We’re getting to be good at these things we like to call Junior Events. So what better than to go back to our roots and have the infamous first Junior interviewee Tim Kentley from XYZ Studios throw us a few pieces of advice, while we threw him a few G&Ts. A few too many perhaps since it ended with him telling us that Mick Jagger was his biggest fan. Whoops.
If you want to be a creative there’s only one thing to do – create. Make stuff every day. Someone once told us, “There is no right or wrong – only make.” This week Stan (http://branddna NULL.blogspot NULL.com/) does what he does best, reminding us why we’re here and what to do.
So you wanna be a creative do you?
OK then. Tell me what you’ve created this week?
“Well….It’s a bit hard at the moment. Um….I work in a café a couple of afternoons a week, so it’s hard to find the time.”
That, my young friends, is a snippet of a conversation I had this week with a wannabe copywriter who came to show me her folio.
She had a pretty good book to be honest. But It hadn’t really changed since the last time she’d come to see me three months ago.
Which is, to be totally blunt, not bloody good enough.
If you want to be a creative, you must create. Not now and again. Not just on the weekend. You must create whenever and however you can.
You should be constantly adding to your folio. If it stagnates, so too will your chances of getting a job.
So if you’d rather come up with excuses than great ideas, do yourself (and me) a favour and go get a job in an accounting firm.
See this picture above? It’s Eric! Don’t you just want to give him a cuddle? Aww, what a guy. He’s currently one of the insanely talented creative directors at Wieden+Kennedy (http://www NULL.wk NULL.com/) Amsterdam. It’s there that he makes ads for Nike and other authentically relevant brands. He made this ad about talking arteries (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=WRlIZVeNI1k) which we think is particularly cool. We wanted to find out how we can make cool ads too, because we have no idea where to start. So we tried to ask some insightful questions, and maybe we did, but we suppose you’ll be the judge of that, Mr and Mrs Readership. So, what are you waiting for? Go on, it’s good we swear.
Junior: Eric! It’s lovely to meet you. What are you up to at the moment? Is the weather annoying you like everyone else?
Eric: Hey! Nice to meet you too. Right now, I’m at my desk and the first hints of Spring have hit Amsterdam. Everyone is so unbelievably happy and relieved that the rainy Winter nightmare is over. I’m also nervously waiting to hear if our Nike World Cup campaign has been approved from the head honchos in Portland. Please God/Allah/Vishnu/Satan.
Jr: We’re praying too! So we hear you’re a Melbourne boy from way back. How does one of those end up at W+K Amsterdam?
E: I left Melbourne in ‘98 for New York City. Worked there for 7 years, had a kid, decided to get out, and landed a job here at W+K Amsterdam. Sweet.
Jr: Did you have a job lined up before you packed your bags and said goodbye to the lucky country?
E: No I didn’t. Having married an American I had a green card, so I thought I’d just move there and try shopping my book around. See how that goes. Luckily I got there in the midst of the dot com boom, when they were giving jobs to monkeys. I say luckily because my work was very Australian – weird brands, strange humor, low budget – and it didn’t go down all that well. But honestly, there was so much money around at the time they just needed people.
Jr: You know, everyone in the world wants to work at W+K. All we hear is, ‘man, they do really cool work.’ Somehow we think it can’t just be guys shooting hoops and spending million dollar budgets. Is it really about ‘cool’ work or is there something more to it?
E: Of course it’s about doing cool work, but that could never happen if the culture wasn’t in place to support the creatives. It is the only place I have ever worked at that is genuinely driven by creative. If the account people don’t think it’s right, but the creatives think it’s cool, well the creatives win. That doesn’t mean that the account guys are muppets, it’s just that they know they will never win that fight. So they get on board and support us wholeheartedly. All W+K offices are managed by two ECDs and one MD. Majority rules.
Jr: That’s really nice to know. Advertising is generally filled with people bred to KILL creativity. Bah! What are we to do? I suppose everyone aspires to work at a ‘cool’ agency to get past that, but realistically not everyone is suited to the W+K’s of the world. What do you look for in an aspiring W+K candidate?
E: There’s such a wide range of oddballs here, it’s hard to pick any defining feature of a W+K employee other than being ‘into it’. I guess everyone here is passionate about stuff, creative or otherwise. You can’t fake that. Oh, and an above average ability to write or art direct will help.
Jr: As a Creative Director, how can a junior get on your good side? Is it all about presenting good work or are there other ways we can get you excited?
E: I just want to see lots of ideas. And I never want anyone to take themselves too seriously.
