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    Sep 03, 10

    Juniorversity // 08

    Matt Eastwood told us last week how as a fledgling copywriter his mentor got him to read all of the good stuff to become a better, and knowledgeable writer. The famous, the historic, the informative.. and also the dictionary. One of those authors that should be top of your reading list is Kurt Vonnegut (http://en NULL.wikipedia NULL.org/wiki/Kurt_Vonnegut) — a staple of American literature. He’s as crazy as a coconut in his fiction, witty in the speech he gives below, but more than anything is a pretty onto it, and influential character of the written world. Watch ‘em, then get out and buy his books! Your writing will love you for it.

    Also posted in JUNIORVERSITY | Tags: KURT VONNEGUT, WRITING

    Aug 25, 10

    The Interview Series // 34

    For this interview we managed to get our grubby junior mitts on one of the most successful creatives this side of the planetoid — Matt Eastwood. This esteemed dude is so good at being successful, in the time between our chat and having our transcribing monkey do the typing dance, he was promoted from National Executive Creative Director and Deputy Chairman of DDB Australia, to Chief Creative Officer of DDB New York! It’s got a nice ring to it – don’t you think? We sat down with Matt and got the low-down on his career, and all the ins and outs between. If you’ve ever wondered how one goes about becoming a successful CD then you better keep on a-readin’ below.

    Junior: So you’re a Sydney boy?

    Matt Eastwood: I’m originally from Perth, but I went to Sydney at about 23. Stayed there, spent four years in Melbourne, London, New York, and back to Sydney.

    Jr: So you started your career in Perth? How was that?

    M: There were good agencies there. The reason I left was kind of weird. I was working for Ogilvy & Mather, and we were agency of the year two years in a row, and the agency went broke. Just announced bankruptcy and shut down. I lost my job. But I was already working for the best agency in town so I didn’t know what to do. Luckily, I’d recently won Writer of the Year and I was offered a job in Sydney at Foster Nunn Loveder, so I headed East. I only spent three or four working years in Perth, but when I came to Sydney I had produced dozens of TV ads, because everyone gets to do TV in Perth no matter what level you are.

    Jr: That’s quite a start.

    M: Perth is a real retail city, not all of it, but a big chunk of it. So you learn to work quickly. When I got to Sydney I thought, hang on, I’m pretty quick at this! It held me in good stead, as I was more accomplished and quicker than other juniors my age. And, it helped me progress quite quickly. It was a good foundation to get started. From there in Sydney I worked with some great agencies, Foster Nunn Loveder, and DDB – for the first time.

    Jr: Did you have a lot of retail work in your book when you arrived in Sydney?

    M: Yeah I did, but I had my fair share of brand work as well. When I was at Ogilvy & Mather, Ansett Airlines was still around, and I had done their brand campaign. Even though I’d made the spots for $60,000 each, they were pretty good I think. I got to work on some pretty big accounts – I’d done campaigns for the WA Tourism Commission, at the same time as doing work for shopping centers and that kind of stuff. It’s definitely possible to do great work in Perth. Just look at some of the agencies there, like The Brand Agency (http://www NULL.brandagency NULL.com NULL.au/), 303 (http://www NULL.303 NULL.com NULL.au/) and Marketforce (http://www NULL.marketforce NULL.com NULL.au/), they’re really, really good agencies. I don’t think the ambition is any less, but the budgets are less. You’re making stuff with nothing.

    Jr: That’s the challenge, to make more with less.

    M: And you do. You don’t have the luxury of big crews, so everyone bulks in and does a bit more, and you get used to it and that’s the way it is. It’s funny when I look back now on the first four years of my career, we didn’t even have an agency TV producer. So the creatives had to produce their own ads. I remember preparing estimates and calculating markups. Now I don’t know how I took on that responsibility. There’s no way I could do that now. But I guess now I know my way around production so much better.

    Jr: As a junior, were you working in a solid team or did you move around on your own?

    M: I did have a few good partners, but none of them lasted more than a year or so. Not because we didn’t get on or anything, things just change and people move around. When I got to Sydney I teamed up with a guy called Shane Gibson, who is currently at M&C Saatchi in Sydney, and we worked together for about 12 years. We traveled everywhere together, we moved to Melbourne to open M&C together, and then went to London. We both found something that worked and stuck with it. Eventually I was the Creative Director and he was the Deputy, and he was offered a job within M&C Saatchi to go and run the Singapore office as Creative Director. I stayed in London, and he went off to do that.

    Jr: Do you think, now that you are a Creative Director, for juniors out there wanting to get into the industry, that not being in a team is less favourable?

    M: I think it’s definitely easier in a team. Maybe 80% of the time when I’m looking for someone, I’m looking for a team. I was recently looking for a junior writer, because I already had the art director, but that’s probably the first time in about 10 years that I’ve done that. It just doesn’t happen that often. It’s much better if you can pre-package yourself as a team. Or even if you don’t team up, if you can find someone who you can put yourself in front of a CD with, tell them you haven’t worked together but you get on, it definitely makes things simpler. The natural way into our agency for first time juniors is through our LaunchPad program. We look for teams, but we also put teams together. But it’s much easier already if you’re pre-teamed.

