Amazing resin art (thanks, M):

Join a religion for Christmas:

Night of the Hunter is a truly great movie. Lots of stuff about it here.

A good, spoiler-heavy explanation of the influences behind the original Star Wars.

Charlie Kaufman interview.

The world’s best unphotoshopped photos.

The world’s worst jobs.

NY Times Year In Pictures.

Can you cry in space?

Amazing data viz of WW2 deaths:

Merry Christmas!!!

I recently read a quote from Renoir:

‘Your imagination will only supply you with a few leaves; but nature offers you millions, all on the same tree. No two leaves are exactly the same. The artist who paints only what is in his mind must very soon repeat himself’.

It’s very interesting and very true.

When Tarantino wrote Pulp Fiction in Amsterdam he filled up the movie with references to what he was seeing for the first time:

He also had Travolta smoke roll-ups made with Drum, a Dutch tobacco.

And it doesn’t have to be as direct as that. Dan O’Bannon was writing Alien when he found himself stricken with writer’s block. He wasn’t sure how to make the aliens different to what moviegoers had already seen so many times. So he went and did some research on insects, where he found the idea of corrosive blood.

Those are a couple of pro examples, but from the time I started working in advertising the idea of ‘sponging’, that is soaking up influences to improve your own creativity, was mentioned on a regular basis. Going out to see exhibitions or movies, travelling to new countries, reading books you wouldn’t normally read… these are all ways of putting some good fuel into your imagination.

But the indirect and unpredictable connections from A to B or A to Q or A to Purple can make it seem like sponging is merely an indulgence – after all, it tends to consist of enjoyable things that people do in their ‘leisure’ time, and not things that seem like work. So sloping off for a movie in the middle of a quiet day has the general appearance of bunking off, rather than directly improving productivity. Sitting at your desk reading a book could be interpreted as not taking your job seriously, or having nothing to do, even though the key to answering your current brief might be found on the next page. And you can only chat about movies for so long before you have to stop, and get down to some proper ‘work’ instead.

I’m sure I’ve written before about the way we’re conditioned in childhood to make a virtue of things that obviously seem like school work (filling up lots of blank pieces of paper by spending hours at a desk doing things you’re not that keen on), while the things that seem like ‘play’ are only allowed as some sort of reward for the work, and must be curtailed lest they eat into your work time and make you feel guilty.

Sure, there’s a point where you have to produce the thing you’re being paid for, but why does it matter how you get to it?

Maybe we should build compulsory movie, art and reading time into our jobs instead of trying to squeeze them in outside of office hours.

Filmmaker on flimmaker flaming (thanks, J).

Shitty acronyms.

Amazing historical photos (thanks, N).

get ready for Ep7 the easy way: watch all 6 Star Wars films simultaneously (thanks, J):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB1Pq1_M-Wg

Tumblr of stupid signs from Batman series (thanks, J).

Poorly-named products (thanks, J).

Michael Man n on Heat’s 20th anniversary.

Woman eats 100 slices of bread in 6 minutes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFOW8q8oKrA

‘What the word crab means to me’ (Batshit crazy, NSFW and thanks, J):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Vz7b5EGeR0

Trolling Brendan Sullivan (thanks, G).

Star Wars bad lip reading (thanks, C):

And, lest we forget, Triumph the comic insult dog at the opening of Attack of the Clones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV2CJlO79PE

And this was the result:

The Fist of Fury is a gay sex toy that is an exact replica of Tyson Fury’s fist and is of course, officially unendorsed by the man himself. 

The Fist of Fury twists his public profile into combating homophobia and providing vital support for the LGBT community.

You can read more at: justgiving.com/fistoffury

But in the mean time, I’d really appreciate it if you put it on your blog and/ or tweet about it. We’re really trying to get it off the ground and in front of as many people as possible. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=40&v=_YS2dSa-Ud0

Here’s an interesting piece on why we can all come up with creative ideas, but only some of us are actually creatives.

