If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas?

Just a quick note about the excellent portfolio site, The Creative Floor.

These days you have to have an online portfolio. As lovely as a nice A2 leatherbound folio can be, that shit is dead as Charlemagne.

So get one that’s free and easy at TCF (interest declared: Shaheed, the guy behind it is a friend of mine).

Other reasons why TCF is good:

They’ve partnered up with NABS, The IPA, The Young Creative Council and Single Creatives.
If you need more space it’s £3.99 a month for unlimited storage. For those who can’t afford that, TCF will usually waive the cost.
Chuck Porter digs it so much that he flew Shaheed out to New York to meet him and MCBD’s talent scout.
CP&B want to use The Creative Floor to pick up talent as they start to expand their London office.
By avoiding headhunters fees agencies can put more money into the creatives’ pockets.
Last month they had to add an agency part to the site as RKCR/Y&R, Beta and PD3 (new ad agency) have all started to upload their portfolios.
Last week they became an official partner to Robin Wight’s Ideas Foundation.
They will add an Ideas Foundation section to the site, and donate free Unlimited Storage portfolios to any of the kids who want to get into the industry.
And they’ll help promote them through their Facebook page and Twitter.
On average, 2 books a week get a placement or job by being on the site. The most someone’s been offered is £120k.
The site is evolving all the time through feedback from the creatives on there, e.g. the Find a partner function was requested by NABS and around 50 creatives.
There seems to be a call for a Find a Freelancer function. So that’s coming soon.
The average time spent on the site is 11 minutes. And we get around 13-15,000 views a week.
It’s all done in Shaheed’s spare time and is completely self funded by him.
Which leaves him very time poor and somewhat financially poor, too.
However loads of people are finding partners, getting exposure and jobs on there.
It’s making life a little bit easier for everyone.
So it’s worth it.
But they won’t be there until everyone gets a profile on there.
If you need more info let him know.

I think this is the ad many of us fantasise about making:

http://vimeo.com/21939919

(Thanks, J).

While we’re here, this is the new Cadbury’s ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk4U2uJuFAI

I quite like it, but it just makes me pine for the rumoured ‘breakdancing cacti’ script that was apparently shunted aside to make the Trucks abortion. Will someone at Cadbury’s please make the breakdancing cacti ad. It will be good.

Otherwise, this really is a glass and a half of joy:

It reminds me of the days when people directed things with the kind of creativity and panache that made you go ‘Fucking hell, that looked amazing’. I don’t know why that’s become so rare, and I have no idea who shot this, but he (could it possibly have been a chick?) has elevated the idea brilliantly to make an ad that will stop people in the pub during the footie ad break*.

*Shame there won’t be any footy ad breaks worth giving a toss about until maybe next March. I mean, you might get a decent Champions League fixture before Christmas but they’ll still be fairly meaningless.

Social media experiences are usually like this (thanks, G).

The bit they forgot to include was the ubiquitous, ‘We’ll get people to upload their own clips/stories/ideas’.

Have any of you ever done that? Do you know anyone who has?

I just play a bit of Scrabble and hate anyone who advertises over my games.

And have you ever looked at, let alone clicked on, any ad that appears over the bottom of a YouTube clip?

Or do you click off every single one of them straight away while cursing the people behind them?

*Yes, I am aware there are some decent social media/online campaigns, but I’m talking about the other 99.9%.

UPDATE: QR codes skewered (thanks, Anonymouse):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9NEhxuJ6MQ

By the way, thought those things had been and gone, but I saw a few in the last issue of GQ. Of course, I didn’t scan them or whatever you’re supposed to do. I have no idea if they’re going to be a waste of time or not. And I don’t really know how to scan them. Basically, I’m like that guy in the above clip (the one with the phone, not the presenter). What I’m saying in a really long-winded way is: fuck QR codes in the ear.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfPAjUvvnIc

Behind the scenes of the Star Wars movies. The good ones (thanks, G).

The world’s fastest guitarist.

Groovy bear on mushrooms:

…an effect you can achieve just by watching this (thanks to IP for those two):

A further addition to our God conversation of last week:

Dads are the original hipsters.

Happy Halloween, motherfucker (thanks, H):

Finally, check out my spanky new blog for Water Water Everywhere. Thanks to everyone who has offered help so far. I’m just clarifying how best to make use of your kindness. If YOU want to get involved, email wweverywhere@gmail.com, particularly if you are abroad, as I would like this mother to go global. Also, looking to create an app. Do you do that kind of thing for free? Or cheap? Get in touch.

Wow. That’s bad for lots of obvious reasons, but let me add one more: we all know how difficult it would be to get Uma Thurman and David LaChapelle involved in your ad, but like the Clooney/Malkovich/Gondry axis of excrement for Nespresso, the end result can be as bad as anything on TV. Such a shameful waste of expensive talent is a crying shame.

Then there’s this for McVities.

Utter crap, yes.

But then it makes me go and break my own rule about not posting about rip-offs anymore:

GAH!

1. My friend James, who works in advertising (but not as a creative), has written a charming and very good book. It’s called Lex and is about growing up and moving on, or not moving on, or not growing up. Anyway, it’s an excellent read, so go and buy it.

2. The Young Creative Council are putting on a portfolio event, UNITE THREE, tonight.

There’s more info here, but it’s basically a chance to check out the best junior and grad portfolios out there and enjoy the steel-wheel spinnings of a DJ or two. And maybe get pissed.

It’s at Cargo from 7:30, and about 250 juniors, grads, movers and shakers went to the last one.

So be there or be elsewhere.

Here is a list of some famous/prolific authors and the number of times their work was rejected before finding a publisher.

It’s an interesting lesson that is very easy to forget: doing things that a lot of people like is not easy, and if you’re plying your trade in many corners of the media/arts, that is almost certainly what you are aiming to do.

My own experience is not dissimilar. I sent Instinct off to 14 agents, receiving a rejection from each one (to be fair to them and me, I may have sent it to some who were not appropriate for commercial fiction). I then resolved to cast my net a little wider, finally finding my excellent agent after a total of 28 rejections.

He then sent my book off to six publishers – all the big boys – and one, Penguin, offered to take it on for an advance of £20,000 (in case you’re interested, I have been informed that 20 grand is pretty good in this day and age. However, you should be aware that you get half on signing, a quarter on delivery of the finished manuscript and the final quarter on publication, which makes a big chunk of it not very advanced at all. There was also around 18 months between signing and publication, so I’m glad I had a day job). My agent said that we could have attempted to use the offer to bargain amongst the others, but that sounded a bit mucky to me, and besides, a bird in the hand and all that.

So I guess I suffered around 35 rejections of various sorts, but none of them really fazed me. You see, I’ve spent many years working in an industry that routinely rejects 98% of what I come up with, so a ratio of 1:35 was actually better than my usually strike rate (and yours, if you’re an advertising creative).

It may take a ridiculous degree of self confidence, or it may take a realistic acceptance of the status quo, but whichever it is, if you want to make an ad/movie/book, or anything else that is intended for thousands of people, then it’s going to take perseverance.

Or dedication:

(Wasn’t Roy Castle lovely?)

(Thanks, L).