    Jr: At what stage in your career did you go overseas?

    M: I think I was about 32. I’d been running M&C Saatchi in Melbourne for about four years. And we’d done really well. Back then we won Agency of the Year four years in a row. It was ridiculous. It was good; it was a really successful time. I got a call from Maurice Saatchi, who asked me to be the ECD of the London office, which was amazing. The weird thing was I was packing up my house to move to London, and about a week before I was due to leave he rang again and told me that the Creative Director of the New York office had resigned, and how would I feel about going to our New York office to fill in for three months while they found someone permanent? It was like a dream! So I went via New York and fell completely in love with it, I got on well with the CEO, and ended up staying. The London office didn’t need me to go there straight away, so they let me stay in New York. The sad thing was that “September 11” happened in 2001, and that completely destroyed our business. Our biggest client was British Airways. They were obviously having a hard time and couldn’t afford to pay us for the next eighteen months. Everything went from amazing to nothing. We put the agency on ice, let a lot of people go, and that’s when the London office asked me to come and do the London ECD gig. So I moved to London, stayed there for about four years, and eventually when New York started to get going again, they sent me back to renew the office there.

    Jr: Did you work with Maurice Saatchi in London? How was that?

    M: It was amazing. It’s weird, you really don’t get to meet icons of the industry that often. I remember there was two great moments for me. I’d already met Maurice, but I didn’t know him that well. There was one time when he took the management board out for dinner to celebrate my new role, and he did a champagne toast to me. And I was like, wow, Maurice Saatchi is doing a toast to me. The next moment was my first pitch in London, and I was sitting next to Maurice – him being the suit, me as the Creative Director. I thought – this is just awesome, seeing one of the world’s greatest ad guys pitching, and I’m next to him. It was pretty cool. A few words from him could make you feel three inches taller. He was very, very good, and incredibly smart obviously as he started two amazing agencies. It was an incredible time.

    Jr: That’s pretty darn amazing! Is he still involved?

    M: He’s still there, he’s still on the board. I haven’t worked for M&C now for about six years, but I imagine he’s probably winding right back and not so involved. When I was there he was at the office every day, and that was amazing. The five partners of the M&C London office all sat together in one room as they had done for 30 years through Saatchi’s and M&C. They had all the stories that we’ve all heard, but they were all the stories. They were the ones that did it. It was fantastic going out to dinner or travelling with those guys, and hearing the stories that go back 20 years. It was a great time. But in the end, I didn’t love working in London as much as I thought I would. I find New York to be a global city where I find London to be, London. There’s definitely a view that ‘we’re the best in the world and no one else matters’. Whereas I think New York is the complete opposite. Everyone in New York is from somewhere else. It’s rare to meet a true New Yorker. They’ve all come from all over the world, or all over America. It’s a melting pot of global ideas. I found them much more open to new thinking.

    Jr: Did you notice much of a difference coming back from overseas to Australia in terms of digital thinking and capabilities?

    M: The thing I loved about DDB is that it was a lot more possible to integrate digital thinking. I think it had a lot to do with scale. The last job I had in New York was at Y&R, and we had two floors of above-the-line creatives, and a whole floor of digital creatives. But they were all separate. I think if I had stayed longer I would have brought them together more, but it was difficult to get people working and thinking together. People were still seeing the two as separate roles, whereas now I think it’s seen as one person or one team can do it all together. The thing I found here was that because of the size and the scale of it, it is much easier to get people working together. We have Tribal DDB within our office but we don’t really run Tribal as a separate company. We run it as one creative department. Everyone reports to me, they all work together as one team.

    Jr: A lot of people at a more junior career level and age group see the overseas thing as the pinnacle of making it, or getting somewhere. Do you think that helped you in your career moving overseas?

    M: The tough thing is, if you only had five years’ experience and went to London it would be hard. It’s a tough, tough city to break into, especially if you’re junior-ish. The money is shit. I was shocked when I got there at how little we were paying our juniors, but it was industry standard. I don’t know how they could afford to live on it — it was frightening. The best thing is to get yourself some fame first because it’s a hard road if you don’t have it. At M&C I had these two students, who had been interning for two years. They had two silver D&AD pencils. They were really good, and they were working for nothing. I asked them how they did it, how they kept motivating themselves to keep trying. I remember being in awe of their tenacity to keep going. They had to fund their careers through weekend jobs and parental support, but they had two silver pencils to show for it. We eventually gave them a job, but I think that’s such a hard position to be in as a junior. It was definitely easier for me to go in at the ECD level, rather than as a struggling creative.

    Jr: So with LaunchPad at DDB (http://www NULL.ddbcareers NULL.com NULL.au/User/LaunchPad/), how does it work? Do you get a few teams in?

