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    Jan 20, 10

    The Interview Series // 28

    Alright, alright. We know what you’re thinking, “Another ad-guy? When you kids gonna get over this ad-schmer-tising thing, huh?” Well you’re right. Evan Fry (http://evanfry NULL.com) is an ad-guy. But he ain’t just any ad-guy–he’s a true-blue award-winning ex-Creative Director of Crispin Porter & Bogusky (http://cpbgroup NULL.com/) style ad-guy, and he has some good shit to say, so chill out, bro. That sort of heritage makes him better than most ad-guys, who on the whole are a dime-a-dozen, and definitely don’t look this good with a head wrapped in ostrich feathers. He just left CP+B to start up the world’s first ad agency utilising the power of crowd-sourcing, named Victors & Spoils (http://victorsandspoils NULL.com/). That’s pretty cool-magool if you ask us. You know what else makes Evan cooler than most? He’s an old-school copywriter. Which tends to be rare these days. So if you’re one of the few who want to take up the lost art of copywriting, listen to what Evan has to say. You can actually use his advice–which is darn considerate of him, seeing as most of these so-called ‘ad-guys’ have a lot to say about nothing. In summation: Evan Fry ain’t just your average ad-guy, he’s a super-talented old-school copywriting mega-machine, and wants you to Be Fucking Awesome (http://befuckingawesome NULL.com/).

    Junior: We heard somewhere that you’ve got a crazy story about getting a job at Crispin Porter + Bogusky (http://cpbgroup NULL.com/). Apparently it’s a ‘doozy’. May as well tell us the whole thing!

    Evan Fry: Sure. But it’s a long one. It basically began with me having been fired from the job I had and sending my book to Crispin. At that point, this was the spring of 2002, I had been a writer/ACD for 8 years already, and I wanted to work for CP+B more than anywhere else–so I sent my book. About a month after I sent it in they returned it to me with a form letter, “signed” by Alex Bogusky (http://alexbogusky NULL.posterous NULL.com/) himself. It was encouraging, but standard. Very professional of them to be that on top of their shit, I thought. And then I forgot about it. About two months later, after becoming a bit bored of not getting much play from the shops I truly wanted to work for, I had an idea: what if I acted as though that letter really was a sincere letter from Alex to me, and started sending him weird notes from the stance of ‘jilted-lover-gone-psycho-at-not-getting-any-more-letters-from-Alex’?

    So I got some really precious stationery like a grandma might use, a super nice calligraphy pen, and went to it. My thought was keep them short, keep them anonymous, and keep them weird. And not think for a minute that Alex himself would ever even get them. I think the first one said, in really weird cursive, “It’s been two months since you last wrote me, Alex. Don’t you love me anymore, Alex?” Nothing else. A few days later I sent another one. And then another, after a few more days. For the fourth one, I reduced a photocopy of the original form letter he’d sent me, but used black permanent marker and inked out my name on it. I accompanied it with a psycho note on the psycho stationery that this time said, “Perhaps by now, Alex, you’re wondering who the hell I am? Well maybe I’m a lot like you, Alex.”

    Four days later as I was thinking about how to take it up a notch, I got a FedEx delivery. It was from Miami. When I opened it, it was clear something was weird. There was another envelope inside. And then inside that envelope was a Ziploc bag. It had the vibe of an evidence bag like in lawyer movies. I opened the Ziploc and there was a Photostat-camera blowup of the part of the form letter I’d sent where I’d inked out my name. But by blowing it up 10 times, its size had revealed the name under the ink. ‘Evan’, just huge. Stapled to it was a copy of my letter, and in red ink someone had circled “… who the hell I am.” And that was it. It was all just one big fucking “touché, motherfucker. We got you.”

    I was psyched beyond belief. Because all of a sudden I had concrete proof that not only had my letters been getting to him, but they’d been actually getting to him, you know? And he took some time and effort to play the game. So I immediately loved Alex. And the day after I got the envelope, Veronica Padilla, his assistant at the time, called for my book again. I thought I had a job in the bag, or at least a flight out. But it didn’t work like that. I didn’t hear anything for weeks.

    By then I’d started a whole other self promotion idea where I was mailing a weekly photo of myself to the top 30 or 40 creative directors around the world who I wanted to work with. Each one was literally just a 4×6 photo – showing how much time I had on my hands. Like, in one I was having a tea party with stuffed animals. In another I was drinking tallboys with bums on the street. On the back of each, every week, I wrote in pen something that went with it, like, “God I need some work,” and I’d include my phone number.

    So I had these going on, and was also sending them to Alex. But I still didn’t hear from him. However the photos were working, and I was getting a lot of great freelance so I didn’t care as much, although CP+B was still where I really wanted to be.

    About six weeks later Alex himself finally called and said, “I’ve been meaning to call you, why don’t you fly out.” I did, and had a great interview. Thought I had it in the bag for sure, and… didn’t. He didn’t have a slot for me. So I kept the weekly photos going, kept freelancing, and then four months later I was freelancing at Mad Dogs & Englishmen (http://www NULL.maddogsandenglishmen NULL.com/door NULL.html) in San Francisco and got a message on my answering machine. “Hey Evan, it’s Alex, call Veronica back and tell her the code word is pineapple.” I called her back and she said Alex wanted to offer me a job. It was literally one of the best days of my life. P-e-r-s-e-v-e-r-a-n-c-e.

    Jr: Wow. Ok. That definitely is a doozy. It’s nice to see someone with experience and good work struggle like the best of us. In fact, your website mentions that at twenty-six you “weren’t exactly setting the advertising world on fire”. How did you push through that? Did you ever want to give it up and go mountain biking for good?

    E: Oh man, you got that right. Actually, a few times. I got out of school from the University of Oregon and unlike my partner in school, Glenn Cole, I didn’t take a good job out of school. My book was shit and I spent a year working on it but the only job I could land was at the ‘third biggest place in Portland’ – which basically means nowhere you’ve ever heard of. And even though I only stayed there a year, it seemed my destiny was sort of set. I couldn’t get play in the Weidens (http://www NULL.wk NULL.com/) or the Goodbys (http://www NULL.goodbysilverstein NULL.com/) of the day, so I was just floating around at the mediocre places, like 95% of us.

    I moved to San Francisco in 1996 and experienced more of the same. But I moved to be in a bigger market with more chances. I kept at it, kept trying, and just didn’t give up. I guess that’s why I ended that last question by saying perseverance. That’s really the only answer when you feel like you’ve got what it takes, when you know that in your heart. If you know you’re good and you know you’re smart but can’t seem to get a break, you’ve got to prove how smart you are and make your own break. I’m 100% convinced of that.

    Jr: You’ve written your entire career. But a lot of young people aren’t taught hardcore writing anymore. From our experience, advertising education tends to be more ideas-focused. What advice would you give to young writers?

    E: I think this is true. I went to a School of Journalism program, and was lucky enough to be a decent writer just inherently, I dare say. And then in school at University of Oregon, I was also lucky to have two great ad professors who were classically trained. So the mix was pure writing and grammar, mixed with classic concepting classes, and barebones, fucking copywriting courses. It didn’t hurt to have Dan Weiden (http://danwiedensuperdad NULL.blogspot NULL.com/) himself teaching a couple of intensive seminars. But today, you’re right–ad programs stress concepts first, at best. Copywriters today, I swear to God, most of them shouldn’t call themselves “writers” at all. But it’s not really the game now, nor is it anyone’s fault really.

    The advice I would give is to read a lot. And to pick up the book Grammar for Journalists (http://www NULL.amazon NULL.com/Grammar-Journalists-E-L-Callihan/dp/0801968232) and study it like there’s going to be a quiz on it every day. I’d also say to use self-discipline. And read The Book of Gossage (http://www NULL.amazon NULL.com/Book-Gossage-Howard-Luck/dp/0962141534). Teach yourself. If you’re a copywriter who can actually write, you’re set for life. Love the headline, love long copy, do it all the time, get better at it, write hundreds of options for each headline idea. Treat it like a craft. That’s what it is. I still love to write ads.

    Jr: Do you get the urge/time to do any writing or other creative stuff outside of advertising?

    E: Nope. I really don’t, not writing. I get the urge to do other things besides advertising though. And I do those things. It’s why I started sharklove.com (http://sharklove NULL.com/) and also befuckingawesome.com (http://befuckingawesome NULL.com/). Be Fucking Awesome, especially, is just a labour of love. I kept having this idea where I would write a book that would be a sort of “guide for living.” I had this idea for a title and it was “How to Be Fucking Awesome.” This was while I was really cranking at CP+B, on the road producing all the time. So I didn’t really have the energy to do it, but I bought the URL befuckingawesome.com (http://befuckingawesome NULL.com/) and felt good enough about doing that. Then I just sat on it for a couple years.

    Finally I had John Parker, my partner at the time and now a CD at W+K New York, do up a branding identity for BFA. He rocked it. And it sat there again. Then I had the idea to tweak it into a social network of sorts where you could post your Fucking Awesome deeds, let the world vote on each one, and those votes would contribute to your Awesome Quotient. So then I fucking had to do it. And that’s what I did. I found another amazing designer to help with the design, a fantastically talented developer, and sunk a lot of my own money into paying him to develop it. It’s been live now since the end of September. It isn’t really taking off the way I’d hoped, but I am learning a whole lot from it and know what to try to make it take off more. It’s really satisfying, in some ways. But mostly, it’s just a massive learning experience.

    Jr: So, now that you’ve left CP+B to start your own agency, what can the world expect from Victors and Spoils (http://victorsandspoils NULL.com/)?

    E: Good question. I think the world can expect to see a viable new way of coming up with ideas for the advertising industry. A way where the clients feel like they get the service and attention that traditional agencies give, but ideas and work that is devised from a much broader base of amateurs and/or the users of their products and services–then directed and shaped to be on brand and on brief. So it’ll feel like an ad agency to the client, but engage the world to help solve their business problems. What we’re trying to do is show that there is a new way of doing things. A way that works and can let more people into the process. We’re all savvy critics of ads and marketing communications nowadays – because we’re exposed to it from birth. There are a lot of people out there who could be really good at it, and we want to give them a way of working on things just like those of us who went to school to become experts. There’s a shitload more to it than that, obviously. But the world can expect some really interesting briefs to work on for some really interesting clients. At least.

    Jr: The business model you guys described on launch, was anything but ‘more of the same’, but there’s going to be the inevitable detraction from folks not into the whole model. Are crowd-sourcing naysayers the new ‘30-seconds-of-TV-is-the-only-media-we-need’ dinosaurs?

    E: I don’t know; that’s a good question. There are naysayers out there. Basically what the internet gives people is a voice, and they love to use it to say how dumb everything is that isn’t their own idea. I learned pretty fast after we launched that I just had to turn it off, it was exhausting trying to answer or consider everyone’s points. Which we still care a lot about, but so many people were just being so aggressively mean and negative, so full of hate, that we realized very fast that no answer would satisfy the vocal minority. It’s one of the most loaded issues out there right now and because we consciously launched with as much hoopla as we could create, we became the brightest bull’s-eye. It’s cool though; we intend to just continue doing our thing and trying to get some good clients and craft briefs that let people play with brands if they want to. If they don’t want to, that’s cool too.

    Jr: How does a junior (or anyone for that matter) get a shot at working for a hot shop like CP+B or Victors & Spoils? Can you give us five awesome tips?

    E: What if I give you one tip and explain the shit out of it?

    Jr: Evan, you do what you feel…

    E: Good.

    1. Get really good at the craft of being a creative.

    - Write down everything. Take notes as you learn. Take notes as you concept.

    - Doodle as you think. Keep the pen moving.

    - Do lots of options for everything. Only through looking at it can you know if something is better or worse than what you already have. Look at it.

    - Take it seriously; don’t expect it to come easy. Focus on the brief. Do “concepting intervals” where you focus and write every idea down. Then have a break. Then get back to it.

    - Sketch everything. Go analog. Don’t fucking concept on your fucking laptop. Pad of paper. Pen or pencil. You alone, or you and your partner. Find somewhere to get in sync and focus and riff. When writing headlines, that’s when I think writing on your computer is good. But try using all caps, or two spaces between each headline. Treat it like art, and have some pride for how the words look. Do a bunch. Edit them a little. Do a bunch more. Edit a little. Repeat. If you’re building your book, keep the presentation simple. But don’t ignore the presentation.

    Jr: Is there life after advertising? Should advertising be a means to an end?

    E: For me, I think there has to be. For anyone, for sure there can be. Depends on how much a boner it gives you, I guess.

    Interview by: Pete Majarich (http://petermajarich NULL.com NULL.au/)

    Also posted in ADVERTISING | Tags: ADVERTISING, COMMITMENT, COPYWRITING, CP+B, CREATIVITY, FOLIO, JOB HUNTING, SUCCESS, THE INTERVIEW SERIES, WRITING

    Jan 13, 10

    The Interview Series // 27

    Mike Sacks (http://www NULL.mikesacks NULL.com/) is a comedy writer who has done a good thing. After spending years writing words (both funny and serious) for Vanity Fair, Esquire, The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, and Vice, among others, he interviewed twenty-six comedy writing greats and packaged the result into a book–a terrific book of incredible genius, may we add. And Here’s the Kicker (http://www NULL.andheresthekicker NULL.com/) is full of only the best advice interviews can give. Those interviewed include Al Jaffee from Mad Magazine, Todd Hanson from The Onion, George Meyer from The Simpsons, and many others, who, if you would like, are available for you to peruse here (http://www NULL.andheresthekicker NULL.com/). We at Junior thought it might be interesting to see if any of this advice had rubbed off on Mike, which it clearly had, and the resulting interview quickly became a favourite in our office. We don’t even need to mention that the advice is pertinent for any creative industry. Except architecture. There’s nothing here for you*.

    Jr: And Here’s the Kicker (http://www NULL.andheresthekicker NULL.com/) was such a great read! Every interview we read became a new favourite. Many of the guys you interviewed must have been your idols growing up. What was the interview process like? Fun? A party? Time consuming?

    Mike: Yeah, it was fun, but it was also a lot of work. The finished product might have sounded like a casual conversation between two friends, but a tremendous amount of preparation went into each interview – up to 25 hours per conversation. There was also some pressure from my standpoint to make the interviews really work, because I knew that I often wouldn’t have a second chance with a lot of these writers.

    With that said, the whole experience was great, but I’d never want to do it again. It took two years. It’s time to concentrate on something else: my next book will be a humor book. It’s a parody of a sex manual called Our Bodies, Our Junk.

    Jr: Ha! Sounds hilarious already. One of our favourite quotes from your current book was from John Hodgman (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=8W51H1croBw) (Editors note: The PC!), who said that comedy writers shouldn’t worry about being funny. They should just concentrate on being the best writer they can be. And that the comedy will come from the truth. Do you have any similar bits of advice that have helped you in your career?

    M:     I think that’s a great piece of advice, too. When you look at the writers in the book, all of them can write in any genre, not just humor. David Sedaris (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=YBdymtyXt8Y) is a brilliant writer of anything, not just humor. You have to learn the chops of how to write before you even attempt to be funny.

    As far as my own advice, I would say the following:

    Network and surround yourself with as many talented people as possible. Don’t look at it as being a competition. It’s hard enough to make it alone, and it’ll only help to go through the process with others. More opportunities will open for you.

    Write every day. Or try to.

    I would be wary of classes. They’re usually taught by academics or by writers who haven’t been too successful themselves. I think you’re going to have to teach yourself in the end, anyway.

    Read as much as possible, both the good and the bad. Sometimes it’s more important to know what not to write.

    Don’t limit yourself to reading humour. Read non-fiction, on all sorts of topics.

    Experience as much as possible.

    If you do receive advice from someone, don’t be upset. Then again, it could be bad advice. Show your work to someone whose comedic sensibility you trust.

    Jr: Gosh Mike! Such good succinct advice. You’ve almost answered all our questions in one hit! But we’ll keep going, because, well, we can. So what’s the best training in your view for a writer? Is it on the job? Trying to get your scripts up at an ad agency? Pitching to a magazine? Starting your own publication/site?