Jr: Copywriting. It’s misunderstood by so many juniors, probably because art direction seems to be the obvious choice for an ‘aspiring creative’. What would you say to a kid who wants to be a copywriter, but has no idea where to start, let alone hone their craft?
E: Study the annuals and showreels. Read and write a lot. Work with a partner. Don’t smoke too much dope.
Jr: What about the copywriters out there who are working already and are sick of writing brochures and eDMs for cooking utensils? What should they do to step it up and write better ads?
E: Well if they’re already working they should be trying their utmost to do cool stuff for every client in the building. Anything will do, a banner, a flyer, a spot shot on a mobile phone, it doesn’t matter as long as it’s cool. They should also get very chummy with the best art director in the building.
Jr: Very good advice, but as juniors we might have cool ideas yet it’s our presentation skills that need help. Any tips on how to present better, and especially creative that might seem a bit wacky, or worse, a ‘risk’?
E: I always think it’s good to explain how you came to to an idea – your thinking process – no matter how left-field it is. And by the way ‘risk’ is good, but wacky is rarely good. And tell your idea like you’d tell it to your friends at the pub. With the same level of enthusiasm and all the little additional quips thrown in.
Jr: Finally, all juniors are told to get a good mentor. What makes a good mentor and where should a junior look to find a good one?
E: A good starting point is to get a mentor who isn’t shit. Someone who has done good work. Beyond that it’s about liking the person. Any half decent human will be happy to help you if you reach out to them for help. It takes balls, but I also suggest approaching someone you admire directly with a letter or a phone call. Once you ask them for advice, there’ll be no stopping them. We all love to bang about how much we know.
Animators! They’re a crazy bunch. Sittin’ by their computers all day manipulating dimensions and shit. What a life. Bah! If you can get it that is. Well that’s exactly what our friend Cam Gough (http://dirtypuppet NULL.com/) did. He left his secure job at a studio to pursue his dream of working for himself. At only 25. What a legend. So this week, we ask Cam why the hell you would take the plunge, and ask for some tips for when (or if) we do.
Junior: Everyone wants to quit their job and work for themselves, no matter if they’re into photography, film, animation, design, writing… Hell, whatever. What’s your story? Why did you do it and was the transition as smooth as you would have liked?
Cam: I was reasonably satisfied with the job that I had, but I was craving more. I had always taken on freelance and independent projects outside of work hours, but found myself enjoying freelance a whole lot more than my daytime work. After gaining enough experience in a studio, and with my roster of freelance work slowly expanding, I felt that I was at the stage where the jobs that were once just small side projects could fuel a career in themselves. I knew there would be a market for what I do.
When working as part of a Animation Production team, you often have a task, or certain tasks to complete, and your work is then passed onto the next person who has their role and so on. I felt that the working process was sometimes a little convoluted, and managing the pipeline became too much of a task in itself, and like most people in the creative industry, I had a desire to work on the most creative and satisfying work possible. So it was time to move on.
I had two options, attempt to move on to a different creative studio, or start my own. I figured that if I tried to start my own, as long as there were low start-up costs involved, worst case scenario was that I would be exactly where I was anyway – with a folio and experience, looking for work at a different studio – so why not give it a shot. I had confidence that the quality of work I could produce and facilitate had a place in the industry and the strong passion for what I do would make working hard at it, well, easy.
It’s been just over a year now, and I can’t really imagine working for someone else. Things kind of fell into my lap one after another with the few contacts I had made, but the most fortunate thing was probably having other friends in the industry who were in a similar place. They were great to bounce ideas off, gave me advice on working for myself, shared studio space and pushed me creatively. I think I’ve been pretty lucky in how smooth the transition has been and I’m very appreciative of it.
Jr: Can you give us ten key points to consider before any one of us was to quit our job and go it on our own?
C: Here we go…
01 – Love your work, be passionate about it, don’t turn your passion into a ‘job’
02 – Constantly push yourself, there are lots of people trying to do what you want to do
03 – Don’t ever burn your bridges, contacts are everything
04 – Have a backup plan
05 – Only promote the sort of work you want to attract
06 – Don’t sacrifice quality of your work regardless how big or small the job
07 – Quality work should always shine through in the end, the right people will recognize it
08 – Find a good balance between jobs that are good for your reel and jobs that are good for money
09 – Don’t over commit to a job that you may not be able to do
10 – Don’t sell yourself short
Have a look at Cam (http://dirtypuppet NULL.com/)’s reel below. It’s reely amazing. Shit. Did we just say that? Losers.