    M: We have six people at once – four creatives and two craft people – web department, designers, etc. They don’t all start together, but they’re all there for three months at a time. We also host a team from Miami Ad School once a year. It’s great fun. We’ve seen a lot of people come and go, and I think we’ve hired about 10 of them over the last four years, so a lot of people have gotten jobs. Even if they don’t get a job we’ve stayed friends. A few LaunchPadders have sold campaigns that have gone on to win Lions, which is ultimately why we do it for them. It’s so much easier if you’ve got something in your book that’s been published, especially when you’re competing against all the other juniors.

    Jr: What do you look for in a good junior?

    M: At the start of LaunchPad I say to the juniors not to let the three months slip by. A lot of them come in and have a lot of fun, and then the three months are up and they haven’t really made anything, and find it disappointing. I look for a hunger and tenacity, that ‘whatever it takes I’m going to make myself famous’ attitude. We push them, we give them lots of briefs, but ultimately as a junior you have to really want to be famous, and you have to want to make great ads. You need to give over a couple of years of your life but, if you do, it will set you up for life. So I guess I look for that spark. We get a lot of applications, and we only take a tenth of those that apply. I look for juniors whose books are well thought out in terms of campaign ideas. I definitely get bored at seeing a book of just print ads. I want at least half a dozen campaigns in a book, and at least half of which are blown out into different areas, from social media to digital to TV to whatever. And then I look for the equivalent in one off thoughts. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a campaign. You need to have a body of work that gives whomever is looking at your book a sense of what you are capable of doing. I think the most important thing though is tenacity.

    Jr: So you’re a writer. Did you come out of an arts course?

    M: Yeah. Weirdly, I’m a writer but my degree is in Design. I studied Graphic Design at Curtin University in WA. In my last year I also did AWARD school – I graduated from both at the same time. I had planned to work as an art director, but I saw a job advertised for a writer. And I thought, I can do that. I got a job as a junior copywriter with no real writing experience.

    Jr: How did you learn your craft then?

    M: I had a really good first boss. A guy called Gordon Dawson, he’s retired now, but he was amazing. He could see that I could write a headline but knew I didn’t have any writing training. In my first week he walked up to me with a stack of twenty novels, and said, ‘have you read Slaughterhouse Five (http://en NULL.wikipedia NULL.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse-Five)’? ‘No’ ‘Have you read Catch-22 (http://en NULL.wikipedia NULL.org/wiki/Catch_22)?’ ‘Nup’, and he kept going. He said read those, and gave me the Oxford Dictionary, and the Elements of Style (http://en NULL.wikipedia NULL.org/wiki/Elements_of_style). He was great, and he used to really push me to be better. The criticism I have with a lot of young writers is that they don’t appreciate the craft of writing. They don’t read classic novels, or any novels, and that’s how you get better at what you do, Gordon drummed that into me. English was always one of my top subjects, but he made me better at it.

    Jr: Seems like being versatile – knowing about Art Direction and Copywriting is a handy thing.

    M: It’s so true. Its fantastic for me to be able to have a degree in design, I can get on a computer and do artwork, and I do my own blog (http://thingsihaveseen NULL.squarespace NULL.com/), I have always had that visual side to me. That’s part of the job as an ECD — you’ve got to advise on all aspects.

    Jr: That said, do you think the craft or writing is a bit lost on many up and coming Copywriters?

    M: You don’t really meet that many people who are passionate about writing. We have a CD in our Melbourne office, Brendan Guthrie, and he’s just into writing. He writes stories and screenplays and you don’t meet people like that very often. We’re living in an age where writing and long copy isn’t popular. It’s not like it’s unwelcome, it’s just that no one does it. It’s been like that for a long time. I remember in my own career having to make the specific decision to do a long copy campaign. No one tells you to do long copy; you have to make the choice. If you don’t make that decision in your career at some point to try to write one, you can get to ten years in your career and you’ve still never done a long copy ad. I say to a lot of juniors that at some point make yourself write a long copy ad. Because you can easily avoid it. But try it, it’s fun, you get to be more like a journalist than a creative. But it’s not always going to fly because clients don’t always want long copy or CD’s don’t like it, but you’ve just got to give it a go.

    Jr: Fast forward five years – what sort of skills do you think juniors will need as they progress up the chain?

    M: I think there’s definitely a challenge in deciding what your goal is. There’s a lot of pressure on creatives to become Creative Directors. But I think there are a lot of people who head towards that goal that don’t really want it, or aren’t really good at it. It’s deciding which way you want to go and manipulating your career to go that way, and getting the appropriate skills. A lot of what differentiates good creatives from great creatives is not just ideas, it’s the ability to present those ideas and lead a client. I put all my team through presentation and negotiation skills training. To me that is the thing that has stood me out from many of my peers — I’m very comfortable getting up in front of a CEO talking to them about ideas. When I moved to London, I was like a freak over there, because Creative Directors had been protected from clients. They literally didn’t go to meetings. But clients had started to want to develop a relationship with Creative Directors, and I had no problem with that as I had done it all my life. And they were like wow, who is this guy?

    Jr: So it was just account service that went to presentations?