    M: I think it depends on what type of writing you want to do. But no matter the medium, it’s very important to just do it. Write as much as possible, write what you want to write (and not what you think will interest those in Hollywood), and just keep on improving. You have to assume that no one’s going to really help you succeed. It’s up to you: not only to write, but to promote yourself and your work.

    Jr: Creative types often seem to have a lot of talents. In our experience they sit on the generalist side of things more often than say, the guy who always knew he wanted to be an accountant. Do you ever get the urge to try your hand at anything else other than funny words on paper? Your IKEA gag in Esquire (http://www NULL.mikesacks NULL.com/wp/ikea-instructions/) for instance, isn’t so much a gag about the written word. A comic maybe? A hint at a directing career perhaps?

    M: I wish I could draw and I wish I could direct, but I’m happy just trying to improve myself as a writer. But I do like to think of different type of ideas, such as the IKEA piece. In such a case, I try to work with really talented people who can pull off the visual look of a piece. I think that’s really important: work with the best people you can find. They’ll make you look really good in return.

    Jr: What are your thoughts on the web as a creative medium? Web comics for instance seem to be full of some burgeoning, surrealist talent, like The Perry Bible Fellowship (http://pbfcomics NULL.com/?comic=random). Do you think the web will produce new ways of making people laugh beyond putting clips on laptops?

    M: Oh, definitely. And I think it’s fantastic that anyone now can produce something creative without leaving their bedroom. In years past, one had to have access to an expensive camera or computer program or recording equipment, etc. Now, if you’re talented, you can easily find the way to create (and also distribute) your work. Which should give you less of an excuse to not work really hard. Anyone can do it now! Not just the sons and daughters of the Hollywood rich.

    Jr: A common theme amongst creative types seems to be how hard-working they are. But then we also hear things like, ‘if you don’t have fun writing it, no one will have fun reading it’. How do you resolve the two in your mind?

    M: Good question. I can only say that sometimes the process is rewarding, whereas not every moment is really that fun. I don’t think that a writer has to be screaming with laughter in order to produce a work that will be thought of as funny. In fact, it’s just the opposite. It’s similar to producing a piece of jewelery or creating a wood table in your woodworking shop. You know what you have to do and then you do it.

    I think what most writers are talking about are the instances of it being tortuous. The reader will usually notice because the piece might be clunky or a little stiff. Some of the best writing usually happens very easily, but that’s not to say that it’s going to be easy every time. Everyone has a difficult time at one point or another, even those who have been in it for sixty years, such as Larry Gelbart (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=5MivXSpxkYY) or Irv Brecher (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=B1NeihzlBHo).

    Jr: Larry and Irv are kings! Everyone should take advice from them. But the modern day game has changed! Things seem to be in a flux. We’re in a world where content creation is becoming more and more of a hazardous way to make money. Much of the print media like The New York Times and so many other newspapers and magazines are struggling. For folks whose livelihood depends on a vehicle, say a magazine column to flourish, what is the way forward? Do you think good writing will find new ways to thrive in the cracks or do you envision a world where cheaper and easier content like reality TV is all we have left?

    M: I think there’s always going to be a need for quality work. The problem might exist more for the reader. There are just so many options now (millions of internet blogs and sites, hundred of cable channels, etc.) Where will one go? A reader might hit 30 places each day, as opposed to just one or two. I do think that the major newspapers and magazines are in trouble… Unless they drastically change their ways. I never understood why newspapers and magazines gave away content for free. It doesn’t make sense to me. If they want to retain quality writers, they’re going to have to charge for their services. And I don’t think readers will have much of a problem paying a nominal fee for a yearly on-line subscription to The NY Times or The New Yorker or any other great publication.

    Jr: How much does geography matter when trying to make it as a writer?

    M: I think networking is very important. If you want to write TV for Hollywood, it’s vital to know a lot of Hollywood people. If you want to write late-night TV in New York, you should be in New York. Once you’re established, I think it matters less, especially if you write books and articles and so forth. But if you’re just starting out, I would definitely recommend surrounding yourself with like-minded people. It can only help your career in the future. And it’s more healthy to go through the process and struggle together. Not to mention more fun.

    Jr: So many comedy writers are from Ivy League schools (http://en NULL.wikipedia NULL.org/wiki/Category:Harvard_Lampoon_members). Especially out of Harvard Lampoon fame (http://harvardlampoon NULL.com/). Why? Is it all about the connections?

    M: I think a lot of Ivy Leaguers are obviously very intelligent, but I do think a lot of it has to do with connections. There almost seems to be a gateway from Harvard to Hollywood. I think it’s more difficult if you happen to come from a non-Ivy school, such as myself. I knew no one who was a writer, and actually, I didn’t know anyone who knew anyone who was a writer. The more connections you have, the easier it’s going to be. But it can be done if you work really hard and have some semblance of talent.

    Jr: If you had a son or daughter who wanted to get into writing, what would you say to them?

    M: Well, I have a daughter, and I’d love for her to get into writing, but not necessarily as a career. With that said, all careers are difficult in their own ways. And writing is a hell of a lot more fun than most jobs I’ve had, or could have had. I think it’s important to just know what you’re in for, though. Which is why I’m going to force my daughter to read my book, after she pays full purchase price, of course.

    Jr: What’s the funniest thing in the world?

    M: Anyone or anything who isn’t aware of their funniness, such as a dog, a monkey or a drunk person. The more aware you are of your cleverness or potential to amuse, the less clever and amusing you’re going to be.

    Jr: What are you waiting for young comedy writers? Buy the book! (http://www NULL.amazon NULL.com/Heres-Kicker-Conversations-Writers-Industry/dp/1582975051/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225450095&sr=8-4)

    Interview by: Pete Majarich (http://petermajarich NULL.com NULL.au/)

    *Ha! Joke’s on you architects! It IS relevent. Read and weep.

    Also posted in WRITING | Tags: COMEDY, COMEDY WRITING, FUNNY, HARVARD LAMPOON, HILARIOUS, HOLLYWOOD, INTERVIEWS, IVY LEAGUE, NETWORKING, NEW YORK, OVERSEAS, THE INTERVIEW SERIES, WRITING

    Dec 16, 09

    The Interview Series // 26

    jvh

    We’ve been on the lookout for the perfect photographer to interview for quite sometime. Someone with a brain full of smart, a large collection of transcendental work and an undeniable connection to the universe. In the global search for such a suitable photographer, we looked to the far reaches of the globe’s creative belt. Upon finding the perfect suitor by the name of Jan von Holleben (http://www NULL.janvonholleben NULL.com/), we sent one of our foreign correspondents to Berlin for a short but knowledgeably dense chat. The resulting interview is exactly the type of chin-wag we requested — filled with advice for creatives of all shapes, but particularly handy for confused but excited young photographer shaped people. If you wanna know the best way to find assisting work, whether to go to university or not, or how to be happy doing this creative thing for the rest of your life, read on and drink up all the good stuff.

    Junior: Jan! Hello! Welcome and such. Tell us a everything about how you got into photography. We know you studied in London, but were you working in photography before that?

    Jan von Holleben: Well I have to say that before I did my university degree I intended to become a teacher of handicapped children. I always thought I was going to do a very classical teacher training in Germany, to go through university, and then start my job. But whilst I did that, I assisted a photographer in the south of Germany for about two years. He was a still life photographer who basically taught me all I know about light. And in a technical sense, after those years, I already felt well equipped to be a photographer.

    Then I started my degree to be a teacher, and I realized very quickly that it’s wasn’t my world. I loved the idea of working with children and playing, and I really loved pedagogical theories, but essentially I really missed photography. I was always a little worried, because I knew it was very tough to be a photographer. Originally I’d wanted to go the secure way, become a teacher and be employed by the state, you know, do all that. But when a friend of mine showed me the prospectus for a university degree in England where she wanted to study, well, I flipped through the pages and suddenly realized they had a really exciting photography course based on the theory and history of photography. What they wrote about that really hit something inside of me. After that I realized that was what I wanted to study.

    I went with her to England and we spent a week going from college to college, university to university, showing our portfolios. I had some really amazing encounters there and realized that I had to go to England and study. So that’s when I stopped my teacher training, and head over heels just went very quickly to England, which was really an overnight decision to enroll there. It was already in the middle of the semester, but the tutor there was really excited about my ideas and technique that I used and said, “You can start straight away, you don’t have to do the first semester. You can just go straight into the second semester”.

    So I was well taken care of there, and I didn’t have to learn anything about technicalities. Which I didn’t want to learn anyway, because I had already worked with large format, with a studio, with light — I was very much experimenting with that already. So, starting my degree in England was really great in its prospects, and especially knowing that I would only learn theory and history in photography.

    Jr: Wow! So when you started university you weren’t doing any practical photography at all?

    JVH: I did a bit of practical stuff, but most of the time, either I knew already what they were teaching or it was so basic that it wasn’t interesting for me at all. I had already done portrait lighting, I had already done studio lighting, I’d done landscape, I’d done all those sort of classic things — that’s what they would teach the other students that hadn’t had that. So I could really concentrate on concepts, on writing and on researching; I didn’t have to go through all this ‘how am I going to take a picture’ stuff, which for me was extremely helpful.

    Now I think that particular degree is better targeted towards people who already have some kind of technical understanding. Most of the students who go there have obviously done their own little personal projects, or assisted someone here or there, but had never had the chance to go through the entire process of teaching, or apprenticeship, that in many ways I had been through. So because of that I felt very privileged.

    So, for me at least, it was really two and a half years of purely thinking photography. Although, I did do a lot of projects, and we had a lot of practical projects also in the curriculum.But for me the most exciting thing was just working on concepts, researching and developing ideas, and just yeah — doing photography that matters. You know, photography that is not so much purely visual, but has an actual opinion. So that’s where that degree was really helpful.

    I also had to read a lot. My tutors were quite strict on reading material that we had to go through. It was always funny, my favourite tutor, David Campany, always had these particular reading lists. One was the essential reading list which had three to five books per project that you had to read, and then there was another twenty or so books which were optional.

    jvh3

    Jr: Yes! Kinda Like recommended reading?

    JVH: Yeah, recommended reading, but you were supposed to read all that as well. But you know, at least if you can’t be bothered, read those five essentials — but those twenty ones you should be reading.

    Jr: Ha! Yeah, it’s the same at my uni as well. There’s always so much to read! So anyway, I want to know if you can help me out with something. I am constantly involved in this debate with one of my friends because he doesn’t think that university is necessarily the most efficient way to get an education in creativity and learn a craft. He’s of the opinion that it’s better to just get out there, do things, teach yourself along the way, find a mentor, and so on. But! My argument is that it’s imperative that we read and learn and be exposed to the history of our crafts as well. And I think university is the best way to do that; the best way to be exposed to new texts and ideas and ways of thinking. Of course it’s really important to also find a mentor or assist with an experienced photographer or what have you… But university should be the top priority. Are you on my side?

    JVH: Yes!

    Jr: Ha! Awesome!

    JVH: Yeah, I mean, I think there are people who are very successful in what they do, and they’ve got there just by what they’ve taught themselves, what they saw in the world, and how they translate things. To me that is a very emotional approach. There a whole bunch of examples of people who are really great — just look at Nan (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=0Z3sihEuiEk) Goldin (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=0Z3sihEuiEk) or Ryan McGinley (http://www NULL.ryanmcginley NULL.com/) — or look at anyone who is very closely attached to their photography and their life. Life becomes their photography.

    Even look at Sally Mann (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=qZ4PftQZqo0) photographing her own family; she didn’t have to go through traditional teaching of critical thinking to do that. I hope, no I know, that she does think critically, she does! She just has not acquired the skill through university or study — but through being exposed to the subject matter and having a camera to translate her thoughts into a picture. But then, other photographers like Jeff Wall (http://www NULL.moma NULL.org/interactives/exhibitions/2007/jeffwall/) or Martin (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=4vF1X8-BTQo) Parr (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=RQV8ah7H5TA) or any of the very conceptual photographers, they know 100% what they’re doing, and for every single picture they take they know why and how they do it.

    Jr: So you mean there’s a difference between having a philosophy that supports the work and simply documenting your own particular way of seeing?

    JVH: Yeah, they have a vision, and they have a mission. You know, they go out and they know what they want to take, and they know the recipe and they know how to achieve what they need. I think that’s how I see myself much more; I feel that I have an idea of a picture that I want to get, and I go and create it. And that is really juxtaposed to the idea of finding an image. Like Nan Goldin — she would always go out and find things; she’s much more of a hunter and she’s hunting for images. Or there are photojournalists that do that — that’s their profession anyway by definition. But then there are the other photographers who construct images how they want them, how they see them, and really create a thought much more than an emotion.

    So I guess it really depends. It depends on the photographer and the learning they go through — you know, if it’s self-taught or if they go through university. I mean, a university degree can be really great for some, but it’s really bad for others. You can’t really say yes or no to that question. It really depends.

    Then, on the other hand, there are so many university degrees. In London alone they have twenty different ideas of how to teach photography and different agendas in photography. Some just look at fashion, others look at political journalism; some look very philosophically, others very technically, and there are some that go really politically or really conceptually. There’s just so many ways, and photography is so varied, that I think that really reflects the magic of photography in many ways. It isn’t just the photographer and the camera, it is so much more what the photographer wants to do, and what kind of imagery they want to produce.

    Jr: Yes, I do guess it does depend on what you want out of it. I knew the answer wasn’t as simple as yes or no. So, how long were you in London?

    JVH: Well, in total, seven years. I studied outside of London in Farnham which is about 45 minutes away by train. I did two and a half years in Farnham and then graduated and lived in London for another four and a half years.

    Jr: So was when you graduated the moment you started your first photography collective? (Editors note: Jan has started three photography collectives — the first is called Young Photographers United (http://www NULL.ypu NULL.org/).) Was it with people you knew from school or just from, you know, around?

    JVH: Umm, not really. There was probably one or two of my friends who joined in the beginning. It was more of an extension of my university degree — you know, a place where I was always surrounded by friends and we would do photography and be on the same level and we could really communicate with each other. After finishing my degree, I realized I had to really rebuild that network and find people to debate photography and make projects with. I could show them my work, get critical feedback, and we’d just do what we thought we should be doing with photography. So that’s when I set up the collective with a friend of mine and we sent out a call to anyone who wanted to be involved, and we got quite a good amount of feedback.

    Jr: So, what you’re saying is, getting together and being productive and making shit happen is the best thing young photographers could do?

    JVH: Yes, it’s a very important part. I’m a great believer in the collective, I’m a great believer in the debate, and I don’t think that a photographer should sit in his own little chamber, go out once in a while, and snap some pictures. Why should he? I mean, that would be…

    Jr: Pretty boring.

    JVH: That would be extremely boring! And I almost couldn’t take his work very seriously. Where does he place himself in the bigger picture? What is he inspired by? What does he critically think about things? How is that matched with other thinking? I mean, naturally the photographer is a very lonely practitioner, but I don’t think that there is a reason for it. You don’t need to be protective about your contacts and you don’t need to be protective about the work that you do. At some point you need to air it anyway, and as long as you’re not just shooting for yourself, why the fuck are you not showing it to people and getting some feedback?

    That way it’s so much easier getting exhibitions because you know that the project is solid and you know that it works. Then you can go out and have a completely different confidence. You can ask your friends how this picture editor is, how that art buyer is, how to approach an agency, how to get representation, how all these things work — you don’t want to figure it all out yourself. There’s an incredible amount of information you need to gather there.

    jvh1

    Jr: Yes! You’d also have access to a bunch of other photographers to work together with when you need some help or an assistant. Which is a good thing to bring up actually. What advice would you give to young photographers who want to assist other really great photographers? It’s something that in my experience is quite hard to do, especially when you’re just starting out.

    JVH: It is very hard, yes, it’s definitely very hard. In London there are far too many. You have so many assistants, or so many students that want to assist, and you have too few successful photographers who need an assistant. The best way is through connections. If you see an option there, if you see an opening, then just go and grab it. Or if you have a phone number of one of those photographers that you really admire and you really want to work with, just call them up and tell them why you think you should be doing work with them — why you should be assisting them. Never ever say, “Hey! I’m looking for a job as an assistant — do you have something?” Because then they’ll just say, “There’s thousands out there, why should I have you?”

