The Reverse Omakase

The Omakase is a sushi menu where you don’t select anything yourself, instead leaving it up to the chef to bring what he or she thinks is best. It’s an ideal relationship of trust between purveyor and customer: the chef is trusted to provide excellent food, and the customer is trusted to be openminded enough to try some selections that might be out of their comfort zone. In the end the customer gets to broaden their horizons in an environment where the chef will be doing their best to impress.

The Omakase would be the ideal situation in an advertising agency, where the client would trust the agency to produce excellent work, and the agency, partly from their own creative standards, but partly because they want to be hired again, would provide their very best work.

This happened a lot in my early years at AMV BBDO. As the biggest and best agency in the country, clients had a lot of confidence in its output, and generally trusted its opinion of what would work best for them. That faith was almost always repaid with memorable, effective advertising.

I’m sure the majority of your experiences have been a kind of compromised Omakase, where the customer turns their nose up at some of the selections, sends others back and the whole endeavour isn’t quite the trust-fest that might have been intended.

Then you have the Reverse Omakase: a soul-sapping breakdown of trust and confidence that winds its way through the most tedious and depressing path to invariably dreadful work. It has only happened to me a couple of times, both in the last three years, but I worry that a combination of circumstances are increasingly conspiring to make it a more common occurrence.

Allow me to describe how it appears (from my experience, at least): the process starts innocently enough, with a brief of some sort. As usual, I begin by getting ridiculously optimistic about the possibilities, and bring my A-game. This is met with a degree of appreciation and approval, but also criticism and ‘notes’. And that’s no problem; we’ve all been there, and the back-and-forth process is often essential to getting to the most effective solution, especially with a new client or a new sector. Ideally you reach that solution fairly quickly and progress to execution.

But in the Reverse Omakase, the solution might or might not exist at the end of a very long, tortuous, trust-free trudge that is painful for both sides.

In the sushi world, this would be akin to challenging a chef to guess what you like, but when they inevitably get it wrong you would respond with eye-rolling micro-management. Suggest the fish, then dictate the fish, then give instructions on how it should be prepared, then miss the fact (or don’t care) that the chef is losing the will to live, then don’t allow them to express their creativity in any way, continue to be pissed off that they can’t read your mind, and end up with something that’s mediocre at best because you’re not actually all that good at preparing sushi.

In the advertising world it consists of poor or ambiguous feedback, annoyance at the inaccurate response to the vague criticism, several rounds of micro management, the creative becoming disillusioned and, seeing that the A-game is not working, offering the B- or C-game. The client then becomes more disappointed and more heavy-handed, sending the process into a vicious spiral where the creative begins to pray that the client will simply dictate the whole thing and reach the conclusion at greater speed. But no such luck. The comments become ever-more granular, and your increasing exasperation means you want to explain that you have plenty of experience at performing these tasks with great success, but that would not sway their opinions one iota. You’re now in a feedback loop that will soon remove your entire will to live.

And none of this makes the client any happier. They know that the creative is being paid, so ought to be contributing. However, not everyone knows how to be a good client, by which I mean one who can offer clear and constructive feedback. Some commissioners of advertising just have a poor ad in their heads and are waiting for the creative to fumble their way towards it. Standards go out of the window, and the creative, who knows what a really good line is, does not know if their new line is mediocre enough to satisfy the random arbiter of taste, so poorer lines are offered, and the client wonders what they are paying for, and on, and on, and on…

I don’t know how many of you have been through this, but I find that in the world of fragmented media, multiple clients, low-quality training, the ever-hastening death of craft skills, and ever-increasing demands of less interesting jobs with lower salaries, this situation is becoming more common.

Some clients don’t know how to recognise quality, but they are in the position of deciding whether your work is up to snuff, and they usually have a boss of their own, who will want to know why the work is what it is. This breeds insecurity, the aforementioned micro-management, and the breakdown of and trust in the creative/client relationship.

Obviously that is not a recipe for success, but in 2020, the Reverse Omakase is alive and well and gaining in prevalence. If you should find yourself in the kitchen when someone orders it, get ready, because chances are, your hopes of making some impeccable Kazunoko and Shime-Saba are about to be crushed into a month of cobbling together a grim old shit sandwich.



Fat boy dressed up like he’s Santa and took pictures with your kids. We the best, we will cut a frowny face in the weekend.

A history of gender-bending in pop music.

Interview with Elliott Erwitt.

Take a beautiful hand-drawn tram ride.

Simulate fluid.

The Britney Spears guide to semiconductor physics.

Musical fun.

Awkward:

https://vimeo.com/channels/bestofthemonth/398636593


ITIAPTWC Episode 67 – Tim Lindsay

So I was watching this video the other day:

…and I found myself in violent agreement with everything Tim Lindsay was saying.

There are lots of questions advertising has to ask itself right now. The industry is in a state of disrepair: financially straitened, endlessly splintered and trying to find its place at a time of climate crisis, pandemic and global political upheaval.

So I got in touch with Tim and suggested we drill down into those topics, especially from his position as Chairman of D&AD (apologies for referring to him as CEO during the chat) – the pre-eminent body of advertising creativity. Are these creative topics? Financial? Business? You could even ask whether or not they are within advertising’s remit at all.