    M: Yep. It was an easy blame game. If account management come back with unsold work you can either complain, or just sell it yourself. So that’s what I always did. That ability and that comfortableness in front of clients — I reckon that is probably the one thing that we don’t spend enough time on when training juniors. Or on how to be leaders within the department. When I was 26, I made the decision that I wanted to be a CD. I changed my behaviours, and even started dressing differently.

    Jr: That’s what Mum used to say – “dress for the job you want.”

    M: One team I worked with started their “3 buttoned shirts a week” rule, and it worked. From the time they joined me to the time they left they easily doubled their salary and their award list. I think people just started to see them as serious and professional. It’s not the be all and end all, but it’s important. When I was 26 I just started taking responsibility for looking after the juniors in the agency. I rallied them all together and helped them with their work, and that experience was like being a mini Creative Director. It kind of got me better at knowing what it would be like in front of senior people doing that same thing. It’s giving yourself opportunities to try out your skills. I say to all our guys, once they’ve been in the business for 4-5 years, to be an AWARD school tutor. It’s the best thing you can do, it’s a big commitment but you learn to give advice. And almost all of them tell me that they are better at judging their own work as a result.

    Jr: You actually learn a lot about your own thinking when you have to put it into words and explain it to someone else.

    M: Yes, and it makes you quicker. When you’re a Creative Director you get presented work all day. And creatives want a response right then, they want to know what you think, right now. And sometimes you don’t know, sometimes you need to think about it, but you can’t just keep putting everything off. Teaching AWARD School puts you under that same pressure, to listen to your instincts and just to go with it, and you get better at it. It’s not necessarily a skill-based thing, but it’s really important in terms of getting your career off in the right direction. Apart from that, I think junior creatives are generally learning all the stuff that they need to learn. There was a time when you had to say to people, I think you need to embrace digital, but you don’t need to say that any more. Although I’ve definitely had creatives that don’t follow any blogs, or don’t do anything online, one didn’t even have a Facebook profile – you owe it to your clients to at least understand what the digital space is about. Even if you don’t like it, you’ve got to do it. It’s so easy to stay across new developments these days because of the online space. You can follow whoever you want on twitter, and see what’s happening everywhere. It’s so instant and easy. If anything, it’s overwhelming with how to stay abreast of everything.

    Also posted in ADVERTISING | Tags: COPYWRITING, DDB, M&C SAATCHI, MATT EASTWOOD

    Jul 02, 10

    Junior Event // 18

    “Blow your wad in the first paragraph.”

    That was Jo Walker from Frankie (http://frankie NULL.com NULL.au)‘s opening tip. So we just did.

    Here are some photos.


    Also posted in DRINKS | Tags: DRINKS, FRANKIE, JO WALKER

    Jun 28, 10

    The Monday Morning WHIP // 79

    However cryptic, this week’s Whip is one of Stan (http://branddna NULL.blogspot NULL.com)‘s best. Give yourself some time to think–enlightenment will come.

    Another weekend rolls around. Another Saturday morning where I sit and wonder what on earth I’m going to write for the Monday Whip.

    Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been working on a big pitch, which has proven an excellent source of Whip material.

    But now the dust has settled on the pitch I found myself sitting staring at a blank piece of paper.

    Much like I do every day it work.

    And much like I do every day at work I scribble a few thoughts, toss around a couple of ideas, then get started.

    Most times it’s a struggle. Sometimes it comes within minutes. But unless I overcome that piece of blank paper I will have nothing.

    And nothing isn’t going to inspire you. Nor will it keep me in a job.

    Also posted in WHIP | Tags: STAN, WHIP

    Jun 11, 10

    The Interview Series // 32


    Back in 1998, the distinguished dewd pictured above, Luke Sullivan, (http://twitter NULL.com/heywhipple) wrote a book called Hey Whipple, Squeeze this (http://www NULL.amazon NULL.com/Hey-Whipple-Squeeze-This-Advertising/dp/0470190736/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269151763&sr=1-1). In the twelve years since its release, Hey Whips has become THE go-to book for all aspiring advertising creatives. There are several reasons why this is the case, but the only one really worth knowing is because Luke has that innate quality to call bullshit and talk straight. A quality that all great admen and women certainly seem to have. Unequivocally speaking, Luke Sullivan is THE man–he’s funny as hell and makes your dad seem like the uncoolest man alive. These days you’ll find Luke at GSD&M (http://ideacity NULL.com/) in Austin, Texas (http://maps NULL.google NULL.com/maps/ms?doflg=ptk&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=102594856052860215342 NULL.00048895d4ddeb59f9425&ll=5 NULL.344985,-164 NULL.79728&spn=134 NULL.70471,324 NULL.667969&t=h&z=3&iwloc=00048895d4e694e67dd83) where he is Senior VP / Managing Group Creative Director, making cool shit, doing interviews like this, and writing a pretty damn good blog (http://www NULL.heywhipple NULL.com/). So, for all you ad kids out there, read on, get the low-down, then buy the book (http://www NULL.amazon NULL.com/Hey-Whipple-Squeeze-This-Advertising/dp/0470190736/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269151763&sr=1-1) if you haven’t already.