    Jr: Do you think phone or email is the best way to get in touch with someone who you want to work with? I mean, these days with email you could attach a folio and some pictures and things…

    JVH: Yeah, but only if that photographer is actually checking his emails and reading them and has enough time for that, then yeah, that’s great. But, you know, the further we’ve moved into the 21st Century, the more phonecalls have become completely underestimated. People might feel that an email is quick and easily done, and that you’ve just sorted it and ticked it off, but I don’t think it works as well. I think you’re lucky if it works.

    On the other hand, I work mainly with people that I know — with friends. I don’t need a real photo assistant — I don’t need the ’professional’ photo assistant. I want to work with people that come fresh from school or from college and still want to take that opportunity to learn a lot. Personally that’s how it works with me. I don’t necessarily take in assistants that are only coming in for the week or a month — that’s too little time — because being a photographer is so much more complex.

    So I think an aspiring assistant really has to consider at least another half year, or year, or maybe even two years with a photographer if there really is a good match. You have to invest in it. I mean, I know that Nick Knight (http://www NULL.nickknight NULL.com) only takes assistants for two years minimum because he sees it as such an investment. You know, that’s what makes sense for me, and that’s what make sense for them. We’re starting a contract of sorts. We’ll work for two years together. It’s almost an extra degree. I very much believe in that idea.

    I know that when I came from university I didn’t know anything about how to be a photographer. I mean, you can do the theory, you can debate that in college or have visiting lecturers telling you how it works, but you have to build your own career. You have to build your own profession, because no photographer works the same. So, I think once you’ve finished your degree you have to think at least for another year or two to just…

    Jr: Go and learn.

    JVH: Go and learn! And find a photographer you can do that with. If you communicate that to the right photographer, and you can convince the right photographer that you are in tune with what they want to do, then I think that it can be a really great opportunity for both. But yeah, I’m very hesitant to take on assistants, just because it’s such a commitment. It really works when it works and it’s all the time — at least for me anyway. If you want to assist Annie Liebovitz (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=ZEjho8I8XBY) to have the thrill of a big production for a while, then go and assist her as a third, fourth or fifth assistant for a day, or two, a week, or even on an entire production. Then you’ve seen the hardcore life of a huge production. But if you want to learn more about yourself and photography, see it as an extended part of your degree and take the time to find the right photographer. Convince him or her that you need to work with them.

    Jr: Yes! Great advice! So, obviously you work commercially, but you also do more fine art/personal type stuff too. Which one do you prefer? The commercial or the personal?

    JVH: I’m in a really good position at the moment. I can produce my fine art work, or my personal work, and get it published in magazines that pay for the publishing. Or, on the other hand, I will get clients who want to do the same, but just slightly different, for their purposes.

    Jr: You mean like what you did with the Rooftop Cinema in Melbourne and the dreams of flying stuff (http://chaseandgalley NULL.com/ongoing/rooftop-cinema-200809/), where they used what you did originally and then built on it?

    JVH: Yeah, exactly. Or a client has an idea they want me to execute. But you know, I’ve had to struggle a lot to get people to understand what I do. I’m not a photographer who’ll just realize anyone’s ideas. I’m a photographer who thinks much more about photography — I want to really develop an idea. Yes, I do have a certain style, which really isn’t that important, because to me it’s much more important to go onto a project and think about the idea behind the photography. My thinking is always about photography — what can I do? What can I not do? What are the limits? Can we stretch those limits with video? Is it a moving photograph? Can we do it differently if we just turn the picture upside down? What happens then? So I have to convince people that I’m not a traditional photographer and that I’m still doing valuable work for them. I have to teach them  — educate them is probably a better word — how that can function.

    Which in the commercial realm is very difficult. There are Creative Directors and Art Directors and they all think about things before you get onto the scene. For me that doesn’t work. Unless of course they’ve already had me in mind in the very first step. If they say, “Let’s do this project with Jan — let’s write the concept and then we’ll contact him once we’re done.” But, of course, that doesn’t happen often.

    Recently magazines have seen me as a hybrid between illustrator and photographer. They come to me with really abstract ideas. They generally have no clue what to do — they’re asking, “Should we use an illustrator or a photographer?” Which they answer by saying, “Oh! Let’s just call up Jan. Maybe he has an idea and we can develop something together.” I love that because they send me all the research, all the visuals, and everything they have, which afterward I try to build something out of. That’s a whole different way of working. I’m not translating ideas into a photograph — like what a normal, I would say average commercial photographer would do. I’m much more involved in creating the idea for the images that I will then photograph later on.

    So it works very differently — I get excited about working commercially if I’m involved in the production of the contract. Obviously it’s great to be free and do whatever I have in my mind. But you know what? I have a mission, I know where I’m heading towards and I know what kind of work I want to do. I just try to do as much of it as I can in my lifetime. I want to create loads and loads of projects that always deal with the issues I want to make a point about. I can do that with a commission or I can do that if I work by myself. It’s that simple.

    Jr: Let’s talk about the thinking behind photography, because I find that really interesting. There are so many people who take hundreds and hundreds of photos and put them on flickr — for them I guess that’s their way of photographing and how they see themselves as photographer. But the more successful photographers don’t seem to do that. They think a lot about what they’re going to shoot then exhibit the shots.

    JVH: All the successful photographers that I know and appreciate all know what they’re doing and why they do it. I think most of them have a higher concept of what they do, which is to not just make pretty images. I believe there’s a great divide between photographers. The ones who use photography for aesthetic reasons who want to create beautiful images, which is the majority; and then there are the other photographers who want to use photography to communicate something. They may add a style onto their photography, and if it’s pretty, then it can obviously communicate better. If they have a style that works with pop culture or whatever culture they want to work with then that makes sense. But I think, and I strongly believe, that the aesthetics of a photograph always come second. It’s easy to make a beautiful picture. It doesn’t require any skill to take a good picture. Just look at all the amateurs, look at flickr — every tenth picture is pretty. It really makes a difference once you step beyond the aesthetics and understand that there is so much more than beauty.

    But it’s not just photography mind you. I’d like to know from anyone that works — whether it’s a photographer or a postman. I’d like — no, I wish — that everybody knew why they were doing what they’re doing. Any creative art lends itself to people who don’t know what they want to do. It’s an, “Oh this is pretty, how nice! Oh being a photographer, how glamorous! Oh I want to be a fashion photographer, I love fashion! I want to be a commercial photographer! I want to be a portrait photographer because I like people!” That’s not enough — it’s just not enough. I think you really have to know 100% why you are in this game.

    jvh4

    Jr: Absolutely, definitely, and infallibly so. Speaking of flickr and digital photography, are you a fan of digital photography or not? I mean, I know commercially it’s probably really easy and important to use digital because it’s really quick and clients need things done now, but how do you feel about the whole film/digital thing?

    JVH: It comes down to the concept of your photography and asking what is more suitable. If you want to have a large format camera and can afford the digital back then great! But if not just take your dark slides and do dark slides — why not? I know for me, I’m shifting back and forth depending what the project it is, or maybe how big the budget is anyway.

    It’s definitely a point I always evaluate whenever I’m doing a project; whether I’m going to be shooting analogue or digital. Personally I have an array of cameras at home. They go from very snapshotty, rough and dirty to really elaborate medium format, or I could even shoot large format if I wanted to. I always make my choice of camera and technique very clear. If it’s film, what kind of film? If it’s digital, how many megapixels does it need to have? I always make the choice very specific.

    Jr: So, what you’re saying is: know your craft and the technology well so you can get the image that is going to communicate most effectively the idea you want to get across.

    JVH: Exactly. Some people are completely fixed on one camera, and they should not leave it. Why should they? If people think that digital is the best for them, then that’s great! But they shouldn’t just use it because it’s the easiest.

    Jr: You touched on how expensive digital backs for large format cameras are and obviously that’s pretty extreme. But seriously, for young photographers especially, money is a huge issue. I mean, photography is probably always going to be a pretty expensive road to take, but how important do you think it is to have a whole heap of expensive equipment?

    JVH: Get a camera, know what that camera can do, then learn how to explore and exploit it. As I said, I started my career in photography with a still life photographer and we only had large format cameras. All we would do is large format. Sometimes we would use 35mm cameras, but that was really minor. Then when I went to university I knew all about large format, but I didn’t need it for the ideas I had in my head. I realized I could just throw all this technical knowledge overboard. I didn’t ever want to shoot again with large format — I just wanted to reduce everything to the minimal.

    Then my dad gave me a present. It was a small instamatic camera from Nikon. It’s a super simple product and the only thing it could do is flash on or flash off. It had a fixed 28mm lens. Even today I love that camera to bits because it’s so straightforward. I don’t think it matters what kind of camera you’re using, as long as you know what it can do and how to exploit that.

    Jr: And you can communicate something with it! So we gotta wrap this up, but do you have any last advice or ideas that might be useful for anyone who’s thinking of becoming a photographer?

    JVH: Well, it’s always helped me to know exactly why I’m doing this. I must always have a very clear vision in mind of why I have to be a photographer. I must always know why this is the best thing I could possibly do, why I should take pictures that matter, and not be one amongst a million who take pretty images. For me that is a very important thing to know. Whenever I question what I’m doing I can fall back on that and think, “Oh yeah! That’s why I’m doing photography. That’s true. That’s what I want to do, yeah! Let’s continue with this.”

    Interview by: Ruth Morris (http://www NULL.ruth-morris NULL.com/)

    jvh2

    Also posted in PHOTOGRAPHY | Tags: ASSISTING, BERLIN, COMMITMENT, CREATIVITY, EMAILS, FOLIO, GERMANY, INSPIRATION, JAN VON HOLLEBEN, LONDON, PHOTOGRAPHY, RUTH MORRIS, WORK

    Dec 08, 09

    The Interview Series // 23 (Part Two)

    daniel2

    “Work on your shit. Ride your bicycle. Don’t have sex. Work hard. Be nice. Pay attention. What else? That’s kinda it. Oh, and don’t buy dumb shit.” And that, our clever and taste-ridden friends, is where Part One of Daniel Bremmer’s interview finished. If you haven’t read it yet, read it now. We got really drunk in a Brooklyn bar and solved the problems of the universe, pretty much. This second half however, is even better–we really hit our stride. It seems the more alcohol we consumed, the more articulate, erudite, considered and clever we became. If you want to figure out if advertising is a vain waste of time and resources on the rich white people of the world, or if it can be used to save the world’s environmental and economic problems, gosh, are you in for a treat…

    Daniel: Don’t buy dumb shit.

    Junior: Don’t buy dumb shit? Like what?

    D: Anything that has an expensive logo on it. I’m going to think your dad has money and that you probably suck.

    Jr: So what should you wear to an interview?

    D: Stuff that doesn’t have expensive logos on it.

    Jr: Like this?

    D: That’s fine. Grey t-shirt and short shorts. I might skip the short shorts.

    Jr: Oh really? Why? They make me look cool!

    D: They’re a little short. Definitely not that cool. Anyway, you know what? I’ve had had an epiphany.

    Jr: What’s that?

    D: I don’t give a fuck about making ads that make a dude richer. I don’t care anymore.

    Jr: Which dude? Who’s the dude?

    D: Well, it’s not a dude — it’s corporations. So it’s really like a bunch of people.

    Jr: Ah, I see. Tell me more.

    D: I wanna make things better in the world. And I think everybody does — well most people. There are bad people, people who don’t give a shit; but most conscientious people, most creative people, want to make things better. That’s what I wanna do from now on. I got on this high, where I got to see the good results of something I did (Editors note: Daniel worked on the Obama campaign), that I was a part of. You know, changing things for the better, in a good way, and that’s what I want to do from now on.

    Jr: Wow. I think that’s a wonderful epiphany.

    D: So do I. I have a little philosophy. It’s called, ‘Do good well.’ Because there’s a lot of agencies entirely built around doing good work for non-profits, and a lot of the time they get involved in doing philanthropic work for big companies, to make the big companies who do evil shit look good cause they threw a few million out of their x billion dollars in annual profits towards something nice. And there’s a lot of non-profits that hire agencies to do their fund-raising who need the money, to do good work, but that’s not as rewarding as doing cool stuff. This is a movement that’s happening slowly. A very good friend of mine, an early mentor named Don McKinney, who is interactive ECD at Grey, he calls it the purpose driven economy. Which is based off The Purpose Driven Life (http://www NULL.purposedrivenlife NULL.com), a book by pastor Rick Warren. It’s bullshit, but it helped a lot of people.

    To me, it’s about making ‘good’ and ‘right’ both desirable and popular. Especially when you’re dealing with stuff like the environment, solving issues to do with global warming, dealing with respecting our natural resources, not polluting our environment, treating our environment as a living organism that we need to survive, not as a tree you should hug and respect because it’s beautiful, but because that tree keeps you the fuck alive and you better stop being a dickhole to it. These are the basic principles if you have a long view of the world.

    Jr: This is how I feel about my health.

    D: Your health is exactly the same.

    Jr: It’s no longer, “I need to eat better just because I should be healthy, but because I don’t want to wake up every morning feeling like shit. And I don’t want to be exhausted at the end of the day.” You know what I mean? It’s cause and effect.

    D: Exactly! Our body and our planet are the same shit. It’s the exact same shit. And our economy is really the same shit. And what we’ve seen with this giant economic collapse is a whole lot of high-fructose, partially hydrogenated, high-risk, bullshit get-rich-quick nonsense that is sinking our economy, our planet, our health and our souls. It’s retarded. And there’s a better way to do all that shit. There’s a better way to do everything. Let’s all tell the fucking truth, let’s all do the right thing, let’s all come up with systems and products and services that help everybody do better.

    Jr: But can you do that as a junior?

    D: You can, I think. You have the energy, you have the soul, you don’t have children. Right? That’s the great thing. Older people can say, “I have kids. I love my kids more than I love an abstract notion of life in twenty years, therefore I’m going to sell Snickers.” Snickers is going to give people diabetes. Snickers is going to destroy the fucking world. Right? Snickers is a bad product.

    Jr: But it’ll pay my children’s school fees!

    D: In the short term it’ll bump me this much up in life if I do a big Snickers campaign. Pepsi, right? Peter Arnell (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=WJ4yF4F74vc) is a piece of shit. He was the guy that redesigned their look. I wouldn’t trust that guy to fold my goddamn napkin, much less design my brand. The guy is a fucking catastrophe. I looked through his website (http://arnell NULL.com/) today. It’s atrocious. They have an ad that has CG lizards dancing with football players. It makes no sense. Pepsico has given the keys to the castle to this guy. Why? Because he has round glasses that used to be cool? Round glasses and a beard can get you anywhere these days. Maybe you shouldn’t hire the guy with round glasses anymore. Maybe that worked in the 90’s.

    Jr: Yes! Let’s bring back square glasses! But we digress.

    D: Yeah, fuck that guy. Ha, we got on a weird Peter Arnell tangent there, and how bad Pepsi was. Oh yeah! Pepsi.

    Jr: Yeah, because people want to pay their bills.

    D: Pepsi makes the world worse. It makes us all fat. It encourages reckless consumption. It’s not good. Nobody should be selling SUVs. As a junior, I turned down a job. I had graduated Art Center College of Design. I thought I had a job waiting for me at Karmarama (http://www NULL.karmarama NULL.com/) in London. They came back with an offer that in Britain was very generous. But in America it was so low. I was looking at a six-figure student loan. So I flipped out. I said, “I cannot afford to make that little money. I need to pay this loan off now.” So I turned Karmarama down. Worst decision I ever made.

    Jr: Oh wow.

    D: An ethical, smart, brilliant, creative agency that cared about doing good work and cared about making the world better, in an awesome country with a visa waiting for me. And like a stupid idiot I said no. I had to move back in with my parents in Orange County and freelance in L.A. I would drive two hours to get to these freelance gigs. It was horrible.

    Jr: Why was it so horrible?

    D: Because it was a two-hour drive to get there and an hour drive to get home!