That’s right folks. It’s days like today that mean we as Australians get the chance to live a pleasurable life. (And if you’re not an Australian, listen up. This goes for you too.) So why not use this opportunity to reflect on the Americans – Our crazy over zealous brethren from the North. Because although they may be crazy and over zealous, they are also very good at raising the bar. Especially on a day of national importance like today. So instead of downing a few stubbies in the backyard, read this post by Stan (http://branddna NULL.blogspot NULL.com/) and reflect on what you might be able to achieve this year.
“It’s never crowded along the extra mile” wrote positive thinking pioneer Wayne Dyer many years ago.
He’s right too.
But if you’re happy to settle for mediocrity, that’s fine by me.
And if you’re the sort of person who thinks that you don’t need to have amazing ideas to succeed in the creative industries, that fine by me too.
I couldn’t care less in fact.
For those of you who are interested in the journey along the extra mile, I’ll leave you with this excerpt from the inauguration speech of Barack Obama. A man who is more than familiar with that sparsely populated stretch of road.
“Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the fainthearted – for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame.
Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things – some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor — who have carried us up the long, rugged path toward prosperity and freedom.”
We met Tim on the rooftop of the Ritz in St Kilda. Yes, the Ritz. Sounds pretty swish doesn’t it – meeting on top of the Ritz. It is on this roof that Tim runs XYZ studios (http://www NULL.xyzstudios NULL.com/), one of Australia’s premier animation studios. In addition to playing boss, Tim also directs some pretty amazing ads (http://www NULL.xyzstudios NULL.com/index NULL.html?myreel=%2Cjourney%2Cchampion%20kids%2Cscooter%20squad%2Cfly%2Cfootnap%2Cwhite%20lies). He showed us the new server he’d just had installed in the bathroom. That was pretty cool. Then we left to find a good restaurant with a dark corner and plenty of beer. We ordered three glasses, asked specifically for two pizzas, then fired up the recorder.
Waitress: Sorry, I don’t have a very good short-term memory. That was a meatlovers and the chicken?
Tim & Junior: Yep.
Tim: She should get a job on Fawlty Towers.
Junior: Ha, yeah. Weird.
Tim: So what’s Junior about anyway?
Junior: Well, for us Junior is about connecting young folk from all creative fields. Not just advertising, but architecture, design, photography…
T: Come on, it’s about meeting chicks.
Jr: Um, no. Was that what starting your own studio was for you?
T: No.
Jr: Well there you go.
T: Somewhere in the back of your mind, you know being creative and doing stuff will attract someone, but it’s not the motivation. Being creative you’re compelled. You’ve got things you just have to do and have to get out. The difference between a creative leader and someone who doesn’t have the sense of self and their own work is that those people are more like a cover band in a pub. People go and see them but it only goes to a certain level.
Jr: So what takes a young creative from being a cover band in a pub to the next level?
T: Well the thing is you gotta look for your breaks. You gotta take a shit job and turn it into a winner. I don’t actually think there is a bad brief; it’s more what you bring to it and what you sell on it. We get scripts from agencies that we look at and say ‘what are you guys paid for?’ No offence guys, but you do, some of them are absolutely abysmal. People look at our work and it’s a total unknown what we bring to the table and what the agency did – but I can tell you most of our jobs we pretty much wrote them and took the agency along for the ride.
Jr: Ha, we’ll be sure to take all the credit next time we work with you. So what made you decide to set-up shop for yourself?
T: I’ve always been a driven person and I always wanted to run my own business – I’ve never had a personality that works well with someone else – I’ve always just got crazy ideas. Guys in the studio always say to me, ‘Tim, you can’t do that’. And I need to hear that to then go do it. If they didn’t say that it wouldn’t spur me on. And then I get to rub it in their face.
Technically I wanted to quit at the end of school and start my own business. My parents and friends said ‘no don’t – go to uni,’ so I did Communication Design at Swinburne. Great course, had a great time. I basically just self-taught in animation. It wasn’t even part of the curriculum. Then when I graduated I went and worked as a graphic designer for Andrew Hoyne (http://www NULL.hoyne NULL.com NULL.au/) for a year and after that quit it and started XYZ. Then as I got the jobs I just sort of learnt how to do stuff.
It was very slow and very hard at the start, because obviously I had no experience and no name, so no-one would give me a job. I rang all the agencies and they never rang me back and I took it all personally that they just didn’t like me as a person. Then over time one thing led to another…
Jr: And here you are.