    Junior: Hey Luke, how did you get your very first break in the industry?

    Luke Sullivan: I entered the agency business from the fringes. I was a typesetter for the in-house agency of a department store in Minneapolis called Dayton’s. It no longer exists, but the brown building is still there. (In fact, you can still see it in the credits for the old Mary Tyler Moore show (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=zCL3B5LgUCo). They shot the part where she throws her hat up in the air in front of Dayton’s.) But I digress. I had a second job at night being what they then called a ‘keyliner’ at a weekly newspaper called the Twin Cities Reader. One day, I found a small publication listing the winners of the local advertising show and I was smitten by how cool the work was coming from a particular pair of people: Ron Anderson and Tom McElligott. I put together what has to be the worst beginner¹s book in the history of advertising, took it in, and somehow got a job. I also had a contact with the president of that agency through my college buddy. Kinda did both at once. And it worked.

    J: Okay, fill us young pups in: What did a “keyliner” do?

    L: Today, you would call a keyliner a studio person. You executed ads based on what an art director specified. The even-more-ancient word was “paste-up.”

    J: Most people who start in typesetting become art directors. When did you start writing – or had you always been a writer?

    L: I was in between. I liked to draw. And I liked to write. And as a kid I got to do both when I made my own comic books. By college, though, I knew. I liked writing.

    J: What made you decide to write ‘Hey, Whipple, Squeeze this’ (http://www NULL.amazon NULL.com/Hey-Whipple-Squeeze-This-Advertising/dp/0470190736/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269151763&sr=1-1)?

    L: I wrote Whipple when I was at Fallon in Minneapolis. I had been saving speeches and articles for a few years in a file and then gradually I started adding other people’s advice, insights, and articles. The file eventually grew unruly and bad-tempered and would barely fit in my drawer. Then one day I had to give a speech at the Portfolio Center in Atlanta and raided that file for all it was worth. In Atlanta, I handed out the notes of the speech and later learned that the notes were turning up as screen savers in agencies here and there. In addition to being flattered, I began thinking there was a market for a decent book on advertising. Most books (at least at the time) were pretty bad. All you had to do was look at the examples of “good advertising” these books contained and you could tell the authors weren’t practitioners of the craft, at least the craft I practice. So I just started writing. I didn’t have a publisher, nor any hope that such a book would be welcome on the shelves of bookstores. But that was beside the point; I had to write this book mostly get it out of my system. After I had finished, I showed the first manuscript around to about 40 people I admired, just folks in the business: creatives, account folks, directors. Every one of them was kind enough to read the entire thing and give criticism. I am still in debt to those people. After that, it was just a matter of getting it into the hands of the right publisher. Not knowing the first thing about the process, I just wandered over to the Barnes & Noble in downtown Minneapolis and bought some books on book proposals for publishers and other how-to manuals. I followed what they said to do and that was pretty much it. It’s been a fun thing. It’s made money. Not Stephen King money, but first-time authors rarely make any serious dough. It’s more of a love and pride thing.

    J: There’s a lot of people and books out there that will tell you how to get a job in an agency. But once in, it’s sink or swim. Do you have any key survival pointers for kids just starting in Adland?

    L: It helps to have a friend higher up, somebody who can keep an eye on you. Maybe it’s someone in the creative dept who isn’t the CD, but a senior person you can turn to for advice. Maybe it’s someone you met when you were interviewing there. Look for ‘em. Don’t be shy about it either. After hours, lean into someone’s office and just go for it. You’ll find them. Only if you look; they generally won’t walk up to you and introduce themselves. Creatives are often shy; always busy. Go find them.

    If it can’t be a senior creative, buddy up with the friendliest juniors you can find. You’re always gonna find a few friendly souls who are the welcoming type. Hang out with them. Ask their opinions. What should I do? Where can I go to get help with such-and-such? The jungle drums are always beating.

    J: We read on your blog (http://www NULL.heywhipple NULL.com/) something about marrying the techno-geek code-guy with the wordsmith/art director in terms of making yourself a valuable creative. What advice would you give both for discovering the beauty of the other?

    L: The only way to do this stuff is to do this stuff. Sounds silly, I know. But that is my experience and it’s what I am seeing the successful agencies doing. They just start; they dive in; they figure shit out as they go. You, too, will figure shit out as you go, but first you have to dive in. After you start, you will begin to realize what you bring to the party (and what you don’t) and if you enter with a willingness to learn and to just shut the hell up and listen, you will meet in the middle regardless of which side you started.

    J: These days, wannabe ad kids are springing up all over the world, mostly in geographically ‘unfortunate’ places (as far as the industry is concerned) How should these kids without access to interesting start-ups and creative powerhouses with a billion internship places approach the advertising world?

    Back when I wrote Hey Whipple, I did some research through AAAA about how many agencies there were in America; just to see for myself. Turns out that even in 1998 there were over 13,000 agencies. Dudes, that¹s a lot of places to find work; a lot of places to get your foot in the door. And now, with the explosion of digital, there gotta be tens of thousands more places.