    Jr: That sucks balls.

    D: Yes! That sucks balls! And while doing that I wouldn’t take jobs working on things like Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs). I wouldn’t take a job at Chiat because I wouldn’t work on SUVs. Did you know that the Nissan Pathfinder Armada has thirteen cup-holders and seven seats?

    Jr: Thirteen cup-holders!

    D: And seven seats. No one should buy that. That is bad for the world.

    Jr: Thirteen cup-holders and seven seats? That doesn’t even make sense!

    D: It is bad for the world and I wouldn’t go take a job working on it.

    Jr: So were you briefed on it? How do you go about turning down a job?

    D: No, no, no, I wasn’t briefed on it yet. I just didn’t take the job. I had been in one situation where I was briefed on something though. It was explained to me that the brief was aimed at human resource directors at Fortune 100 companies. The idea behind the campaign was how this very large American health insurance company reduces costs and that’s how they’re solving the health care crisis.

    Jr: Because they reduce costs?

    D: Because they’re reducing costs for employers. Which makes it more affordable. Which means that more employers will be able to continue to provide insurance for their employees. Which is a good thing. In the absence of a modern, sane health system, you need that. So I did the campaign. Half way through the campaign, I find out the media buy is for Congressional Quarterly and The Hill. You know, newspapers that Senatorial and Congressional staffers read, telling policy makers, “Don’t worry, we’ve got it under control.” So I realized this half way through, and the creative was basically done. I told my Creative Director, “I’ll finish this because I started it. But I can’t work on this client anymore. And if it means my job, that’s a conversation we can have.”

    Jr: Wow! You said that? So big!

    D: I had no savings and I was in debt, but I just couldn’t do it. The bottom-line was: I do not have the discipline to do work I disagree with. The worst obligation I have is a stupid loan that my parents co-signed for. I don’t have a house, I don’t have any children, the worst I can do is fuck over my parent’s credit a little bit. That’s the worst-case scenario. Actually, I have a life insurance policy to cover my student loan. So if I get hit by a bus on my way home tonight, they’ll foot the bill. But I don’t want to be run over.

    Jr: Cheers! To saving the world!

    D: To saving the world!.

    Drinks: *Clink*

    Jr: Love the world. *Hiccup*

    D: But no, I mean, I don’t know any young smart creative person that wants to make the world worse. The only ones I know want to make the world better. The world is fucked because of our parent’s generation, it’s not their… Well, it is their fault… But you can’t really blame them. It’s not like your mum and my mom decided to fuck the world. But the world is fucked and we need to fix it. And there’s a lot of money to be made in fixing it. Capitalism can solve this problem. Advertising is the lubricant of capitalism. Lubricate it for good, don’t lubricate it for bad.

    Jr: Absolutely.

    D: Don’t compromise yourself. You don’t have to.

    Jr: So as a young creative, what should you be doing to make sure that happens? Should you be trying to work for the companies that have the good and moral clients? Should you be calling up the clients who are doing good things and saying I need to be working on your business?

    D: You can’t call the client! Who are you going to call? Who are you going to call at Proctor and Gamble? There’s a shitload of people. But! Proctor and Gamble is doing things bit by bit that are good. Unilever is doing things bit by bit. Pepsi, which in it’s current state, is causing obesity and diabetes and short attention spans and hampering education efforts, is a terrible thing. Pepsi is horrible. No one should have Pepsi in their life or their home. It is a bad influence. It is probably worse than drugs. Because it is so widely acceptable to do. No one’s going to give you shit for drinking Pepsi at the Christmas table, but if you bring out the cocaine at Grandma’s house, someone’s going to have a little talk with you. You know, “We’re going to get you some help with that cocaine problem.” No one’s going to intervene and give you help with your Pepsi problem. Who’s going to say, “You know Bob, that shit’s going to give you diabetes and you’re going to fuck up our health care system.” You just don’t have to work for them. Although with Sun Chips, Pepsi is moving to biodegradable bags and using Solar energy, so that’s good. Hopefully they’ll bail on the high fructose corn syrup.

    Jr: So I guess you just pick the right places to work for or when a job comes on you decide to try and change the company culture.

    D: I think if enough people would simply be honest and straight up about everything — shit’s going to change. If you’re stuck in a situation where you’re the person building a coupon for the agency that’s not the decision maker, you’re fucked. But if you’re the decision maker and you’re in a room with your client and you’re smart and you’ve thought through what you’re going to say and it makes sense, they should be OK with everything. Look at G.E. Big fucking company. They own NBC. They make jet engines.

    Jr: Jet engines? Wow.

    D: Yes. Somebody had the balls to present ‘Ecomagination’ as a platform for the company. And it’s fucking brilliant. It’s a mainstream company that has banked their success on making things cleaner and more efficient. And making that into a business that is sustainable. Right? You look at Snapple. They’ve dropped high fructose corn syrup and are switching to sugar.

    Jr: Really?

    D: Yes. Walmart. Fucking Walmart. Adam Werbach of Saatchi and Saatchi S (http://saatchis NULL.com/), his company used to be called Act Now (http://www NULL.actnowproductions NULL.com/). He was the youngest president of the Sierra Club, gave a speech saying, “Environmentalism is dead. We’re not going to hug trees anymore. We’re going to hug the people. We’re going to make everything fucking better at the same time.” Then he started working with Walmart. He looked at the company, inside the company, and said, “How do we make this shit better?” They have language for this, I don’t remember exactly what their internal terms are, but basically they’ve worked with the employees, you know, the people wearing the smocks in the stores, and said, “Make a pledge. Do something to improve your health or your planet.”

    Jr: Wow.

    D: And the brilliant thing behind starting with that is that somebody can come into Walmart, a CEO or whatever, down the road, and say, “Fuck that guy. Fire Saatchi S.” Guess what? Nothing changes. Because your entire culture is built on making things better. So what they did, they started making their shit totally eco — the easy stuff was switching off the lighting, making things more energy efficient. Then they started working with their suppliers, said they wanted to reduce their packaging, said they wanted to reduce their carbon footprint — they’re doing a lot of stuff. Say what you will, they’ve done some evil shit with employee relations and health care, but they do some really smart shit with supply chain management. And they’re doing that to help the environment. And the new thing they’re doing, they’ve banned recombinant bovine growth hormone in their dairy products. That’s a chemical that Monsanto makes that is in American dairy that is illegal everywhere else in the world. American milk is not legal to sell in Canada.

    Jr: No… Really?

    D: Yes. Because it’s filled with this fucked up chemical that makes cows produce a shit ton of milk really fast. And we feed that to American girls. And we wonder why they have giant boobs and get their periods really early.

    Jr: Shit! Is this true?

    D: It totally is! So Walmart said no. Walmart — which many people would say is the worst company in the world.

    Jr: But they only said no recently.

    D: Very recently. I mean, today capitalism isn’t a force for good or bad. Capitalism is just a force for ‘is’. It’s an efficient way of getting shit done. The ‘good’ or ‘bad’ depends on what people demand of it. And our role as advertisers is to create consumer demand. It’s our choice.

    Jr: So I guess what you’re saying is, as a junior, even though you probably can’t influence change until you’re in a room with a decision-maker, you can be educated on what is happening and who the companies are that are implementing these ‘good’ forces of capitalism.

    D: Yes. But really, I would just say have standards — with everything. Because every company has the potential to be good. Every person has the potential to be good. You look around this bar, some of these people are really nice people, some of these people are not nice people. They all have the potential to be either. And we as communicators, we as cultural artists, we as people that create feelings and emotions with our work, when we’re doing advertising, we’re creating desire. We’re creating emotion for our clients. We can steer that for good. Even in subtle ways.

    There was a project I did for Intel, with Venables, Bell & Partners (http://www NULL.venablesbell NULL.com/). When I got there, they had already sold the strategy of ‘Sponsors of Tomorrow’. That was done. The TV and print had sold, they were already working on pre-production, that was done. They needed me to work on the interactive and launch. The idea was, we asked people what they want from the future. “What do you hope for in the future.” So you could go to the website, and you could say, “In the future I want…” You could answer that. You’d type that in. In Times Square, on crazy LED billboards, you could go and see a little guy dance, and see, “In the future I want blah blah blah. What do you want? Text it to this number.” You could text what you wanted out of the future. What do you think people texted?

    Jr: World peace?

    D: Ha, there was a lot of that stuff. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there was like, “I want a girlfriend,” or, “I want a computer that’s super fast.” There was stuff like that. But a very large percentage was humanitarian. People have a hope deep down inside, people want shit to be better. If people didn’t have that we wouldn’t have gotten to this civilisation where you and I can go into this bar and talk to some dude, he’ll bring us a bunch of alcohol, while assuming that we’re going to be good enough to pay and not run out. Girls can come in and we can talk to them, and they’re not going to think we’re going to club them over the head and drag them back to our cave, right? I don’t believe that people are inherently good or bad, but I think we want good.

    Jr: Everybody wants good. Even the bums. *Hiccup*

    D: Even the bums. And if we tie this back to the Obama campaign, what that guy did was appeal to the best of us. He appealed to the best of our nature and it fucking worked.

    Jr: Absolutely. I completely agree with that.

    D: And it bums me out that we’re in this weird hangover right now as a world.

    Jr: What do you mean?

    D: Don’t you feel like we’re all in a giant hangover where we all had this big high and hope and now everybody is like, “Oh, shit’s still kinda fucked up.”

    Jr: Yeah but we’re all just seeing what happens. Maybe the first year is recognizing the problems, the second year is fixing the problems, and the third year is changing the world.

    D: I don’t think it’s like that. I think it’s much faster and more delayed. We did a lot of stuff really fast. We’re starting to see the early indicators of economic recovery. But it hasn’t hit the average person yet. The haemorrhaging is stopping. We haven’t started to heal yet. But the haemorrhaging is stopping. I’m freelancing at a lot of agencies in midtown now, and there’s a lot of empty offices. Empty offices everywhere.

    Jr: Wow. You know, Australia is technically not in recession.

    D: Really?

    Jr: One of the only countries in the world.

    D: Why is that?

    Jr: Well it’s seen a downturn, but not into negative national GDP. That’s not the reason but that’s the evidence.

    D: That’s good.

    Jr: Yeah, I mean, doesn’t mean that a lot of people haven’t lost their jobs.

    D: Well you still drive those stupid cars — the GM ones…

    Jr: What stupid cars? You mean Holdens?

    D: Yeah Holdens! You still drive those big stupid Holden SS Utes. You gotta change that shit.

    Also posted in ADVERTISING | Tags: ADVERTISING, COMMITMENT, CONSUMERISM, ENVIRONMENT, JOB HUNTING, NEW YORK, PEPSI, PETER ARNELL, PROCTOR & GAMBLE, SAN FRANCISCO, SNICKERS, STANDARDS, SUCCESS, WALMART

    Nov 20, 09

    The Interview Series // 25

    leopremutico

    Man or machine? Leo’s glowing global reputation as a ‘wunderkind’ will have you believe the latter. It was our supposition that surely he must be human — mortal and unfunny in real life — just like you or I. We ventured to New York City in order to find out, and the story goes thus: Three short years ago, Leo and his creative partner, Jan Jacobs, were anointed Saatchi & Saatchi New York’s joint Executive Creative Directors. At the time Leo was just 28. They left after one highly awarded year, joined forces again to set-up their own NYC-based agency, Johannes (http://www NULL.johannesleonardo NULL.com/) Leonardo (http://www NULL.johannesleonardo NULL.com/), and have been working harder than you in the two years since. Leo and Jan have created some of the naughties’ most awarded, hilarious, insightful, haunting, and incredibly succinct advertising you’ve likely seen or heard in London and the U.S — ads like this (http://adland NULL.tv/commercials/nspcc-ventriloquist-2003-060-uk), this (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=YMkkQO5HUXM), this (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=X2cs8gnb42A) and this (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=k6z3bGILwMg) — winning many lions and other assorted animal like statues. The jury is still out on Leo’s genetic make-up, for at the interview, Leo spewed mythical reams of advice from his lion-like mouth, then galloped off into the sunset laughing like a hyena. The Junior team turned to one-another, wide-eyed and mystified, mouths gaping like hungry, hungry hippos, gasping for air. Are we making this up? Yes. Without further ado — Leo, Leo, bo-bio. Banana-fanna-fo-fio. Mee-my-mio. Leeeee-o.

    Junior: Hey Leo! Sorry about that ridiculous intro — our intern wrote it. He’s nuts. So first we wanna know, how did you get into the ad game? What was your journey from raw junior to respected senior?

    Leo: It’s a little odd… I was coming out of an operation; my appendix had burst hours before I was due to board a plane to Germany for professional football trials. I woke up from the anesthetic with an advertising idea and my decision was made. I stuck to advertising. Which was a good thing because I wouldn’t have stood a chance at the whole football thing.

    A couple of years before that I had been selected as one of the AFA trainees out of university. It probably helped to have an understanding of how the entire process worked from media, to strategy to account management. But it was most useful in making me absolutely desperate and determined to work in the creative department because I quickly realized I didn’t want to do any of those other things for a living.

    Jr: We’re dying to know if have any stories from your time as a junior when life sucked? Any horror book crits or moments of creative block that made you reassess life and what you were doing?

    L: Sure I did, I think everyone does. Don’t be intimidated by thinking creating great work comes completely naturally to some people. Truth is, anyone who is any good has spent hours and hours perfecting their craft and if they tell you otherwise they’re full of it.

    And the same goes for ‘creative block’. I don’t want to sit here and say I never have it, of course I do. I think the trick is to try and not see it as ‘creative block’. See it as something that happens to everyone, something you just need to work through or come at from a different angle.

    Jr: Wow. Yes. You have no idea how relieving that is to hear from you. You know what else is intimidating? Awards. Obviously you’ve won a lot. Everyone has their own take on what they mean and what they should mean. 99% would agree they mean nothing when compared to ‘creativity’ or ‘effectiveness’ or ’selling lots of shit and making your client happy’. How important have they been to you and how should we as juniors approach the current award industry?

    L: I remember being about 25, at Cannes for the fist time and winning 4 or so Cannes Lions. I realized pretty much right then and there that awards weren’t going to keep me excited about getting out of bed each morning.

    At the end of the day the most important thing for any junior to do is understand what sort of creative person they want to be. Then to strike that balance of getting enough respect and trust to actually one day be able to create that path for yourself.

    Personally, I believe award shows matter less now than they once did. Partly because there’s so many of them, and partly because everyone has a gazillion of them, including students, but more importantly because why would we care so much to see what a panel of 20 or so people think when we have the opportunity to see what millions of people think about our ideas?

    The true reward for our creations now is seeing how they effect and touch the public.

    Jr: Ah yes! But! If that be true, are award books worth looking at these days for inspiration or an education in ideas?

    L: I think it’s important to know what’s been done before, and what hasn’t, to know the rules so you know how to break them, to know the history of work and of a category. As a junior you should soak up all the inspiration you can get.

    I’d just say don’t try and replicate the stuff you see in books. We live in unique and as they say exponential times. Things are changing quicker than ever before, so what was good a year back has never become so old so quickly.

    True inspiration though — that’s not in award books. It’s around us in the world we live. But if the books can help make the work better year upon year, and ultimately the stuff we force into the public’s face a little less crap, then I guess we should take them any which way we can.

    Jr: Someone once told us, “Leo is a genius. He was also supported by brilliant ECDs at every agency he went to.” How important have your mentors been to how you approach your work and what should juniors look for in a brilliant mentor?

    L: Absolutely crucial. Whenever I see a junior unsure of which agency to join I tell them to focus on the individuals there. Ultimately it’s the individuals there who will help guide you and who define those places during the time they spend there. I was lucky enough to work under some great ones, but even more than that I got to work alongside some as a junior writer. With Toby Talbot at Colenso BBDO and of course a few years later working with Jan at Saatchi & Saatchi London.

    So I’ll always be appreciative of how much time senior creatives gave me when I was knocking on their doors with a bad portfolio. Granted I could be an absolute pain in the ass so it was probably easier to see me than not back then. There are great people out there, generous with their time and passionate about their jobs, it’s really just a matter of tracking them down and feeding off them.

