden's, and I'd already used most of my time for Fallon. With the time time ticking loudly away, I researched heavily into past ads for John Lewis, seeking inspiration. John Lewis ads are usually either an emotional journey or elegant sculpture worthy of an art gallery. John Lewis also have a policy called "Never Knowingly Undersold" which means if you can find their product cheeper anywhere else they will match the price and add a guarantee. With this in mind I wanted to create something dramatic and stunning while letting people know that they won't be beaten. So thinking of strong things I designed a three poster campaign around the concept of construction vehicles combined with elements of John Lewis's own products destroying prices; a bulldozer with a sofa for a scoop, a jcb with chest for a claw, and a crane with a chandelier instead of a breaking ball. The end result was deffinatley dramatic and eye catching, and was liked by Wieden and Kennedy, as tthey described the art direction as impeccable. However it was far from perfect, the adverts lacked a solid strategy and didn't convey the full message that was needed, also the ads were not really in the right tone of voice for John Lewis.

Though I was obviously upset that my work hadn't found the same reception it had in Fallon earlier, I was still complimented on certain aspects. We all learn more through constructive criticism than through contant praise, and I really feel like I needed to be brought down a little or I may have floated away on my ego.

Introduction

Ok to Start with I feel a bit of an introduction is necessary. My name is Gareth Smith and I'm an Advertising student from Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK. I've come into this field quite late as I'm 28 years old now, however I've developed a real passion for it very quickly and without blowing my own trumpet too much, I think am pretty good at it. Before coming in to advertising, I've worked in every aspect of the bar industry; from serving the perfect pint to hauling stock. Though I've enjoyed working in that industry it was never particuarly inspiring. I am now and have always been a creative person with an over active imagination, and as such needed a creative outlet.

Most of my life of I've been interested in drawing and painting and have some skill in both, though my true artistic talent I discovered when I was 16, when I was starting 6th from college. I needed to pad out my hours, so I took up photography. Little did I know it would turn out to be my primary medium. I've barely put my camera down since, especially since I got my hands on a digital one. The freedom granted by a digital camera is fantastic.

In this blog I'm going to try and keep you informed of what i'm upto on the course, ideas and concepts that i've come up with, and photographic projects i'm working on. I'm also going to draw your attention to adverts that I like and art and other things that I like and inspire me in what i'm doing.