It’s a theme that has come up time and time again during my career: great ideas can come from anywhere, so if Johnny the Janitor happens to be passing your layout on his way to repairing the fourth floor bogs, and he suggests your endline might be better if you changed it from ‘Just Do Everything’ to ‘Just Do It’, then whoopee! Problem solved! Thanks, Johnny!

I’ve actually had this kind of thing happen on campaigns I’ve CD-ed. In recent years a lady from business affairs suggested a script idea that I thought was very good, so we put it in the mix alongside the work from the actual creatives and presented it up the chain. It didn’t survive to production, but that was fine – work can serve other purposes, such as showing the scope of your thinking, making other, scarier scripts seem safer, or providing the basis of a constructive conversation with the client.

But what would have happened if that script had made it to the very end? Would the lady from BA, with zero experience of choosing a director, writing an endline or running a VO session, take the role of creative during production? I think that would have been something of a disaster. Would she have returned to her department with a big pat on the back? Definitely. But what if she’d wanted to make more of those contributions, then learn the other aspects of the job of ‘creative’? Well, as the link above suggests, eventually she’d become a creative.

This is like those refutations of homeopathy or faith healing: if they really worked, that is if they passed the same degree of scrutiny as proper medicine, then it they would cease to live under those alternative names and would simply become ‘medicine’. So the non-creative who makes the contribution of a creative, that is consistently comes up with winning ideas right through to the final delivery of the ad, then they become a creative (if that’s what they want to do). And with the best will in the world, they’ll probably end up more valuable to the agency than if they stayed in BA.

But as the above article mentions, planners have been suggesting that they make contributions to the areas that are normally the remit of the creative (choosing music, commenting on the edit etc.). I don’t see why they or anyone should feel unable to speak up about an element of an ad that excites or bothers them. It may be a matter of finding the right time and place to make those comments, and the final say really needs to lie with a Creative Director, but the idea that everyone in the room should just keep their thoughts to themselves seems a bit odd. After all, in the end the public will judge the work, and everyone in an agency is a member of the public. Of course, it can’t be an unrestricted free-for-all, or you’d never get any work done, but if you hire intelligent people and work out at which stage of the process it would be best for them to contribute, then welcome those contributions.

On a slightly related note, I wonder how many of you have experienced the phenomenon of the person in another department who wishes to become a creative. Having experienced this myself as CD, I’ve been very happy for possible creatives to join from account management or planning. As in the example above, if they can prove themselves to be as effective as a ‘real’ creative then why shouldn’t they become a ‘real’ creative? Funny though that the wish to move departments never seems to happen in the other direction…

So if you can do the job of a creative, you’re a creative. If you can run round Aintree at 30 mph, you’re probably a horse. And if you can provide warmth and shelter for hundreds of people, you might be a building. Simple, innit?

Mexican Beatles lookalike convention.

An oral history of Mork and Mindy.

Prince’s long-hidden and fucking awesome cover of Creep (the solo around 7:15 will allow you to die happy):

Will the real Republican please stand up? (Thanks, P.):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltoon8MXnSo

Twisted wood frames (thanks, J).

A Christmas gift or two… or ten (thanks, G):

Watch Trump try to dodge a bald eagle (thanks, G):

Purple War (thanks, N):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VKfpz77X0c

An interesting email reaches me on the subject of a dysfunctional partnership:

Hi Ben, 

No problem.

My 2 cents? I remember feeling exactly this way at various points in my career. I felt like the central idea was the only thing that really mattered, and if I had come up with more of them than my partner then I felt resentful at the degree to which he CLEARLY wasn’t pulling his weight.

Then I got a bit older and realised I was doing two stupid things:

First, I was getting myself in a froth over something unimportant. It would genuinely piss me off to the point of almost ruining good partnerships and friendships. I recall having a really big stand-up row with one of my ADs on our second week of placement at AMV. We were actually pissed off at each other so needed to vent, but I think it was just down to feeling like we might be fucking up this great opportunity and taking everything WAY too seriously. Anyway, we went back in the building, wrote some good ads and stayed for several years, thankfully avoiding the kind of stress that might have given me a heart attack, all for some Sainsbury’s price ads.