    Jr: Could you possibly speculate how important working internationally has been to your career? Can you imagine if you had stayed in Australia and where you might be now?

    L: Probably a much better surfer than I am these days…

    Advertising is a great vehicle to check out the rest of the world. But the strange thing is wherever I’ve ended up I’ve always been glad that I started out in Australia. When there isn’t a whole lot to rely in terms of budgets, production time and global media buys you’re only left with the strength of your idea so that’s what you focus on. Once you’ve learnt how to make your idea bullet proof, all those other layers, they only make your original idea better.

    Jr: What’s your best advice for dealing with politics within an agency, both dealing with others and fighting for ideas, especially when you’re at the bottom rung of the hierarchy?

    Work for someone you believe can spot good ideas. It’s that simple. Chances are part of the reason you got into this industry is because you realized the work rules. So take advantage of that as a junior. My advice would be don’t worry about the other stuff. More and more the true power will lie in the hands of creative people, and we all know the best ones aren’t political.

    Jr: Obviously there are a lot of kids coming straight out of ad schools today with the same work for the same old clients with the same witty headlines and such… What are you looking for in a junior and what can those graduating from the ad schools do differently to stand out and impress someone like you?

    L: The best way I can think to explain that is with something John Lennon said. He was once asked why he wrote music and he responded by comparing it to writing a letter. Writing the letter, he said, got him excited but what he really got off on was the response he would get to that letter. That’s it at its essence. We’re looking for people who have that thing inside them, that urge to touch people with their ideas, those who live for simplifying things down to a common language that effects people, deeply and broadly.

    Of course, now you’re also trying to stand out during the biggest recession of our lifetimes. But I believe that soon this will be an advantage to the kids coming through. History has shown that when the slate is clean, when things are being re-appraised, and it’s happening on two levels in our industry right now – on a technological and an economic level, it’s the turn of the new guard to step up…

    So don’t underestimate yourself, don’t set the bar at junior thinking. You’re competing with every kid out there with a digital camera and internet access. We live in a democratic era of communication, a time of accessibility and participation, where big production budgets can in some cases be more of a burden than a gift.

    Jr: Generating ideas – what’s your process? Have you got any crucial tips to tackling a problem creatively?

    L: I ain’t got any secrets. It happens differently every time, that’s part of the fun. I don’t really keep shortlists of my ideas. I know if it’s good enough it’ll stick around in my head – Jan calls it ‘the volt’. I would say though, don’t ignore the things that on the surface don’t seem crucial to creating great advertising. Like, spending time to identify what the real problem is – not just the advertising problem but the business problem, and embracing the limits imposed on you. It’s often there the real gem lies.

    I also think it’s important to keep in mind, especially as a junior when you don’t have a ton of production experience that as big and important as coming up with the great idea, is understanding what about it will keep it great. Another reason why it’s so important which creative director you work under.

    Jr: OK, enough of that cliche ad-guy question guff — how the hell do you live a balanced life? You obviously work really hard. Is that something that comes naturally or do you have to sacrifice things to make your life liveable outside of hard work?

    L: Hard work has never felt like hard work because it’s something I’ve always loved. Reducing something down to is most basic form, I’m not sure how many other professions there are where you have the same tools as anyone else in the business irrelevant of your experience – a blank pad and a pen.

    So for me loving what you do is the most important ingredient really. If people advise you against being a creative don’t listen to them, listen to your heart. If you’re passionate enough about what you do, you’ll work hard enough at it and the skill will eventually come. Just make sure you’ve instilled a healthy effort reward ratio. By that I mean make sure you’re always working on something you’re excited about – which usually means something you haven’t done before.

    Jr: How far into the future do you look? You’re not that far past thirty and you’ve already achieved more accolades than many people achieve in their entire careers. We know you probably don’t buy into that sort of statement, but where to next? How often do you need to reassess your career and where it fits within your entire life? Do you even think about that shit?

    L: I was made ECD of the Saatchi & Saatchi New York office when I was 28, and I remember when I would walk there across west 4th street, there was a faded chalk scribble that would always catch me out. It simply said ‘where are you going?’. Every time I read it, it made me think: where was I going? To another meeting? To a corner office? Over time, without me realizing it, I think these four words embedded themselves into my subconscious.

    So when I look back on it now Jan and I left Saatchi and Saatchi because we kinda had this feeling inside we weren’t being pushed as much as we could be. We began directing a couple of things and really enjoyed that as a distraction. But we knew there was a bigger issue on the table. We felt the world around us was changing quicker than the big agency model could, and us if we stayed in one. So even if you don’t intend to look far ahead, I guess there’s something inside of us that does.

    Best of luck juniors, I hope this helps.

    Also posted in ADVERTISING | Tags: ADVERTISING, CREATIVITY, HUNGER, INSPIRATION, JOB HUNTING, NEW YORK, SUCCESS, THE INTERVIEW SERIES

    Nov 11, 09

    The Interview Series // 24

    woody

    Most interviews we read in magazines are shit. It’s what inspires us to do what we do. That and other magazines that do brilliant interviews. Magazines like SneakerFreaker – Melbourne’s very own incredibly good and culturally important international publishing success. Founded, edited and owned by the original sneaker freaker himself, Woody has built SF into a global behemoth. He’s also seen his fair share of young upstarts float through his office, lived and worked overseas, moved from career to career, started a family, and even has SF translated into Spanish. Which means he has some fascinating shit to say and some incredibly crucial advice to give. As usual, over many a beer, we sat and talked for hours. Ergo, this fucker is long. But that’s cool, cause the ones who need to read it most have a lot of time on their hands. So grab a tea, put on your headphones and use this as a guide to figuring out what the hell you’re gonna do for the next twenty years.

    Junior: Hey Woody. What’s your coming of age story? When were you at uni?

    Woody: I spent five good years doing the Media course at RMIT in Melbourne. I was involved in a bunch of stuff and ended up becoming the co-editor of the student newspaper, Catalyst, which was literally a catalyst for me in terms of how my life panned out. I was introduced to a whole bunch of people who’d been the editors before and I ended up living with them for years, and for some reason they took me under their wing, which was weird because I was a wildman from the suburbs. Fitzroy was a very creative place then. We started a magazine from our house called Radar and had these awesome parties in the bank vault where we lived on Smith St. They were good times. I hate getting nostalgic when we’re only one question in…

    Jr: Ha, man, you can do whatever you want one question in – it’s your interview. So tell me more about Catalyst; the student newspaper.

    W: Oh yeah. So because we won an election to edit the newspaper, all of a sudden we had to learn how to make it; you know, write, design and create the whole thing. We were the first editors to get a Macintosh computer too. It was totally primitive before that point. We started the year with a bromide camera which we used to put screens on images for manual paste-up, as well as creating multiple tones for hand-made colour work which we did with scalpels. My memories involve a lot of sliced fingers and layouts lost in the wax machine. When we saw a scanner for the first time, we were really, really impressed. Actually my entire design career started when my friend Bert showed me how to move things around on the Mac screen. It’s hard to imagine how boring life was before the machines existed. No one I knew was a graphic designer. It was a trade, like being a plumber. People spent years learning how to do things in a really mechanical sort of way. When the computer came along, all of a sudden, you could have fun with a machine and make stuff. Straight away I really got into design which was totally unexpected. I never thought about a career in design at high school, where art classes were seen merely as a bludge. Random things can spin your life off in a whole new direction, it’s the kind of thing your mum tells you but you never believe her.

    Jr: Damn straight. As long as you open yourself up to happy accidents you’ll be fine for sure. So we know you moved to London for a while after uni. What brought on the London thing?

    W: I’d encourage everyone to head for the hills immediately after school finishes, because you’ll never get a better time to do it. But the real reason I left was because I almost got involved in some trouble with the fuzz after doing the O-book where we wrote the usual student articles about shoplifting and taking drugs and shoplifting while on drugs and not paying for tram tickets. All the cliches.

    Jr: Ha! Wow. Really? That was you?

    W: Oh yeah, it was par for the course in those days. It was a tradition to stir the pot so we just rewrote the same articles over and over every year. I think a year or two after my indiscretions they nailed the editors of Rabelais (another student newspaper) for the exact same type of content and it seriously fucked them for years – so going to London was a great move.

    Jr: Sounds like it was. So what was the plan?

    W: I thought I could parlay my limited experience into something design related, but all I really knew was that I didn’t want to work in a pub like every other aussie dingbat. I’m pleased to say I did one day as a street cleaner and that was enough motivation for me. I got so, so close to a design job at NME, which would have been awesome. I also made the final two for Penthouse as well. That would have been interesting for sure.

    Jr: So were you into ‘The Face (http://www NULL.flickr NULL.com/groups/thefacemagazine/pool/)’ and all those types of magazines coming out of the UK at the time?

    W: I was obsessed. I never felt iD so much but I loved Raygun (http://www NULL.flickr NULL.com/photos/joekral/sets/72157621244439899/) and The Face. From a design point of view, Neville Brody (http://en NULL.wikipedia NULL.org/wiki/Neville_Brody)’s work was great but it was the mix of content that hooked me. The Face made London seem underground and wicked cool and it had fashion and art and politics and serious stuff as well as loads of club news and even it has to be said, quite a few sneakers. It was probably the most effective marketing tool any city has ever had but you go there and you find that it’s a grey depressive shithole. But that’s only one visual side of London, the other is that it has the most vigorous youth culture – certainly it’s the top city for music in my opinion. I really regret not keeping my collection of The Face, I had years and years of them but they were too heavy to lug from house to house.

    Jr: Ha, awesome. What year did you go?

    W: 1993 or something.

    Jr: OK, here’s a good question: For a lot of fresh faced uni kids that go overseas, the ‘big break’ rarely comes. They haven’t got any contacts, they haven’t done any work yet, so they’re not even that good.

    W: Well the thing is they’re pretty much unemployable. Sorry to break it to you kids but it’s the truth, no matter how cocky you are. I think bullshitting is perfectly acceptable in order to get a break, just be sure you can do what you say you can do. I was fortunate enough to get picked up by a freelance agency. I also went to the UK at a time when no one really had the skills that I thought I had, so it was a bit easier in hindsight. My big break was to learn on the job at someone’s expense even if I taught myself.

    Jr: What were the skills?

    W: Well, I mean, desktop design as it used to be called. At that time it was Quark Express, a very early version of Photoshop and Illustrator – so the programs are still the same, but at that time no one knew how to use them. You couldn’t learn it anywhere. It wasn’t in the tertiary system. So I turned up to London expecting them to be high tech and super advanced but then realised I was one of maybe a few hundred people in the city at the time who knew anything at all about Macs.The advertising agency I worked for had no computers except for the receptionist’s PC. Everything in the creative department was done by hand and illustrators did all the mock ups with Yoken markers. It was seriously like the Dark Ages.

    Jr: So who picked you up?

    W: I started working for a few freelance agencies. I bought a suit to wear to big banks to create flow charts which I did for about three or four months.

    Jr: Did you make much money?

    W: I think I earned ten pounds an hour or something like that, which was pretty sharp in those days, certainly better than pulling pints. Luckily my agency really liked me and they gave me a crack at a job that was going at a small advertising agency in SoHo.

    Jr: How long were you in London all up?

    W: Quite a while. I developed a really bodgy English accent that got me through. I guess you could say I was slightly overstaying my welcome, officially speaking.

    Jr: Ha, yeah we know the one. Did you make friends when you were there?

    W: Yeah. I made all my friends, still ten or more years later, based on this time.

    Jr: Really?

    W: Yeah. All my closest English friends except one have emigrated here to Melbourne.

    Jr: Wow! Really? Why?

    W: It’s a great place to live. To come here from London and have sunshine and space and freedom and this ‘Neighbours’ lifestyle dare I say it, it gets more and more attractive as you get into your 30s. One of my oldest friends even had his mum emigrate. I think going back to London now would be pretty devastating from a lifestyle point of view. Melbourne has its weaknesses, but the lifestyle isn’t one, although with the price of houses now, we’re in danger of it becoming unaffordable for anyone creative or less than committed to the corporate grind.

    Jr: A lot of people think the same way I suppose. Although London has all the culture and so on.

    W: When you’re in your twenties and you’re mad for it, for sure. If you’re going out all night, every night, it’s a great place to live. It was absolutely brilliant, there was always something entertaining to do.

    Jr: Did you do that? Did you go out all night, every night, while you were working?

    W: I gave it a good nudge!

    Jr: What happened when you came home?

    W: After the usual case of mild post-travelling blues, I worked in advertising for a year at Patterson Bates (GPY&R). It wasn’t a great time for the company; I think they lost a lot of pitches. It was ok. I wasn’t excited about what I was doing. It wasn’t that creative. Maybe I should have been pushier and tried to get into writing TV ads or something. But my priorities were elsewhere, I was DJ’ing and organizing events at night and doing other stuff that was a lot more fun.

    Jr: Did you like the advertising industry?

    W: Yes and no. I was a little disenchanted creating junkmail which to be honest, which is what I did. In the 80s, it must have been a wild scene with so much money floating about. In London I arrived at the tail end of that and they were all misty eyed about these crazy times when, you know, ‘Steve rode his Harley down the hallway and crashed, knocking himself out on the photocopier’ or one classic I remember was when a new guy called Nobby joined the firm. The story was on his first day he managed to spill a Flaming Lamborghini on the boss and set his shirt on fire at dinner. In Australia it was much more conservative. I had green hair. It wasn’t going to end well and I wasn’t thinking about a career. I never have really.

    Jr: The employment prospects haven’t always been great for school leavers have they?

    W: Nope. When I left Uni, there was nothing going on. I think a lot of kids leaving university are facing a similar sort of situation. The pressure is to get a break somehow, but beyond that, if you are useful and you can justify your own existence at a company they will always find room for you. The hard thing is when you have no experience and you can’t prove that you can or can’t do something. You have to make yourself valuable.

    Jr: Is that something that you had to work on? Making yourself valuable? Or were you just like that?

    W: I wouldn’t say I ‘worked on it’. I just worked. The harder you work, the luckier you get. I was annoying, quite frankly. I got into radio by annoying people, and ended up working at various radio stations while at Uni. I bugged people til they let me have a go. I think that just being super keen is all you can really expect from somebody at a young age.Think about it, you can do whatever you want with your life but only if you have a crack. However, I think there are some things you can teach people and some things you can’t. An understanding of the world and how things interrelate – you can’t teach anyone that. It’s an instinctive thing. If you are going to work in fashion, you need to ‘get it’. There’s no point just trying to be in that industry because you think it’s glamorous or you’ll get to root models. You’ll be chewed up by someone who’d climb over your dead body for a job.

    Jr: Have you gone through your fair share of young people who aren’t diligent at Sneaker Freaker?

    W: We’ve had a pretty good track record. A few times I’ve tried to advertise and get someone out of college but never really found the right person. We’re a really small outfit and I don’t have time to teach someone from scratch. It’s frustrating for me but I learned that you can’t expect too much initially, you have to be patient and let them work it out. I’ve had some pretty funny experiences. One kid trying out for a job told me that I couldn’t teach him anything about Photoshop, and he’d probably been using it for two years. He was actually quite skilled, but I think his attitude alone rang bells for a potential employer. You want a little bit of cockiness but you don’t want someone who doesn’t listen and doesn’t think that they can’t learn. You mainly want accuracy and speed, that’s super important. That is one thing that the school environment doesn’t seem to promote in my experience. Young kids get tired and need a little nap to get back on track. It’s a grind. You’ve got to be productive 8 or 9 hours a day.

    Jr: There’s a lot of talent going around, but not a lot of work ethic. I suppose there’s always going to be someone more talented than you, but it’s about how passionate you are and how hard you work.

    W: True. I gotta say, the work ethic of Gen Y kids is a hot topic amongst my peers right now. I think that’s because they are now managing staff for the first time, but there’s definitely a sense that the GFC could be a good thing as it might take a few uppity kids down a peg or two. I’m not so sure this generation’s work ethic is that much different from my own Gen X clique… just a little more distracted by the overdose of technology.