    Fact is, you do NOT need your first job in the agency business to be at some creative powerhouse. What you need to do is get a job. First and foremost, get a job. That is the important thing. Yes, you should try to get one in a place of your choosing, but that’s not always gonna happen. There are only so many A+ agencies out there. But you can do great work in any number of places. There are agencies out there that may have a couple of big clients that make them do bad work, but if you take a look you’ll see they’re doing great work on other pieces of business. It’s just not black and white. So my advice is a.) yes, go for your fave agencies but b.) don¹t despair if you can¹t get a job there. There are plenty of great places to get a job. Get a job where you can and start working on adding good work to your book.

    J: A lot of the advertising we see seems to feel the same – you know, a variation of an idea or style that won at Cannes the year before. What would you say to young juniors falling into the trap of monkey-see monkey-do?

    Well, what I learned in grade school art was this. “No tracing, Luke. Did you TRACE this?” Umm, yeah.

    I guess that advice still applies. I want to see what you think. The thing is, given the speed at which award shows are able to print and bind their award annuals…..when you are reading a new annual, you’re looking at work that’s about a year-and-a-half to two years old. These things get printed in China, okay? And to reach your hands, it had to come on a slow boat from China. Literally. So…I don’t know about you, but I don’t wanna be modeling my ideas on stuff that came on a slow boat from China. I had a long talk with Mike Hughes about award shows once. He was actually considering not letting his creative department submit anything to any show for a year. Just to see what they would do if the orbital pull of the shows were entirely removed from the creative process. While the idea is not popular with creative people I mention it to, I still think, wow, pretty interesting way to go.

    J: If you could give the one, final set of instructions on how to write clear and engaging copy, what would you say?

    L: Sorry, but this is kind of a silly question. There is no one final set of intructions. Read William Zinser’s On Writing Well. Read the books of good writers. Read all the time. Write all the time. Read the awards annuals. Read everything. Adweek, Archive, watch the reels, read library books, read the sports section, the business section. Read history, read comedy. Soak up the culture around you. Don’t stay in your advertising ivory tower. Get out there. Learn and learn and learn some more. It is a process that will never end. There is no shortcut.

    J: How do we find ‘the truth’ in a brief or problem? What does it feel like when you find it? How do you know if it’s really ‘a truth’ or not? Tell us everything about it. We feel like this might be the secret to everything.

    L: Often times I see agencies working to briefs where the strategy looks more like a company mission statement. ‘We believe fresh foods mean better health.’ A strategy, however, at least by my way of thinking is a clever plan. Look it up in the dictionary. Well, lemme do it.

    1 a: an artifice or trick in war for deceiving and outwitting the enemy
    b: a cleverly contrived trick or scheme for gaining an end.

    By this definition, the Trojan Horse was a strategy. It was clever; it was unexpected. Too often though strategies today seem to be little more than ‘themes’ or mission statements. Better, I think are strategies that are built on top of, and powered by, cultural tensions. Depending on the client you are working with, this isn’t always possible. But when a strategy can be built on top of a cultural tension, great work is built into the strategy and fairly bursts out of it, like volcanoes along tectonic plates. Unfortunately, I am not an expert in strategy. All I know is that ‘Fresh foods mean better health’ is a theme; not a clever strategy and not built on a cultural tension.

    Also posted in THE INTERVIEW SERIES | Tags: HEY WHIPPLE SQUEEZE THIS, LUKE SULLIVAN

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

    Dec 07, 09

    The Monday Morning WHIP // 55

    whip55

    Why do you keep trying? What’s the point of it all? We ask ourselves this all the time — so don’t worry, you’re not alone. Even Charles Saatchi, the famed advertising genius, was once asked, “What keeps you going?” But being the genius that he is, in his infinite wisdom he replied, “Well, what’s the alternative?” Need more answers? Don’t worry, Stan (http://branddna NULL.blogspot NULL.com/) has another…

    I went to the Melbourne Design Market yesterday. Made me feel genuinely proud, with so many young Melburnians following their dreams by getting out there and creating stuff.

    As I’ve said many times before, anyone can have an idea. But it requires real creativity to make that idea actually happen.

    I spoke to a few of the stallholders about their ideas, whether or not they required any kind of funding and, most importantly, any obstacles they had had to overcome.

    All of them told me stories about self-doubt and stress, of feeling insecure and wanting to give up.

    But they didn’t.

    They pushed on even though they felt they were on the verge of failing.

    Why?

    Because that’s what creative people do.