So we chatted about all of that, and I didn’t even ask about whether there should be a printed annual, or how Chinese jurors judge English advertising copy (and vice versa). Frankly, there are bigger things to discuss…

Here’s the iTunes link, the Soundcloud link and the direct play button:

If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas?
If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas?
ITIAPTWC Episode 67 – Tim Lindsay
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Aiyo, what a night, New York City, heard it goin’ down Friday night, midnight, Atlantic City Slot machines, ding-ding-ding-ding-ding, when they ring off the weekend.

Hollywood actresses and the age difference of their love interests.

And actors who age while their love interests don’t.

Relax while watching particles connect.

Celebs reveal their fave cheeses.

A love letter to the internet of old.

400 episodes of Bob Ross Painting, starting with this one:



Tragedy. When the feeling’s gone and you can’t go on it’s tragedy. When the morning cries and you don’t know why, it’s the weekend.

Collecting strangers’ diaries.

Is your local McDonald’s ice cream machine broken?

‘Amazon’ for shopping local.

The historical rise of creativity.

3-D model of 300-year-old salt mine.

Withnail and I, 30 years on:

Mushroom bloom tinelapse:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-nJ0ROGD14

How do giraffes fight? Like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm11C8l9Xwk&feature=emb_logo


And if you don’t love me now you will never love me again. I can still hear you saying you would never break the weekend (never break the weekend).

Learn Japanese the easier way.

Interactive Van Gogh painting.

Type in text, see it turn into proper handwriting.

Fun digital 3-D sculpting.

Subscribe to get the top 5 movies on the big streaming sites.

Dog sledding:



What I’ve learned from watching the best films of all time.

Anna Karina in Godard’s Vivre Sa Vie

(A note: I have recently added YouTube links for several of the films I mention. Dip your toe in for free!)

I mentioned last month that I’ve recently acquired a new app for my Apple TV. The Criterion Channel is the streaming version of the Criterion Collection of super-elite movies that have been restored, saved or otherwise rescued from undeserved obscurity. For $99 a year you can watch the films, along with thousands of profiles, commentaries, interviews and other extras connected to them.

As a film buff, this has been comparable to my marriage or the birth of my children in terms of the degree to which it has improved my life.

A little background: my brother is an even bigger film fan than I am (he studied film at NYU), so as a teenager I’d end up sponging his enthusiasm for the true greats. I’d always been into the kind of mainstream movies you’d find down the local Odeon, but thanks to Andrew I was the only person in my school who had seen Citizen Kane, Les Enfants Du Paradis and The Seven Samurai.

I continued to watch great films when they became available, but that meant waiting for them to appear at one of London’s repertory cinemas, such as The Scala or the NFT, or on TV (often interrupted by ads), or on video (alas, I often had better things on which to spend a tenner). Years later, my wife and I would go to see Hiroshima Mon Amour or the NFT’s Carl Dreyer season, but once we had kids that became increasingly difficult.

So things went a little off the boil. My brother would ask me to bring Criterion Edition DVDs back from work trips to LA, but they now seemed dauntingly obscure, and there were almost too many to know where to begin rekindling my interest.

That all changed this year when HBO became HBO Max, incorporating a good chunk of Turner Classic Movies’ offerings (Cassavetes, Dr Zhivago, Giant etc.). I was surprised at the extent to which this thrilled me, but I was genuinely delighted at having dozens of proper classics available at the touch of a button, especially under cinema-free lockdown.

Then my film buff (screenwriter) neighbour reminded me of the Criterion Channel, which had launched a year earlier. I had a look, signed up for the free trial, and have barely watched anything else since.

I started off somewhat at random, checking out films I’d heard of but hadn’t quite got around to watching. The channel has a handy section called ‘Art-House Essentials’, so I could see what they regarded as the classics di tutti classics, and quickly got a bit obsessed by Kenji Mizoguchi (Sansho The Bailiff, Ugetsu, 47 Ronin etc). I was surprised to discover that very, very slow Japanese films about making a decision to avenge a samurai master are indeed my jam.

After a few of those I decided I needed a bit more structure, so I looked up the famous Sight and Sound list of the top 100 films of all time. It’s a survey they take every decade, when the year ends in a ‘2’ (I’m already slightly giddy at the thought of the 2022 version), and incorporates a list voted for by international critics, and another 100 voted for by directors who aren’t Michael Bay.

I can’t remember how many of the two lists I hadn’t seen (many films make both lists, but there are quite a few that only feature in one or the other. For example, directors like John Cassavetes much more than critics do), but I think it was close to fifty, and included masterworks (obviously) from directors whose work I had never seen. Among these, Robert Bresson has three films on the lists, including Au Hasard Balthazar, Pickpocket and A Man Escaped. Antonioni has L’Avventura and L’Eclise. Tarkovsky has Andrei Rublev, Mirror and Stalker. The list literally goes on and on.