The second thing I realised is that I was wrong. On balance I think I might have come up with more ideas than one or two of my partners, but then someone has to say the idea bit. If you keep score about it then you’re only going to annoy yourself and your partner, and it will never reflect that fact that your partner’s suggestion to go down the pub or watch that old Aerosmith video was what made the idea pop into your brain. It doesn’t mean you won, or you were better; it just meant that, as a team, you cracked another brief. Hooray! Now the hard work starts. And that’s the other thing I learned to appreciate: as a copywriter I’d generally find that more of the work was done at the front end of the creative process. Art directors handle more of the later stuff: selecting photographers; sitting in the studio for hours on end moving type around; making the reds a little warmer in the grading suite. In the end the amount of work done by both of us was pretty even, and the execution was incredibly important to the success of the ad. That’s one thing they didn’t really teach us in Watford. Yes, the idea is critical, but so is the way it’s executed, so you need to be a team that’s good at both.

I digress…

That was just some general advice for those of you who think your partnership is unbalanced – it might be all in your head. But as far as the above situation goes, I can see some other big problems that are all too common…

‘I’ve avoided bringing it up because she doesn’t handle criticism well’? 

Here’s some news: most people don’t handle criticism well, especially when it’s aimed at their creative output. If she’s told you an idea then she’s taken a chance on you liking it, and you’re supposed to be tight together, so when you tell her it’s no good it’s probably understandable that she doesn’t handle it well. You might argue that she should rise above it, and that she ought to understand and accept the slings and arrows of the job she’s chosen, but you’re only two years in, so it might still smart. And are you giving that criticism in the right way? Are you sure you’re right? You’re not a CD, so who says you should sit in judgement of her ideas? I’m just being provocative to make a point, but it’s worth thinking about whether or not she deserves your criticism. I fucking hated those Yeo Valley ads with the rapping farmers, and if my AD had presented them to me I’d have laughed in his face. But then I’d have missed out on making some famous and well-loved ads. So if I don’t know for sure, how do you? The answer is nobody does, so maybe give her another chance.

The other thing that sticks out for me is ‘I’ve avoided bringing it up’. Yes, I know it’s hard, particularly as you have to spend all day together, but if you’re not going to be honest with each other then yes – you might as well split up. Take her out for a coffee and show her this post. Tell her you know she’s good but she seems to have gone a bit quiet lately. Is there a reason for that? You’re supposed to be her partner and be there to support her. It sounds like you haven’t even delved into why. Get drunk if you need to, but have it out. Clear the air. If she used to be good, she can be good again. She hasn’t just turned into a moron in a few months. Maybe, just maybe, the space you’re creating, with the odd misplaced sigh, or the roll of the eyes you thought she wouldn’t notice, is inhibiting her creativity.

Last thing is you could be right. She might be a millstone round the neck of your ascent to the advertising heavens. It wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened, and if that’s the case, sure: find another partner and split up with her (in that order). No idea who’ll get to keep the job in the fancy agency, but if you can’t do it together that’s the kind of quandary you’re going to have to face.

(The final thing you can try is the Landmark Forum. I swear by it. So do Dave Trott and Mark Denton. It might clear away what’s causing some of the above. Or it might make you realise you’d prefer to be an airline pilot.)

Do any of you have any advice for my anonymous reader?

As a sort of companion piece to the ‘career or work person’ post from a couple of weeks ago, I’d like to delve into what exactly an ad creative should do if he or she wants to ‘progress’.

The eagle-eyed amongst you might have noticed that I’ve put inverted commas around the word ‘progress’. That’s because one person’s definition of that word might vary wildly from that of another person. I think the conventional attributes of progress for an advertising creative would include some kind of seniority within an agency, a larger salary and perhaps bigger  briefs. Or you might start your own agency, become a director or leave the industry altogether and becoming a successful timber merchant.

Whatever your definition of progress it requires moving forward from your current position. For most ad creatives it seems like the obvious way to do this is to produce famous and/or award-winning work. That’s really the only thing anyone has to measure your worth with even a little objectivity, so it’s the strongest factor that can set you on your path to somewhere else.