    Jr: What’s the most valuable skill to have aside from being keen?

    W: A knack for networking. It’s a shit name for it but it is what it is. You can’t teach someone how to do it, though you might learn the secret someday through observation. It’s a vague business. Some people just have a knack at making friends with other people who can help them. That’s why starting a mag or writing a blog can become so universally useful. You meet people. Forget about the rest of it, meeting people and connecting the dots is crucial. You can base an entire career on knowing people.

    Jr: Oh god, don’t get me started on social media and ‘networking’. I think we’ve got to be careful, you know. Everyone seems to get so caught up in the conversation and being part of the technology that they actually forget to do stuff. Everyone is talking about it, making comments, but not actually creating anything.

    W: No shit! I picked up a biz card recently where this kid had over 12 ways of contacting them and I wondered how the hell he gets anything done? People get obsessed with Twitter, but six months ago something different was happening. I’ve seen it with trends, and in footwear, certain things have come and gone so fast I’m still scratching my head. I must admit the pace of change recently has really kicked up a gear. We’re now facing a world where TV, newspapers, magazines and even radio are no longer the foundation of our media diet. The porn industry is on its knees! Books are on the way out as well, at least in a printed sense. I’m really intrigued as to whether this new Kindle could really do for books what the iPod has done for music.

    snkrfrkr

    Jr: That’s an interesting point. Sneaker Freaker is kinda like a book. It’s a bit nicer than the usual magazine really. You must sell a few more older issues than any other magazine. Do you think the content goes out of date?

    W: It does and it doesn’t. You can’t buy those shoes anymore, but every magazine becomes a document of its time so you can go back and still enjoy them as a snapshot of the years they were made. We sell a lot of our old issues, more than most magazines perhaps. Magazines are a good barometer of style and opinion and when you go back you do get a good insight into the times. We’ve been going about seven years or so and really the first one was pretty raw when you look at it. I have to say it was actually designed that way on purpose, but still, it was pretty loose. I wish I could have seen into the future.

    Jr: Ha, I totally have that copy. How many people were working on it then?

    W: The magazine didn’t have any staff for probably the first four years. Hans DC came to work with me part time helping in various ways. I wish I’d ramped it up earlier but I just didn’t have the foresight to go for it. I was also still working on my label called Wankuss (with my friend Alasdair McKinnon), as well as doing design work for films like Ned Kelly and Queen of the Damned and other stuff. I liked to keep my options open.

    Jr: Really? It was just you? Wow. Back then a lot of clever people put out free magazines. I used to read Stu Magazine and Large whenever I could get my hands on them.

    W: Stu was good. Vice came along. And Lucky. There were about seven free magazines floating around. Our first edition was free then I decided to charge for it. People still think it’s free.

    Jr: Yeah it seemed to be the heyday of free magazines.

    W: Yep. Not sure we’ll see too many new ones open up for business. But I have a killer idea for a new magazine that would be awesome which only proves how out of touch I really am.

    Jr: Haha. Maybe. Maybe not. You’d probably be surprised. I’m sure that’s what people said when you came up with an idea So why sneakers?

    W: I thought that I was one of the few people who were into sneakers, but then I could see it was bigger than I thought – there were a lot of guys like me who had 50 or 60 shoes in their closet but we didn’t know each other. Sneakers are one of those things that men can talk animatedly, dudes are really into their feet. It used to be about Air Max and chunky runners but it’s flipped on its head now. Pointer and Clae and Gourmet are doing very well, brands with simple things, not super jacked-up runners. Trends are definitely changing. You can’t stop progress, but it’s easy to feel like a dinosaur.

    Jr: Was it difficult starting up a magazine?

    W: Not really, because I only needed a few thousand dollars to get it printed. Then by issue two people wanted to buy it. Our first international customer was a very well known store in Paris.

    Jr: Wow! How did they find you?

    W: Through our website. We were one of the first online sneaker sites. The reason they are so renowned is because they find out about something before anyone else. They’re the top of their game. I was in there last week and it was mental how many people go in there. It’s like a tourist attraction! Once we went international I also had to learn about things like international shipping, which became crucial to the business growing. Boring things like this are so important and can be the difference between survival and death.

    Jr: That’s the thing with publishing in Australia. You can print it here but then you’ve gotta ship all those heavy issues overseas. Some magazines print overseas and distribute it that way. Do you ever do that?

    W: Once about five years ago we sold out of an issue in about a week and we got another order of 2000 copies. The reprint quote locally was nuts, so I found a printer in China and got them shipped straight out of there. I haven’t done it since. We’re still printed in Melbourne, five blocks from my house. It’s just too stressful to not know where your job and therefore your whole life is at. I remember all too well a launch party in Sydney where the magazines were still on a truck locked in the warehouse as a result of a snap industrial action.

    Jr: Can you raise a family on a niche publication?

    W: I can now. In the first few years I never had staff to pay so the overheads were low. I learned over time how to make money from a variety of sources. You can sell magazines, advertising, online banners, syndicate your content and do marketing for brands and product development. I have to say in every respect, I learned the hard way. Piece by piece. I learned a lot from watching other people and making mistakes. I also had to learn to trust people in other countries. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. I’ve been pretty lucky in that department.

    Jr: And I guess you have that giant monolith Nike to buoy you up.

    W: Nike has always been good to me, right from the start. But we are also supported by nearly every other brand in the footwear biz. If you wanna start a niche magazine, make sure what you do is invaluable to the marketing managers of multinational companies or you’ll forever be pushing shit uphill.

    Jr: How would someone who really wants to work in big brand sneakers approach getting a job at a company like that? How do they go about it?

    W: Actually we did a feature about how to get into the business a while back. There’s a few simple things. Every brand needs accountants and pen pushers but if you’re talking about shoe design, a lot of the guys at Nike and other brands are originally architects or sculptors, in other words they had an idea of three-dimensional space that could be translated to footwear. Shoe design school didn’t really exist til recently. Doing research on any company that you want to work for is a must. Knowing everything about them, but also having an understanding of how they hire is essential. If you want to work for adidas, find out how to get in contact with their HR department. Start on the phones or in their factory outlet and build your way up. There are plenty of CEOs who started in the mailroom. It’s also thinking strategically. Working for Sneaker Freaker could be a good way to get in as it’s an insight into the industry. Foot Locker wouldn’t hurt either. You need to know what you’re talking about and have a foundation of knowledge.

    Jr: Loving sneakers isn’t enough at the end of the day; you have to have some sort of skill or craft.

    W: Correct. Loving something can actually be a handicap, if you wanna be a hardass about it. When you love something too much, your opinion and judgment can be clouded by sentiment. But if it was me, I’d go for the passion every time. I think one of the biggest things that kids could learn is to be persistent. Some kids expect to start as a junior and take over the company in two years. Or if you start your own thing, that you’ll be rich overnight. The reality is that businesses mature over a few years and it takes you time to work out what you are actually doing, unless you are super advanced or lucky. It’s human nature that is probably exacerbated by this frantic model we’ve built up. Everyone wants everything yesterday. If only it was that easy… whatever happened to paying your dues?

    Jr: I think that’s a wonderful point to make. Persistence is something we’re big on. But sometimes persistence isn’t even enough. You know, it’s really hard to do something big in such a small market place like Australia. Take publishing for example: If you want to get distribution of your magazines, you’ve got to be in a bigger market.

    W: That’s true, but I don’t think that’s a reason not to do anything. It’s like procrastinators who never do anything because they’re too cool to put themselves out there or they think it’ll never work so why bother. Melbourne is full of creative people, the only problem is that most of them are, like anywhere else, mildly talented at best. The most talented ones find it a struggle to attract the same benefactors they’d find in Europe or the US. Look how many talented Australians have to leave? We are a nation of 22 million, the same size as greater New York. So to answer your question, you def need to be in a bigger market, but it’s not going to happen sitting on your date in Fitzroy drinking Chai and smoking rollies. You have to work your ass off. In my own world, I realised that if I wanted to succeed beyond Australia, I learned from others that staying home in my office wasn’t gonna make it happen. I’m on the road a lot.

    Jr: Isn’t Sneaker Freaker translated into Spanish?

    W: Yeah, it has been for the past two years. It’s been going really well and we have a great partner running the office over in Barcelona. I’m pretty sure we are the first Aussie magazine to be translated into a foreign language.

    Jr: Do you ever think about moving it all overseas?

    W: I have at different times, but this is where I’m from and this is where I’m staying. The footwear industry in Australia is in Melbourne. But I think I do regret not moving a bit. Maybe I’m just not the personality type to really take it to the max… Either way, we have been successful on our own terms which is just part of the story.

    Jr: Maybe because you married and had kids. Was that the plan? To settle down?

    W: I think that cycle of life is inevitable. I wish I’d had a family earlier in hindsight, but we can all look back and say that. Luckily I have a very understanding wife who encouraged me to go for it, even if she recently confided that she thought the magazine was a crazy idea and would be lucky to last six months.

    Jr: Any plans to expand your team?

    W: I would like to find an Editor to take over next year so I can spend some time working on different ideas. We are always looking for writers. But it’s hard to find anyone who can write these days, as well as have a command of sneakers. If anyone is interested they can email info@sneakerfreaker.com (info null@null sneakerfreaker NULL.com).

    Jr: So that means that you could focus on running the business.

    W: Absolutely, I could move to the Bahamas and sit under a palm tree with my blackberry.

    Jr: And a cocktail! Any final advice for the kids who wanna start a magazine and make a living out of it?

    W: My advice is go for it. What the hell. What’s the worst that can happen? You might go bankrupt and have to flee to Brazil…  just don’t let anyone tell you something can’t be done or you’ve got a stupid idea. I had that plenty of times. How many people get rich from stupid ideas?

    Also posted in DESIGN, PUBLISHING, WRITING | Tags: ADVERTISING, COMMITMENT, CREATIVITY, HUNGER, INSPIRATION, JOB HUNTING, LONDON, MAGAZINE, MELBOURNE, OVERSEAS, PUBLISHING, RMIT, SNEAKERFREAKER, SNEAKERS, THE INTERVIEW SERIES, WOODY, WORK, WRITING

    Oct 22, 09

    Interview Series // 23 (Part One)

    daniel

    “Have you ever played the Legend of Zelda? That’s what getting a job in advertising is like.” This, my precocious and talented friends, is exactly the sort of nerdy but insightful advice you’re likely to get from Daniel Bremmer (http://peachfuzz NULL.net/), especially after two shots of Absinthe, three cocktails and a round of Coopers. We met to conduct this interview on a beautiful summer’s evening in a quaint Brooklyn establishment, and sat talking shit for hours. We talked about highschool, the New York ad industry, the Obama campaign, the Legend of Zelda and even the merits of not having sex. You see, Daniel’s a 35-year-old kid from California, freelancing in New York City, trying his hardest to save the world, and has something to say about everything. Which he’s allowed to, for he’s pretty much worked on everything, everywhere, from Microsoft to Prius to Coke and Obama. He’s also just launched a site to save health care in the U.S. named notatable.org (http://www NULL.notatable NULL.org/). But! Let. Me. Tell. You! That stuff didn’t matter after a particularly potent round of cocktails. You know what did? Talking to strangers sitting next to us, that’s what! Which we did for so long, we totally forgot we were there to do an interview, until Daniel remembered, and things got interesting…

    Daniel: Alright! Start! What do you want to ask?

    Junior: Ugh. I don’t even know anymore.

    D: Come on! I’m the one that’s supposed to be drunk, not you.

    Jr: I know!

    D: You should have been sober. You should have been drinking coffee.

    Jr: No, no! I’m all good! I swear! Alright, alright. I usually like to start with a quick rundown of where you started out, what you wanted to do, how you got into uni, and then the job, you know…

    D: My life story?

    Jr: Well… *Hiccup* …Yeah, I guess. Quick though! Two hundred words or less!

    D: Ha, OK. I’ll try. I grew up in Orange County. It was a very conservative place. My parents are somewhat hippy. We grew food in the backyard. We had pet chickens. I went to Space Camp (http://www NULL.spacecamp NULL.com/). My Dad was an engineer. My Mother was a teacher. I was the oldest child. Very idealistic. Tragedy struck. I had a brother die when I was in fourth grade. He was six months old. He was a baby. Really bad. I had a bad time in school after that. Wanted to take a class in Graphic Design, which wasn’t what it was called, it was some weird word. I signed up because I heard you got to make t-shirts. And I wanted to make t-shirts for bands I liked.

    Jr: What bands were you listening to?

    D: Well me and my friends were into this weird mix. There weren’t enough kids in my high school to have different alternative scenes. This was before Nirvana came out with Nevermind. Like, right before. Because we didn’t have enough alternative kids, we had to combine all the high schools together. All the kids would go to the goth club wearing black. Then the next week we’d go to the shoegaze concert, and we’d all be wearing corduroys and creepers. It was all the same kids. There weren’t enough kids to have different scenes; so all the kids who were into cool shit from all the different high schools were one scene.

    Jr: And where was this? California?

    D: Huntington Beach. A little conservative beach town.

    Jr: Is this like The O.C (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=yMGyl-l3qqc)? The TV show?

    D: Yeah, that’s set in Newport Beach, which borders Huntington Beach.

    Jr: So all the cool alternative kids made their own scene…

    D: It wasn’t cool though! What we did became cool after we graduated. While we were doing it, it was super dorky.

    Jr: So shoegaze and goth was super dorky.

    D: Super dorky. Everybody liked bad hair metal and R&B.

    Jr: I think this is a good opportunity to talk about schooling. A lot of high school students read these things you know. So what were you like at school?

    D: Well I never did my homework. I was a horrible student. I loved to learn and I was a gifted kid. I was in honors, but I nearly got kicked out as a freshman for skipping class.

    Jr: So did you have a problem with focus? Was that what it was?

    D: Well it was all my fault, in retrospect. I didn’t have the discipline to do it. But when you really look at it, I knew that I knew the subject material. The teacher knew that I knew the material. I knew that the teacher knew that I knew the material… Everybody knew. And I wasn’t allowed to just cut through the bullshit. No one was allowed to do that. Because you had to jump through these hoops. And that just seemed stupid. I couldn’t comprehend how that mattered. In life, especially. And sadly, at the end of the day, it didn’t matter at all.

    Jr: Yeah it doesn’t matter, but it does matter! Because it’s all about discipline and focus and sitting down and doing the work.

    D: But you know what? I am a disciplined and focused motherfucker today. I remember I had a freelancer, while I was working at SS+K (http://www NULL.ssk NULL.com/) on a project, and he wanted to go home. It was ten o’clock, there was shit to be done, and I couldn’t understand. I said, “You’re trying to go home? What the fuck is wrong with you? It’s not done. It’s only ten o’clock. Grow a pair.”

    Jr: Heh, yeah, grow a pair.

    D: “We’re doing shit. Grow the fuck up. If you want to do shit then we need to do it right.” So when it comes to that level of focus and discipline on my projects, I’m incredibly dedicated. I guess at the time, teenage me never saw the value of jumping through hoops to prove something. So anyways, you can edit all that out. No one cares about that.

    Jr: But I do think it’s important! Think about the kids! They need to know this stuff. They should feel they’re not alone and so on.

    D: Yeah, I guess so. Anyway, fast forward a bit and I went to Community College after High School, got into design, I wasn’t that good, the dot-com thing came around and suddenly I was being paid a lot of money. I still wasn’t very good. But I could learn html and I was a really mediocre designer. This was the late nineties.

    I DJ’d at a college radio station. I used to write for music magazines. I used to promote concerts. I was really involved in the underground music scene in Southern California. That was my life. It was through music that I discovered art and design.

    And then I worked my way into a really crappy Orange County ad agency called Priscomm. I was their web guy. And I saw this guy Jimmy who was the Creative Director and his job was to look at a business problem and come up with ideas that became ads, which I would then make into websites. So I thought, “So he just sits around and thinks… And comes up with ideas… And gets to pay rent that way? You can do that? That’s an option?” So I took a night class in advertising, fell in love with it, and then it all started.

    Jr: How old were you when you took a night class?