    Also posted in ADVERTISING | Tags: ADVERTISING, CHARLES SAATCHI, COMMITMENT, HUNGER, MELBOURNE, MELBOURNE DESIGN MARKET

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

    Jul 09, 09

    The Interview Series // 15 (Part Two)

    glendynivin

    Yesterday we posted Part One of our drinking escapades with Glendyn (http://glendynivin NULL.com). If you haven’t read it yet, do so here. Umm, so, yeah… You wanna know something funny? You do? Cool. Cause we’ve already written an intro to the first part and now we’ve said all we can say. We sat down with Glendyn for two hours, gathered one hour and forty five minutes worth of audio, and had it transcribed into a 10,000 word interview nightmare! How do you edit something like that? Crazy, huh? One day we’ll show you all the other bits we didn’t add in. Things like when the waiter brought our beers over or Ed had to go to the toilet. That’s where the magic is. In the meantime, read the interview then go see Glendyn’s new movie. It’s called Last Ride (http://lastridemovie NULL.com) if you didn’t know already. Read on!

    Junior: Winning at Cannes and at the AFI’s for Crackerbag must have been a turning point for you, a bit of recognition?

    Glendyn: I never made Crackerbag to go, “I’ll make this film, send it to a festival, win an award, and then go on to make a feature”. I just wanted to make a short film. When I made it I thought if I can make this and show my Mum and my friends at Christmas that would be really cool. I just really wanted to make a film; even if it was shit I was still going to be happy with it. Everything else that happened when we finished the film was a huge bonus.

    Jr: Is there any trick to entering something like Cannes?

    G: I downloaded the entry form from the internet, filled it out, put it in a Post-Pack, kissed the package, gave it good energy and sent it off. The next thing we knew there was a phone call from a French guy saying we were in the competition. I had no idea what that really meant. I was so naive about the whole thing; I just kind of went along for the ride. Things happen for a reason.

    Jr: Why did it win? Do you know why?

    G: I think Crackerbag had a universal story. Working with anything to do with childhood – I didn’t know this beforehand, but I’ve travelled around the world with the film since and shown it in different countries with different audiences – and someone always comes up and says “that film is about me when I was a kid”. The first time someone said that to me I was in Russia, at the Vladivostok Film Festival. This little pepper pot Russian, hard-faced woman with a floral headscarf came up and said through a translator ‘that film is about me’. And I remember thinking ‘it’s not about you, it’s about me’. To the most ridiculous amount of detail, that film is about me. I thought only my Mum and my brother would get that. It’s the same car, the same posters in the room. I guess I realised that if you are a child, no matter who you are, where you are, where you grow up, you experience moments in your life where you see that things aren’t what you thought they were or that your world is a little bit bigger. That was it; it was a really good story about being a child.

    Jr: It seems that creating a masterpiece takes so long. You’re creating something about you and it’s all about your creativity and not about clients – going on a journey like that, it becomes not about anybody else but about you. Did you find making ‘Last Ride’ to be a big personal journey?

    G:     Definitely. It is hard sustaining energy over five years. Particularly when you have got your own personal life, moneymaking work, and all that sort of stuff. We went on this road trip, six weeks travelling five or six thousand kilometres through the desert. I think the idea of removing yourself totally from your comfort zone is a really great thing. I’ve always seen making films of any kind as being like an explorer, like being out in outerspace. I like to always force myself into places where I don’t belong with open eyes and an open heart, and take in and translate what you are experiencing.

    Jr: Were there any moments when you were filming ‘Last Ride’ where you thought, ‘I don’t love this anymore’?

    G: No. It was more like, ‘How can I love it even more?’ To be in the middle of directing a feature film is one of the most overwhelmingly stressful situations you can put yourself in. If you find yourself doing it with something that you aren’t in love with or aren’t 150% committed to, it would turn that stressful situation into absolute terror. There’s so many times when I was making the film that I thought to myself that I wished I packed supermarket shelves because it would be a really easy job; I’d earn money, I could go home and relax, watch TV and all that sort of stuff.

    Jr: Yes!

    G: But it’s always the story and the characters and the need to tell that story or at least to try to, is the thing that drives you to keep doing it. Every single shot and everything that you do on a feature film is a battle. You look at every shot as sacred. Every moment is trying to create something. To me if you’re doing it and not believing in it that would be terrifying. I’m sure that there are people that can do it, but in that situation I would rather be packing a supermarket shelf.

    Jr: Now you’ve had that taste of doing a feature, do you think you will get to a stage where that is all you want to do? Leave TV commercials behind?

    G: If I could do features and nothing else now I would do it. For me it would be the most privileged existence. But I don’t think that’s going to happen for a while. Not that I can see at the moment. But you never know. Right now I’m quite happy at the to divide my time between commercials, developing features and other creative projects.

    Jr: OK, so we’ve got some questions for the budding filmmakers out there. First up, how do you go about getting funding for your films? Is it public, is it private, and does that make a difference with the creative direction of the film?

    G: ‘Last Ride’ was pretty much funded traditionally. Money from Screen Australia, Film Victoria, South Australian Film Board, The Adelaide Film Festival, Madman, and right at the last minute I got some private money. That’s kind of the way most feature films are made here. We didn’t have a big budget, it was $3.5 million. People aren’t putting a lot of private money into films, particularly not that much money. I don’t think we had to jump through any hoops, it was always “this is the film we are making”. No one stepped in at anytime and told me or anyone to do anything different, to edit it a certain way, etc. Having done Crackerbag definitely helped and opened a lot of doors.