When I was a nipper I was very, very aware of this. It seemed like the only route not only to progress, but also to that incredibly valuable asset, ‘the respect of your peers’. I would argue that it it still the most reliable and measurable way to get ahead. Hollywood screenwriters say that it’s good to get something made, good or bad, because it means lots of people (director, producer, actor, money men etc.) believed you could create a script good enough to film, and that’s a big, wide endorsement. Even if a CD doesn’t love your ads by his own taste, he or she might concede that if they won awards, you must be doing something right.

But that’s only the first, basic stage. If that’s all you do, you’re going to become one of those career creatives, who either manages somehow to produce good work till they retire, or quietly drifts off to smaller agencies and more niche product sectors till they retire. If you want to avoid that situation you have to get into some form of management. Often this will be offered to you if you continue to produce good work (after all, if you can do it, you could probably help others do the same), but you can certainly give off a vibe that it’s not for you. Here are some of the best ways to do that:

Be rude in meetings, especially with the client.

Show a ridiculous degree of refusal to compromise, especially at the expense of something more important.

Be unable to recognise that anything might be more important than the exact Pantone shade of green in your full stop.

Have no patience for improving the work of your fellow creatives

Have poor personal hygiene.

Be late with great regularity, especially to meetings with any of your bosses.

Be taciturn to a fault.

To progress, you can do the opposite of these suggestions, but you also need an element of getting people to root for you. This is because progress requires your ‘superiors’ to speak up in your favour and place you in positions of responsibility. If they think you’re going to do badly in those positions, they aren’t going to recommend you for them. It will make them look bad and they’ll hate you for that.

So, hopefully you’ll be able to make that happen by being friendly and intelligent in front of those who can steer your progress. It’s obviously a bad idea to say stupid things, but saying nothing in meeting after meeting will leave people with the impression that it’s not you who comes up with the goods, and even if it is, there’s no benefit in bringing you to a client meeting. You’re going to have to take a few risks and put your opinions out there. Sure, your boss might disagree with them, but if they’re smart and backed up with some facts or experience then you should be OK.

It also helps if you’re someone other people like to have around. This doesn’t mean you have to compromise your snarky principles – well, actually, for many people it does. Realism is fine, but when it strays frequently into cynicism and negativity you’re simply going to turn people off. I recall an account man at AMV who was relentlessly positive, seeming to me and my fellow younger creatives like a dim puppy-dog with absolutely no critical faculties. Then I heard my boss explain that he loved having this guy around because helped bring the energy to a 3am pitch or a five-hour train ride to see a client in Skegness. Now I entirely understand that.

Can you fake it? I imagine quite easily (I don’t fake my own positivity; it’s all stems right from my ever-thrilled heart), but maybe you could actually find something enjoyable in volunteering to look after the placement teams, or offering to call the cab when the train’s late. It’ll connect you to people, who will then like you and, as Bob Dylan said, you’ve got to serve someone; why not make it one of your colleagues?

Anyway, you’ll also find a natural curiosity in what you’re doing is very useful. What is your client’s competition up to? Is there a new exhibition you should tell the rest of the department about? Are Finland producing any good ads right now? The person who has that curiosity can often win the affection and respect of his her peers (so long as he or she is not an arsehole about it).

Which brings me to the final and most important way to make progress: don’t be an arsehole. Yes, many apparent arseholes have succeeded, even remaining in quite prestigious jobs for considerable periods of time. But that is because they are definitely not being an arsehole to at least one person who matters. We’ve all seen idiots, dickheads, shitbags and arseholes make progress; we may not be privy to the way in which they please their bosses, but rest assured they do. Anyway, I’m trying to say it’ll be easier if you just avoid being an arsehole altogether. This should be obvious – I mean, who wants to hang around arseholes? But people can show a surprising tendency towards arseholism and it never helps.

So that’s my ‘made-it-up-as-went-along’ guide to making ‘progress on the creative side of advertising.

If any of the rest of you have any other suggestions, please leave them in the comments.