    D: Maybe mid twenties? Like 25. Maybe 26?

    Jr: You were 26 when you realized you wanted to do advertising?

    D: Yeah. I had no idea that I could do that.

    Jr: You know what the funny thing about that is. I know a whole bunch of 21, 22, 23 year olds that feel like they are over, they’re too old, by the time they get into advertising.

    D: Dude, I just stopped getting carded at bars and I’m 35. It’s the beard.

    Jr: Ha.

    D: I don’t know. I don’t know what to tell you.

    Jr: I think this is the biggest problem with juniors. They think that their time is up by 25.

    D: Sprout a pair. When I started at Art Center College of Design, the average age was 24. It very quickly changed. Now it’s down to like 18 or 19 years because of funding problems. But it used to be that it was a second career. For most of the people I know that are really good, it’s a second career.

    Jr: Well that’s what we’re kinda hearing. That back in the day when the mavericks were running the industry it was full of misfits. The dudes from Brooklyn who didn’t know what to do with their lives but were super smart and street savvy and could sell anything to anyone. Apparently they were the guys who were getting into advertising. And now it’s become full of a lot of fresh-faced marketing kids straight out of uni who think they can change the world with a social media strategy.

    D: All we need is smart people who are willing to call bullshit on everything. I have this issue. I’m freelancing at a large agency right now, I’m not going to say who they are… but you meet these people, and some of them are brilliant. It’s a large agency with a very good reputation. But sometimes you meet a person and you think, “Why are you here?” It’s filled with people who don’t understand how people communicate today. It’s like they still live in the old days of two creative guys sitting in a room who had an idea of what the world should be because they had these great lifestyles. They saw movies and did drugs at work and got paid big salaries to talk about their ideas all day. They had these ideas about what the world should be like and they turned them into awesome 30 or 60 second commercials and big lavish print ads that they shot in exotic locations. That’s over. That world still exists in some way, but it’s not relevant anymore.

    Most people in America don’t live that life. They deal with real problems. They have their own ideas. They’re used to a different type of communication where they don’t suck down what the TV tells them anymore. They tell the TV what they want to watch. And when they don’t like it, they fast-forward or they skip it, right? They don’t even fucking look at paper anymore. They do once in a while, but if it’s not relevant to them then they don’t care.

    The world of media and communication is dramatically changing and advertising works within that world. The skills that we have of, ‘I am a Copywriter. This guy is an Art Director. We get together and come up with ideas and they’re gonna look pretty and sound nice,’ is not necessarily the skill set that people who use social media, a medium that allows these people to express their ideas and control what they want, resonate with. Sometimes it is. Because I think all those people will sit down, even the most jaded among us, close the laptop, turn off the lights and watch a great fucking show. So that still exists on some level. But for the general majority of advertising, we need to figure out what these people want. What these people are interested in. We need to find a way to make our work relevant to them. I don’t think that’s the way advertising works today, and I don’t think the way we teach people to make advertising is relevant anymore. It’s fucking dumb.

    Jr: And most definitely in New York!

    D: New York is the worst! I have to live it! I sat in a room the other day to talk about a campaign for a large company’s effort in the health care industry, and it’s in a good way, they actually make things to improve health care. But I counted fourteen people in the conference room.

    Jr: Wow! Fourteen! That’s fucked!

    D: I know! Only four of them were involved in the ideation of what was happening. The meeting took about two hours. Nothing was accomplished. Which means this large American company was paying for fourteen people to sit around and feel important. For what? That’s what New York is.

    Jr: OK, so, Obama. You need to tell me about Obama, start to finish.

    D: Am I going to be forever known as the guy who did some work on Obama? Did I peak on November 4th, 2008? Am I over?

    Jr: Well generally when we interview someone, we want to have a popular hook that people can associate with. So we’re tagging you with Obama.

    D: So it’s not just my winning personality?

    Jr: No. Not at all.

    D: Ha. OK. Well, I will have to sadly disappoint you by saying that I worked on only one part of a six-agency effort to get the guy elected. This is how pathetic my little slice of history is.

    Jr: But it’s still very important!

    D: Well yes. Having said that, it was still the greatest thing I’ve ever done in my life, the greatest thing I’ve ever been a part of, and the greatest change I’ve ever had a piece of. It’s the best thing I’ve done, according to Kantian ethics… Are you familiar with Kant?

    Jr: You mean Emmanuel Kant (http://en NULL.wikipedia NULL.org/wiki/Kant), the 18th-century German philosopher from the Prussian city of Königsberg widely known as the last influential philosopher of modern Europe?

    D: Yes, that guy. So, according to Kantian ethics, the best contribution to society I’ve ever made is getting this dude elected. My part of getting this dude elected was an ad campaign to get young people to get off their fucking ass and register to vote.

    Jr: Because you knew that they’d vote Obama, right?

    D: Totally. Our data said that 70 percent of the people aged 18 to 35 were going to vote for Obama. We had to make the idea of voting relevant to these people. We also knew that young people don’t believe that politics is a way of getting something done. Our insider challenge was to say, “If you show up and vote, it is a worthwhile way to accomplish the things that you already want of out life. The things that you want for the future.”

    They don’t feel that voting actually accomplishes dick squat. They feel it’s been proven that it doesn’t. So the challenge was to register as many of them as possible.

    Another problem we had was that the entire process is outdated nonsense. Every state has different laws. You need to buy a stamp, a postage stamp, to register to vote! You can’t do it online. It’s stupid. So we had to overcome all this shit. The bottom line was, ‘How do we make registering as relevant as possible and how do we register as many of them as possible?

    Well, the easiest way to do it is through a website. Anyone who’s young knows how to use the web. All they care about is ‘Give me a fucking URL and I’ll take care of it.’ That became Voteforchange.com. (Editors note: Which is no longer online, sorry kiddies.)

    Jr: And as little clicks as possible.

    D: Yes, exactly. I’m sure someone else on the Obama campaign thought of that name as well, but my partner Peter Cortez and I came up with the name and they liked it. A guy named Scott Thomas (http://simplescott NULL.com/) was the information architect of the site. He was also the design director for Obama For America (http://www NULL.barackobama NULL.com/). He’s the one that took the Sol Sender (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=etEP1Bhgui0) icon and cleaned up the type. He was responsible for most of the look of the Obama campaign. He’s the one that brought in Shepard Fairey (http://obeygiant NULL.com/).

    Jr: Sounds like he’s the bro to know. So voteforchange.com…

    D: Yeah, the tagline for the site was, “Everything you need to register and vote”. Most of the campaign was Peter and I working 18 hours a day in a room. It was a lot of BO, bad sushi, and favors from awesomely talented people. We sent out questionnaires from a Gmail address to everyone we knew. We didn’t tie it to the Obama campaign at all, a lot of the stuff we didn’t even tell our own bosses, because we knew if we told our bosses they would have to go get approval, and we didn’t have time for that, so we just did a lot of shit fly-by-night.

    So we set up this Gmail account and sent out these petitions to everybody we knew. We wanted to know, “Why is it worthwhile for you to vote? What are you going to get out of it? What do you expect to happen?” We got back hundreds of responses from all over the country. We got a lot of people from other countries, but we couldn’t use their stuff. We took all the interesting responses, broke them down into probably seven or eight categories of why you would vote. We built these buckets and filled them with responses that were good. Then we reached out to a lot of poster artists. We had two artists that were instrumental in getting everybody else. On the West Coast it was Brian Flynn of Hybrid Design (http://www NULL.hybrid-design NULL.com/). On the East Coast it was Tristan Eaton of Thunderdog Studios (http://www NULL.thunderdogstudios NULL.com/).

    posters

    Jr: So these guys do music posters and stuff?

    D: Yes. These are the guys who are big fucking dogs in their scene. Then it was all about our fantasy file. Who are all the designers you’ve always wanted to work with? We just emailed everyone, called everyone. And you know, it was just me and Peter in the office, the air conditioning shuts off at seven or eight, the funk kicks in, the smell of the old sushi boxes too, and you just go. You call all your East Coast peeps until it’s ten o’clock and it’s getting kind of late. Then you start calling West Coast peeps until about one. And you’re calling everybody and you’re briefing people constantly. We’d brief someone and say, ‘Health care: The issues are X, Y, and Z. Obama’s platform is 1, 2, and 3. Here’s three different headlines that should be able to work with the image you’re going to create. Show us your sketches.’

    posters2

    Jr: So was everything you got back good? Or did you have to refine some things?

    D: Almost everything was good. There were a few people that we couldn’t use, not very many, I think at the end 18 artists did about 22 or 23 pieces that were published. All the artists worked for free, nobody got paid.

    Jr: Nobody got paid?

    D: Not a penny.

    Jr: So how’d you do that?

    D: We tried to get honorariums but we told them upfront that they had to be willing to do this for the love and the glory. We had exactly one guy tell us no because of the money.

    Jr: Really?

    D: Yeah, then he called us back and said yes. The only people who said no were people who were just physically overbooked. If people were already yelling at them for work and they were overbooked.

    Jr: And then Obammy won!

    D: Then he won! Success. Best thing I ever did.

    (Editors note: If you wanna get something super cool, Scott Thomas has made a book filled with all the Obama design stuff, featuring Daniel’s posters and the voteforchange.com website. Buy it here (http://www NULL.kickstarter NULL.com/projects/simplescott/designing-obama).)

    Jr: So, OK, we’ve been drinking now for how long? Let’s jump into the nitty gritty shit and see what happens. What’s your advice for juniors?

    D: Well, if you’re a junior, all you’ve got to do is start working. Make good shit. Be a smart person. Be nice. And hopefully that’ll work out.

    Jr: I know this. And a lot of others know this. But for a lot of people it’s about getting that first ‘foot in the door’ or whatever.

    D: Have you played The Legend of Zelda? On Nintendo?

    Jr: Umm…

    D: You haven’t played fucking Zelda?

    Jr: I’ve had a fiddle.

    D: Ha. I should slap you.

    (Turns to the person sitting next to him.)

    D: Have you played the legend of Zelda?

    Random 1: A little while ago.

    Random 2: I have.

    D: Then I only need to slap one of you.

    Random 2: I remember the Nintendo cheat.

    D: Oh Yeah?

    Random 2 and D simultaneously: Up. Up. Down. Down. Left. Right. Left. Right. B. A. B. A. Select Start.

    D: Yes!

    Jr: Oh my god. You guys are total nerds. So what’s the importance of Zelda anyway?

    Random 2: Yeah what’s the significance?

    D: Well remember how in Zelda, when you wanted to get something accomplished, you had to go through these weird adventures that seemed like they had nothing to do with anything? If you wanted to beat some bad guy, you had to go find a leaf, give it to an old man, get a potion, take it to a lady, she’ll make you some arrows. Then you have to take the arrows to a dungeon, and shoot a guy with the arrows. Right?

    Random 2: Yeah!

    D: Well that’s what getting a job in advertising is like.

    Jr: Hahahaha. Woah.

    D: It’s exactly the same. Exactly the same! You’ve got to have teachers, they need to be smart, and they have to get you and like you. Then you’ve got to work fucking hard and you’ve got to be smart. If you don’t work hard and you’re not smart then you’re a piece of shit. But if you’re one of the smart hard working people, your teacher will recognize that and will introduce you to somebody. Then you start going on these little ‘go sees’, you know, while you’re trying to get a foot in the door. You meet these people and you say, “Hey, man, you work in advertising. I want to work in advertising. What do you think about X, Y, and Z? How does this work? You did blah blah blah, what was that like?” Cause you don’t know. I didn’t fucking know. I still don’t know most of this shit. So you ask all these questions and they answer you. And they feel smart for answering you. Once you’ve asked them enough questions and whatever, you say, “Is there anyone else I should talk to? Maybe at another agency?” And they say yes or no. Then you ask them if they can recommend some people. You know, say, “Do you know anybody at this place or that place?” And then they say, “Actually I do.” I did this in London. I got people to pick up their phone and make calls to people on their cell phone. Numbers you’ll never get. Once you meet that first smart connected person, and he or she likes you, they’ll make a couple of calls for you. Then you’ll meet a couple more people, and the next thing you know you’re meeting people, meeting people, meeting people. Then all of a sudden, somebody knows of a job. Or an internship. And if your work is good, and you’re a nice personable person, why not offer you a gig? Even if it’s an internship, which is how you prove to everybody in the building how smart and good you are.

    Jr: Wow. Yes. You make yourself invaluable.

    D: You have to be good though. You have to give a fuck, you have to work hard, and you need to be good. If you do that, then you’ll be fine, especially if you’re a social person.

    Jr: That really is very good advice. You are such a nerd though.

    D: Ha, yeah. But you know, when Zelda came out for Nintendo GameCube, while I was in school, everything else suffered.

    Jr: It always does with video games.

    D: My TV and my GameCube were going all hours of the day. It was either me or my roommate taking turns playing. So when one person was doing homework, going to school or taking a nap, the other person was playing.

    Jr: It happens to the best of us.

    D: It was good though. It was like a religious experience.

    Jr: How long did you do this for?

    D: I don’t know–too long. Then I became the student president. That was a bad idea. Don’t do that.

    Jr: Ha, OK. That’s good advice. Do not become student president.

    D: Do not become student president at Art Center, do not play video games, and do not have sex.

    Jr: Hold on. Do not have sex?

    D: Be chaste.

    Jr: What? What’s the theory? Why?

    D: You have bigger things to worry about than sex. Chastity is important…

    Jr: Why? I don’t understand.

    D: Because if you’re dealing with relationships, you’re not dealing with your work or your ideas, and your not dealing with your life. I do think there’s some connection between the creative and the procreative. That sex and creativity are linked. It’s the urge. There’s a common passion, a common energy. When you’re still developing one of them, you don’t want to drain it with the other one.

    Jr: Actually that sounds like a pretty interesting point. What about masturbation?

    D: It’s a good stress reliever.

    Jr: Yes. It’s not procreation either.

    D: It’s not procreation, there’s not another person there, and there’s no one else’s feelings to deal with. That’s the thing that sucks.

    Jr: Yeah, don’t deal with feelings. They get in the way.

    D: No, you should deal with feelings! You should be a sensitive person. But you should know that if you involve somebody else in that part of your life, especially if you’re a male and you’re dealing with a female, she’s going to have an opinion and feelings about your chosen activities. So your choice is to either be a dick, which is not good, or to deal with those, which is very time consuming.

    Jr: Yes that’s a hard bargain. Be a dick, or give up your career/creative time to deal with your shit. So don’t get involved?

    D: Don’t get involved. Work on your shit. Ride your bicycle. Don’t have sex. Work hard. Be nice. Pay attention. What else? That’s kinda it. Oh, and don’t buy dumb shit.

    (And as usual we spoke for way too long and Daniel had way too much good shit to say. So hang in there for Part 2. It’s got everything to do with not buying dumb shit, knowing which companies are helping the world, and how you can retain your soul. Coming soooooooon.)

    Also posted in ADVERTISING | Tags: ADVERTISING, COCKTAILS, COMMITMENT, CREATIVITY, DANIEL BREMMER, DRUNK, HIGH SCHOOL, HUNGER, INSPIRATION, JOB HUNTING, NEW YORK, OBAMA, PETER CORTEZ, SCOTT THOMAS, SEX, SS+K, ZELDA

    Oct 14, 09

    The Interview Series // 22

    JUSTIN

    For those of you living under a rock, stuck down a well, or ‘have real life’, the Three Drunk Monkeys (http://www NULL.threedrunkmonkeys NULL.com NULL.au) are a Sydney based ad agency that make ads (http://www NULL.threedrunkmonkeys NULL.com NULL.au/index NULL.php/work/), write books (http://www NULL.threedrunkmonkeys NULL.com NULL.au/index NULL.php/case-studies-i-can-do-anything/), direct short films and have even created a television series. We hear so many junior creatives mention their name it’s not funny. “I’d totally move to Sydney to work for Three Drunk Monkeys,” they say. “I’m gonna put my book together and go and see them. My auntie’s cousin is the cleaner at Justin Drape’s mum’s house. They’ll put in a good word.” Then we say, “Sure they will man. You’re a shoe-in. Go for it.” Which of course never happens. So just because we can, and because we’re awesome journalists, we used our emailing skills to woo Justin Drape into giving us an interview. Now you’ll have no excuses when you take your book to see them, because you’ll already know what they’re looking for in a junior, how to present scary work, whether to travel the world, how to deal with industry politics, and whether you can have a life outside of advertising.