T: And here I am. Drinking beer.
Jr: Hells yeah. So our plan is to de-mystify the entire creative industry for young creatives. It’s an awesome plan. We want people to read this blog and say, ‘hey, I can call up (insert dream job/studio here) and say ’get me in there’, because I’m valuable to you.’
T: New blood is valuable to businesses. You can pick talent a mile off. I only need to look at the first ten seconds of someone’s reel to know if I need to watch anymore. They have a sense of timing, composition – 99% of what we get is junk, 1% is gold and they get to come into the studio and kick on. It’s nice that you’re trying to demystify the industry – there are people who really have no idea how to approach a studio, and there are people who make it seem very natural.
Studios probably don’t want to be rung up, because it clogs the phones. You just want to send an email – this is who I am, here’s a link to my work online, here’s my CV. And they’ll look at it, and they don’t want to see something that’s overly designed, they just want to see the work neatly presented so they can see the talent, and then just a little history of what you’ve done and what your skills are. And that’s all you need. That’s what the good people do.
Jr: I suppose for some people though, they might not have the reel together yet or they know what they want to do or where they want to be but they might have just finished uni, they might not really like the work they’ve done at school, but they know where they want to be and they know that they’re good they just don’t have the work to show for it.
T: That’s a problem. That’s why you do uni – to get the folio. No one will take you on just cause you sit there and go ‘I’m really good but I can’t actually demonstrate an example of that.’ You’ve got to be self-motivated.
I was a train-wreck when I was in my early twenties. Still pretty much am. But I was hyper insecure, I was a total wallflower. People don’t believe me when I tell them now. I never did public-speaking until I was about 27. I’d never speak in a group of more than two or three people.
So if you’ve got talent and you’re down on yourself - definitely stick it out.
Jr: Networking – A stupid fucking buzzword. There’s a way to network and a way not to network. Have you got any advice for anyone who’s worried about how to do that?
T: I was serious when I said I was shy. I used to hate the whole idea of networking. I hated it. Because I felt so fake. I was just doing it for a reason. But now because I like what I do and I meet people that like what they do it’s not really networking, it’s genuine. We’re all craftsmen and we respect what each other are doing. There’s a lot of respect there so when you go out to awards nights and stuff, you start over the years building relationships with people that you respect. It’s really good to catch up with them and because you’re for each other you say ‘oh you should meet this person or you should talk to this person’, so then I can do it.
But being that person that just works the room for the sake of it – I mean, that’s why I’ve got an executive producer. I pay him to do that.
You have people doorstop you and they do a trade that’s not related to you and they say ‘here’s my card, give me a call’, and I’m like – ‘No. I don’t use large-format digital printing’.
Jr: Ha yeah.
T: It’s always large format printers. They’re total sluts.
Jr: You know what? You’re absolutely right (http://www NULL.techfresh NULL.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/hewlett_packard_huge_printer NULL.JPG). Ok, so here’s the burning question: how do you feel about working with juniors?
T: We actually try to not use juniors now. Except for maybe one or two on a job, cause you want to break new blood and give them a job that’s appropriate but you don’t give them more responsibility than they’re ready for. It’s better to pay a senior one hundreds bucks an hour to get it done in two days and have it done right, than pay a junior two weeks and then have to go into the office and say no to your girlfriend that night because you’re going in fixing up his stuff even though he costs less at the end of the day. I’ve learnt that lesson, so we try to only work with the most senior people we can. A smaller team, more skilled, a better result – and it actually turns out to be quite efficient.
Jr: That’s interesting, because we know some young creatives out there who are very professional and can get things done on time and in budget. But we also know from working in the industry that there are some who can stuff up an entire project and it makes you look bad. It seems to be that the difference between a young person who gets a lot of work and a young person who doesn’t get any work is the fact that they can get stuff done on time and within budget.
T: That’s a really, really good point. We talk a lot about creativity, and because we’re creative people we put all the focus on that, but from a holistic point of view it’s probably only a third of the job. The creative might be awesome, but have you managed the process – that’s a third – and have you delivered on time – that’s a third. Because at the end of the day, producers and account execs don’t care how good it looks as much as, are you putting them in a difficult position if they have to constantly bullshit their client why it’s running late or what’s happening.
(http://www NULL.xyzstudios NULL.com/index NULL.html?myreel=%2Cjourney%2Cchampion%20kids%2Cscooter%20squad%2Cfly%2Cfootnap%2Cwhite%20lies)
(Click the image above to check out some of Tim’s work)
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