    Jr: Did having Hugo Weaving help?

    G: Definitely. It’s a pretty full on script, and people relax when you have a darker script with a name attached to it. Everyone is looking at how you can market the film and if you have Hugo in the role, Hugo can help sell the film.

    Jr: At what stage did he come on board?

    G: About two years ago. Once we were happy with the script. Then it was still probably another year before we got final go ahead. Everything takes so long; it is a very slow train to jump aboard. Which is why finding something that you are really in love with is important because there is a lot of times when it won’t be giving you any love back, but you have to keep loving it.

    Jr: So how do you go about pitching to get funding?

    G: I think I’m really bad at pitching, but I’ve had to do a lot of it, so hopefully I’m getting better. Some people are great at it. When it comes down to it though you can pitch the film in a really great way to someone but is that the person you want to make the film with? It’s about relationships, always about relationships. If someone says ‘No’ to you, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. You just have to find another way, or a cheaper way, or half a way, or another person to work with. You want to fund a film with people who want to make the film WITH YOU and vice versa. When we were really in the thick of raising money for Last Ride, we took a meeting with this creepy American guy, he was saying all the right things, and sounded impressive. But I had this really strong feeling. I thought, even if he takes out his cheque book and gives us the full amount right now, I won’t be able to accept it because I really don’t want to make the film with this guy; we wouldn’t be making the same film. And that would be a huge mistake.

    Jr: Finally, have you any tips for the young filmmakers out there, no matter if they’re in high school, uni, or post-uni?

    G: Get a camera, shoot stuff and cut it. There is no better experience than the experience itself. I kind of see filmmaking as a process of making millions of mistakes, so you have to get out there and start learning from the mistakes. I’m still making mistakes and learning from them and I think I will be forever.

    I found music clips a really good way to learn. I always wanted to do film clips, but I had no idea how to get into it. The whole thing was demystified for me when I realised that even the people that are really good at film clips only do them for a certain amount of time, especially in Australia because the budgets are so small. Even if you are really good you can only pull so many favours for so long. So feel free to go into a record company with a basic show reel and say ‘I really want to make a film clip’ and in a few weeks you might get a small budget and a song to make a film clip for. Film clips are better in some ways if you are trying to learn about ‘craft’ (than say commercials), because most times you have more creative control, they’re longer so you have to shoot more and cut more, and they’ll always get shown on Rage. Whereas your first ads, you kind of don’t have a lot of control so you don’t really have a chance to show what you can do.

    For me also it was about finding heroes. People who when you read their books or watch their films that you see that they weren’t ever being locked down to a style or a time or a place, but that they just did what they wanted to do. And that’s how they’ve gotten through their life and built an amazing career and body of work, by doing their own thing. There’s no right or wrong way. There’s a great book, Herzog on Herzog (http://www NULL.amazon NULL.com/Herzog-Paul-Cronin/dp/0571207081), it’s sort of my bible. He said “Even if you have to steal a camera, do it.” Just get out there and make something. It sort of rings in my ears sometimes. If it’s a feature film, a short, a music video or a commercial, they kind of sit in the same place for me, it’s all about setting up a camera, shooting something, cutting it, going through the process, it’s just fun. There’s no better job.

    HugoandTom_colour_rgb_3-1
    ‘Last Ride’ is currently screening across Australia.

    Also posted in ADVERTISING, FILM, THE INTERVIEW SERIES | Tags: ADVERTISING, EXIT FILMS, GLENDYN IVIN, LAST RIDE, THE INTERVIEW SERIES

    Jun 22, 09

    The Monday Morning WHIP // 31

    whip31

    Everyone knows you don’t make friends with science. But what many don’t know is that it can build your contacts. And make your ideas bigger. AND make you a better creative. It’s an age-old but relevant theory. Today, professor Stan (http://branddna NULL.blogspot NULL.com/) has his white coat on and what he’s got to say ain’t boron (http://en NULL.wikipedia NULL.org/wiki/Boron).

    Those of you who managed to stay awake during science classes at school are sure to be familiar with Newton’s Laws of Motion.
    My favourite is #3: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
    This law applies just as much to getting into the creative industries as it does to movement and science. Here’s how:

    Work on your folio – It will get better.
    Think big – You’ll have bigger ideas.
    Ask for advice – You’ll increase your knowledge.
    Seeks criticism – You’ll become a better creative.
    Show your work to other people – You’ll build a network of industry contacts.

    Somehow I don’t think old Isaac Newton had getting a job as a junior in mind when he developed his Laws of Motion.
    But I’m sure he’d agree that you should definitely be applying his 3rd Law to your job search.

    Also posted in ADVERTISING, DESIGN, WHIP | Tags: ADVERTISING, COMMITMENT, CREATIVITY, DESIGN, FOLIO, HUNGER, INSPIRATION, JOB HUNTING, NEWTON'S LAW OF MOTION, SCIENCE, TIPS, WHIP, WRITING
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