    Junior: Hey monkeys. So Google tells us your agency is set up to create both ‘traditional’ and ‘non-traditional’ outcomes for clients. When and how do you decide what you’re going to do with a brief and whether it’ll be an ‘ad’ or ‘not an ad’?

    Justin Drape: A brief might ask for a TV and press ad, but you can always take an idea beyond these channels. For UBank (http://www NULL.ubank NULL.com NULL.au) we created press and TV ads but we also created an 8-part web-series called MoneyBox (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=z7VkPJB2WoU). It’s been a great success for them and is currently playing as part of Qantas’ in-flight entertainment.

    It’s also best when the relationship with clients works both ways. If we come up with an idea that we think is great for their brand without a brief we’ll always set up a meeting and try to sell it. And if we come up with an idea that we like that doesn’t necessarily have a brand involved we’ll try to find a way to make that too.

    Jr: Sounds like you’re doing just what every junior wants to be doing these days. Have you got any advice on how to present work like that to clients? How do you sell-in non-traditional work that seems a little ’scary’?

    J: Be passionate about the work you present. Passion’s contagious. And let clients know that you’ve got an idea that’s different to what they may have seen before and try to sell them in on the idea of your idea. Don’t suddenly turn up with a smoke machine and tell them how you want to launch their new product in space. They’ll think you’re insane. And they may not like smoke.

    Jr: That’s simple enough. So who would you hire first: A script-writer or a copywriter?

    J: Both roles have a similar mindset, but they require a different skill set so it depends on the project a writer would be working on and the quality of their ideas. There’s no point reading beautifully written pap in any medium.

    Jr: That’s totally true. I guess you’re saying that if you’re a good conceptual writer then you’ll be just the writer the monkeys will be interested in. So TDM is one of ‘those’ agencies that every AWARD and RMIT kid knows about. What’s the actual chance you’ll hire straight out of school? Where does ‘fresh talent’ fit in your business?

    J: Again, it depends on the quality of their ideas. We’re not ageist in any way. Becky Alperstein joined us recently and she finished in the top 10 at AWARD this year. And Michael Hughes – aka Cousin Mick – works with us. He won AWARD school in 2008.

    Jr: So if you were eighteen again, fresh out of high school, and wanted to work for an agency like yours, would you go straight to AWARD school? Or would you do something else?

    J: It can work both ways. I didn’t do AWARD school until I was 24, so I’d travelled around the world and lived a little. But having said that, it took me a lot longer to grow up than it does for most people.

    Jr: Did you have a life in your early twenties? Or did you devote yourself to getting a job and settling into your ‘career’?

    J:I found it hard to devote myself to anything in my early twenties. I set up a design business then sold the rights for my artwork to appear on greeting cards, t-shirts, clocks, etc… Moved to London, exhibited and sold some paintings there and in the US. Worked as a porter in a fancy hotel. Travelled across Europe. Lived in Miami for a bit. Arrived back to Oz completely broke and was advised by friends and family that ‘maybe it’s time to get a ‘real’ job.’ I’m not sure if this is what they were talking about.

    Jr: You guys have collaborated with some big companies in New York, London, Tokyo and elsewhere. Do you think it’s possible to be a global competitor in Australia?

    J: Yeah, thanks to the wonders of the inter-web everybody anywhere can see your work now, so if a client thinks your work’s great they’ll find a way to work with you. I guess the challenge for any agency is to maintain a great standard of work that attracts clients in the first place, regardless of where they’re based.

    Jr: We’re not sure if it’s just us, but the Australian advertising industry seems to be bitchier than most. And when you’re a tall poppy such as yourselves, you can be in the firing line quite a lot. How do you deal with the politics of this industry and what’s your advice to the kids who are about to become part of it?

    J: Only listen to people who you respect and trust. They will only critique your work in an attempt to make it, and you, better.

    And don’t listen to Anonymous. He’s the most prolific critic around. Legend has it that nobody has actually met him because he’s too scared to deal with people in person. He lives in a cave of self-loathing somewhere with a kick-ass wireless connection.

    Jr: That’s some pretty crucial advice for sure. Here’s a good question: Do you guys have a life outside of advertising? Is that something we should be leaving until we’re older or is it possible?

    J: Pop legends Milli Vanilli once sang All or Nothing and there’s certainly some truth in those lyrics, even though they didn’t actually write them, or sing them…

    It’s now 11.43pm and I’m still in the office so I guess that’s kind of the answer in itself. I better go home now.

    Also posted in ADVERTISING | Tags: ADVERTISING, JUSTIN DRAPE, THREE DRUNK MONKEYS

    Oct 01, 09

    The Interview Series // 20

    THE SACK_2

    Ben Birchall and Shane Dawson had it all: A job at The Campaign Palace (http://thecampaignpalace NULL.com/) in Melbourne, money to buy food, and great haircuts. They evidently spent a lot of time on all of the above for they were model advertising citizens, making funny campaigns and acting like dags for money and fame. Until one fateful day, not too long ago, they were politely asked to ‘leave the agency’. Also known as getting ‘The Sack (http://thesack NULL.tumblr NULL.com/)‘. Instead of ‘losing their shit’, they decided to document their ’sacking’, while trying to get their respective ’sacks in the door’ somewhere bigger and better than before. The resulting video diary (http://thesack NULL.tumblr NULL.com/) is a great lesson in ‘getting your shit together and looking for a job’. Something every junior needs to learn. We were impressed and felt it was a great opportunity to talk about ‘gimmicky’ ideas, losing your job, getting a job, and working on your folio.

    Junior: At what stage in the job-losing process did ‘The Sack (http://thesack NULL.tumblr NULL.com/)‘ idea come about?

    The Sack Lads: Straight away really. We initially posted photos on Facebook and people really liked them, then we had the idea to film the process because it might be interesting to watch later. Blogging it daily led from there, and it meant that we had a deadline and the motivation to actually do it.

    Jr: Tell us a bit about how you got into the industry? Did you originally get your job at Campaign Palace in a similar way?

    TSL: Hell no. We got into the Palace the old-fashioned way – working for free for a few months. We were out of Award school and we got paired up to do a placement at the Palace. We were supposed to get paid for every bit of work we got up, but after two months it was cheaper to hire us.

    Jr: Emma Hill once told us, “If your idea is a bit gimmicky, you come across as a gimmicky creative. Rather than a genuine, intelligent one.” Obviously there are plenty of kids out there who’ll want to do something similar hoping to get a job. How do you suggest they straddle the line between gimmick and intelligent stunt?

    TSL: It just has to be good. If it’s good, it’s an interesting piece of work in itself and hopefully shows a potential CD that you’ve got something that the fifty other teams that have contacted them that week haven’t. And then you need the work to back it up. There’s no point getting in the door to see a CD if you don’t have a decent book.

    Jr: When a lot of people lose their jobs, they freak out and take any old job they can get. Is this you guys freaking out or are you looking to make a big jump in your career?

    TSL: It’s probably a bit of both. It was initially something to keep us busy, particularly in that first week when you go from working eleven hour days to sitting around the house. But the end result is that hopefully our next job will be better than our last job. That probably wouldn’t have been possible without The Sack.

    Jr: Google loves The Sack, you’ve got posts on Campaign Brief (http://www NULL.campaignbrief NULL.com/2009/09/ben-and-shane-get-the-sack NULL.html), Mumbrella (http://mumbrella NULL.com NULL.au/they-may-not-have-a-job-in-advertising-but-theres-always-pr-9986#more-9986) and over 2,000 hits on your first video on youtube (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=a9ARhSiTrKQ). That’s great and all, but what has the reaction been like offline and in the interview room?

    TSL: It’s been really positive. We’ve been able to see people who would never have seen us without The Sack. And they already know who we are, what we’re about and what our work is like. Which means that rather than going through your book, you can just have a chat about where you want to go and where the agency is headed. It’s a far more productive way to spend their time and yours.

    Jr: We’re big fans of how quickly you guys got your shit together. We have plenty of friends who are still ‘working on their folio’. What would you say is the 5 steps to getting a job in advertising?

    TSL: Here’s the list!

    1. Keep your book current. Things happen very quickly in advertising, so even if you feel safe and cosy, plan for The Sack.

    2. Show your book to people you respect. Even if they can’t give you a job. It’s good to practice presenting, and it’s good to get different perspectives on the work.

    3. Do a heap of different stuff. Don’t have a book that’s full of pale imitations of D&AD finalists from 1998. Dream up a product, create a brand, include some digital or viral stuff. You have to show you can do more than write a headline or lay out a strip ad.

    4. Work for free if you have to. It sucks, and there’s a line you have to draw before you start seeming sad, but the CD you’re trying to see probably did it, and their CD before them. It’s a grand old advertising tradition, like sexual harassment and cocaine.

    5. You have to pay for tip 5. We accept paypal and all major credit cards.

    Jr: And finally, losing your job sucks. What advice do you have for any kids who lose their job or have lost their job recently?

    TSL: Our old CD, Tony Leishman told us that you have to treat advertising like you work for yourself. Jobs will come and go. You can’t control that. What you can control is keeping your book sharp, doing cool stuff and staying busy and creative. And that doesn’t necessarily mean working on advertising briefs. Start a website, write a script, take some photos, design a font, dream up a product. Whatever it is you do, do it. Don’t stop because you’re not getting paid. In fact, do it more and do it harder.

    Also posted in ADVERTISING | Tags: ADVERTISING, COMMITMENT, FOLIO, HUNGER, JOB HUNTING, RECESSION

    Sep 09, 09

    The Interview Series // 19

    leeorbrown

    Remember that emo-kid at school who ‘managed’ the punk band? Let’s call that kid ‘street smart kid’. ‘Street smart kid’ was the shit. He was creative, tenacious, focused, could get a hundred screaming kids along to some shitty gig in the sticks, and hacked up letterboxes with an axe after downing a bottle of Jimmy B at your fifteenth birthday. Where is ’street smart kid’ now? Running that record label you want to work for, of course. This week we interview one such ’street smart kid’ – Leeor Brown. His L.A based label, Friends of Friends (http://www NULL.fofmusic NULL.net/), sells limited edition tee-shirts and other tangible goods that come with a download code instead of a CD. He’s already done one with Daedelus (http://www NULL.myspace NULL.com/daedelusdarling), and Mos Def stole the idea with his newest release, so it must be the shiz-nit. We know there’s some ’street smart kids’ reading this site – so why don’t you go out and start a label, y’all? Go on! It’s better than a real job. Fuck!

    Junior: Why the hell did you start a record label? Aren’t all of those things going broke?

    Leeor: Well, I think that’s debatable. Labels that have been around and built a business model on what was happening back in the day, treating it like a product based business, aren’t keeping up with the times. I saw an opportunity to do the things that labels used to do without nearly the same amount of overhead. There’s still money out there – people are still buying digital. Not at the same rate or the same amount of income earned as it was with CDs, but at the same time you spend a lot less money getting that release out and distributed these days. For me it’s about trying to do things differently, not spending that much money up front so the artists and label can see some money at the end of the day.

    Jr: We read somewhere that vinyl sales were actually through the roof too.

    L: Yeah in the last few years they went up something like a thousand percent where CD sales dropped off. The way I always look at it is that the people who are clamouring the most are the ones that made money, or established their business in that model, and that shit just doesn’t exist anymore. Not even just the major labels either, even the bigger indie labels that have been around for ten or fifteen years are struggling too because they created a whole business that now has to shift modes.

    Jr: Definitely. You’re releasing your second EP soon right?

    L: Yeah, we have one release out, Friends of Friends Volume 1. But I also have these remixes that came exclusively with the shirt for the first three months but I put those out on iTunes last month.
    Our second release, Volume 2, is out September 15th and is this group Larytta (http://www NULL.myspace NULL.com/larytta). That’ll be the second shirt release. Then our first full length will be this dude Ernest Gonzales (http://www NULL.myspace NULL.com/theoryofeverything) in February.

    Jr: Is the full length going to be just a shirt too or will it be something else?

    L: No no no, it’s going to be a whole other thing. I’m pretty excited about it actually, I’ve got to say. I’ve gone big for Ernest’s record: we got 16 musicians to do covers, so there is a cover for every song on the full length, and then we got artists from around the world to do their interpretation of a song so there are 13 pieces of artwork that will be made into a book that comes with the download codes for the record, digital artwork, and covers.
    The way I look at it especially with the word of mouth idea – we have sixteen remixers, fourteen artists, Ernest and his label, me and my label, and the label doing the vinyl. All of a sudden we have something like 40 people built into one release and talking about it or having a reason to get people excited for it. It’s instant promotion.

    Jr: So have you made some mistakes so far? Anything you’d like to share with other first timers wanting to make their own label?

    L: I mean, it’s all a learning process. I’m sure there have been a bunch but I have no idea yet. (laughs), I actually think about that all the time because I only launched in March – so I’m not even that far into it. At this point I’m still flying by the seat of my pants. Eventually I’ll be able to look back and be like, ‘God you fucked that up’, but for now there’s not too much. Again I’m not putting that much into it, financially that is, since it’s mostly just my time, it doesn’t feel like I’m making too many mistakes because I’m not really going to get screwed financially or anything.

    Jr: Is it hard to convince artists or people that you’re working with to love the idea or do they love it just like we do?

    L: For the most part people tend to jump right in. I tend to not work with a bunch of really established artists though, Daedelus (http://www NULL.myspace NULL.com/daedelusdarling) is probably the most well established artist I’ve worked with to date, and he is legitimately a close friend and if it wasn’t for him I probably wouldn’t have done the label. He kicked me in the ass more than a few times to make sure this went down. Besides that I try to work with artists that aren’t that well known and they are just hungry, they want to get their music out there. On top of that I have the ability to promote rather extensively so most artists are like ‘Oh this is dope, let’s do it.’ I’m sure I’ll run into a fair share of people who aren’t that into it, but for the most part the artists and press are loving it.

    Jr: You’re a publicist at Terrorbird Media (http://terrorbird NULL.com/) right now too. How do you break into that world? Because it seems like that would help you with ideas and the progression of making them a reality.

    L: Yeah it’s all been a slow build so far. I started off in college radio as a hip hop director at KZSC (http://kzsc NULL.org/) in Santa Cruz, got a job in radio promotion that I got over in a while, moved into online marketing and finally progressed into publicity. Basically all of my experience with my job was teaching me lessons about the music industry. Trying to talk with labels and artists and evaluating everyone’s situations and seeing how I might be able to fit into it. Slowly but surely I realized I have access to all these great artists and could promote because that’s what I did for a day job and that you can release things digitally for nothing! At the end of the day I realized I have this possible business in hand for a very minimal investment and it just kind of went from there. I have to say, I don’t know if somebody else could just up and do it like I did because I was lucky to already have certain things in place if I wanted to do them.

    Jr: So one of the biggest assets for you was probably your network of creative people around you?

    L: There’s no doubt about that. That’s kind of what the whole Friends of Friends notion came from because I knew I had this really awesome network of people but ultimately they were homies with all these people I didn’t know about, and they didn’t know me, but of course I know their music or something. So that was how the idea progressed. I didn’t want to be restricted to only the people I knew but I had to start the label that way.  So the idea of Friends of Friends is that I can bring in the people I know but maybe they can bring in other and slowly and surely the word can spread between friends. “Oh hey I’m with this thing, it’s called Friends of Friends, you should check it out…”
    I wanted to make sure that it wasn’t just about me, because that’s what a lot of labels tend to be and this was trying to expand on what network I already had in place.

    Interview by: Pat Collins (http://www NULL.anotherpatrickcollins NULL.com/)

    Also posted in MUSIC | Tags: COMMITMENT, HUNGER, INSPIRATION, SUCCESS, THE INTERVIEW SERIES
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