The really interesting ones were the one-offs from directors I hadn’t even heard of. Have you seen Satantango, Bela Tarr’s 7-hour-20-minute black-and-white Romanian film about the disintegration of a community farm? Of course not, but it’s fucking brilliant! Honestly! Or Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, a 3 1/2 hour film about the day-to-day routines of a Belgian housewife and occasional prostitute (also utterly brilliant)? Well, you’re missing out. Close Up, The Colour of Pomegranates, The Earrings of Madame de…, Yi Yi. The very best of Taiwan, Iran, Senegal, India…

It’s been a journey that has taught me much, so here are eleven lessons I’ve been able to take from The Criterion Channel to the rest of my life:

  1. Don’t judge a film by anything until you’ve seen it. Yes, I know avoiding Adam Sandler movies (except for Punch Drunk Love and Uncut Gems) is good advice, but if you let your preconceptions dictate your tastes, you’re going to miss out on a lot. Dismiss obvious dross, but if you can keep an open mind you might find yourself wondering why a film about the Romanian abortion system of the late-1980s is as affecting and heartbreaking as anything Paul Thomas Anderson has ever made.
  2. I was surprised at how many of these films were derided or even hated on their initial release (I read the Wikipedia page of each one). It might just be a difference of opinion, but the makers of movies whose work went unappreciated for years were often reassessed to the very top table decades later. So don’t worry if everyone thinks that what you do is shit; you might just be ahead of your time.
  3. The experiences of humans are universal. Films made long ago about stories set long ago in far-off locations can be just as relatable as films shot down the road this year. If you want proof try Andrei Rublev, a Russian film made in the sixties about a fifteenth-century painter of churches. It’s full of entirely understandable bravado, jealousy, risk, despair, shame, hope and triumph.
  4. Other people saying things are great forces you to look a bit deeper for that greatness. These films are what the biggest film fans, with the greatest contextual knowledge, consider to be the best of the best of the best of the best. They didn’t all float my boat, but there was at least something great to be found in each one. I have found the same with lists of great albums, or pictures in the National Gallery.
  5. Some of the films seemed to find themselves in this company accidentally. Sure, their makers set out to produce something good, but did the director of La Maman et la Putain think his work would be considered alongside The Godfather or Battleship Potemkin? Unlikely.
  6. Oddly, this exercise has really made me want to make a film of my own. Perhaps it’s a symptom of how easy the true greats make greatness appear to be, but I honestly come away from them thinking it seems quite possible to add my own little offering to the list (I am clearly deluded).
  7. I was writing a novel at the same time as watching these films, and found, perhaps unsurprisingly, that immersing my mind in brilliant characters, masterful stories and irreverent structure was very helpful for steering my own work in better directions.
  8. Many of the greats are films that are unlike anything that came before, and in many cases, anything that came since. The degree of originality still obvious in 1929’s The Passion of Joan of Arc is jaw-dropping. I know it’s easier to be original in the earlier days of an art form, but some of these films would still be stunningly fresh today.
  9. Almost all of the films took me into a world I had never experienced: the charming insanity of A Woman Under The Influence (1970s LA); the terse choppiness of a disintegrating marriage in A Journey To Italy (1950s Naples); the inside of an alien something-or-other in Stalker (1970s Russia). Deeply immersive, one and all. If you’re feeling cooped up, escape into a great film.
  10. You can become cine-literate in a few months. Some days I watched three of the films (Buster Keaton’s work, Zero De Conduite and Partie de Campagne are all well under an hour). I have yet to manage the ten hours of Shoah, but that’s only because I can’t find it. One or two a day would help to flush the Star Wars prequels out of your system.
  11. Things change. Look back at previous versions of the list and you’ll see that fashions for certain directors have come and gone. I think the critics have become more international, as have tastes in general, so there’s less Chaplin and Keaton than there used to be. And of course newer films are added that didn’t exist ten years before. It’s fascinating to see which of those made the cut, especially as many passed me by, even in years that I considered myself an avid film buff.

But not as much of a film buff as I am today. Thanks, Criterion Channel, and all the filmmakers who have committed something so wonderful to celluloid.



So if you really love me say yes, but if you don’t, dear confess, and please don’t tell me perhaps, perhaps, the weekend.

Why Mizoguchi is one the great directors.

Wall art from any image.

How long after the sell-by date can you eat stuff?

Data viz of sci-fi tropes.

The cost of owning any product over time.

Big Boi’s favourite verse:



Well I run to the rock. Please hide me I run to the rock. Please hide me I run to the rock. Please hide me, Lord, all on the weekend.

Winners of the International Photography Awards.

Goodfellas at 30.

Rolling Stone has redone its top 500 albums of all time.

Terms and conditions that are easier to understand.

And a tool that shows you exactly how stalker-y every site is.

Find movies that are like the movies you like.

The best free online learning, ranked.

UnChien Andalou:



Baby, look at me and tell me what you see. You ain’t seen the best of me yet. Give me time, I’ll make you forget the weekend.

Quarantine movie marquees.

Why kids love Roald Dahl and adults don’t.

The addictive science of crisps.

The inventor of the Rubik’s Cube.

Practice touch typing by retyping entire classic novels.

Listen to sounds from different forests around the world.

Cruising after King of the Streets: