Day 13 - Solid Feedback

At the agency I'm interning for, they only have one writer, who was hired in March. (He's not a new guy though. He's got some experience in some nice-sized agencies and he's a good one). Before that, they didn't have a writer for like 6 months or something; the ADs would just have to wing it. Weird. Anyway...

This guy's been on a TV shoot for the first week and a half that I've been here. He's been back now for a few days, but things have been so busy, as far as finishing editing his TV stuff and other projects that have come up, we haven't had a chance to really get to know each other. Even though the CD is teaching me about agency life and the overarching things to expect (which isn't actually very accurate, come to find out. this agency isn't run like the normal ad agency out there, for better or worse), this other CW is really going to be my mentor, I believe.I've learned to take everyone's opinion with a grain of salt, no matter how genius they appear, because in the end, this is all subjective anyway. With that said, he had a lot of good things to say and some real eye-openers too. Here are some nuggets:

- Be gentle with your Creativity - you can't force it or you just end up pounding your head against the keyboard and that's not productive at all. You need to learn, specifically for you, what it feels like when you're on fire, and almost as important - how it feels when you're not on fire, so you don't just waste time. When you're off, it's time to reset your mind. go to a movie. take a walk. whatever helps you recharge the old brain. go back to things later.

- on a similar note, you need to figure out for yourself what time of day it is that you're most productive and what things you need to be surrounded by, or what things you need to purge during that time, so that you can let the Creative flow. everyone's different. This CW will get up early in the morning if he needs to crank out some lines. I have found that I can't do that; i'm better off in the middle of the night - like, 11pm-3am is when I can focus best for some reason.

- keep track of your lines, even the ones that get tossed. They may not fit the assignment you're working on, but there are nuggets in a lot of the lines and is salvageable for future jobs. it takes some time and practice, but you'll begin to figure out which lines are complete shite and which ones might hold some nugget of truth. but who knows when you'll need it, so just save it.

- more now than ever, the purpose of a book is to make the hiring CD laugh. Make them think, sure, but mostly just make them laugh. this is what makes you memorable. what that means is: you don't need a finance campaign, just to say you know how to do that. you don't even need three pieces in each campaign. in fact, he said that's a real sign of a student book - that every campaign looks the same, you have a real estate ad, a long copy ad, a image-heavy ad, and that they all come in threes...that's all BS. it's perfectly okay to have one-offs and two-fers. instead of worrying about making a third one that just ends up being mediocre, just make sure that everything in the portfolio rocks, whether it's one, two, or a whole integrated campaign. one of the main reasons is that you rarely sell more than one ad to clients. it's not as common as it once was for a client to buy three ads. the assignment may just be one from the outset. so don't stress about the "must-haves" in your portfolio. just make sure it rocks, everything is tight, and that it's memorable and/or funny.

there was a lot more that we talked about, but i haven't gone to sleep yet this evening, so i think i'll save it for another time and go hit the sack...it's 5:30am, so i guess i should say morning instead of evening.