The week before...

I´m busy executing all my ideas for the face to face week. Next week it starts. As regular readers already know, I´ll be only working and sleeping from now on. I already brought my matress and sleeping bag to school just in case I have to sleep over.

Yesterday I made some ads, brainstormed for a competition, edited a videoclip and I wrote a long copy of 1060 words (in a record time of 1,5 hour). Today I have even more to do. It's crazy, but as always: it's exciting and after two weeks I can finally rest a little.

I spoke to the woman who is responsible for the Dutch Miami Ad School. There's going to be a special program for photography and design in Amsterdam and there's even going to be a full time study. The first two quarters it will be possible to study in Amsterdam and after that the students will have to go abroad. There's no location for the school yet, but they plan to start the study in January.

Today, a lesson has just been cancelled, which gives me a lot of extra time to finish my videoclip for the Electronic editing class. There's always more work. I'm far behind with everything, but I'll manage. As always...

Online portfolio

Today I was at the edit of the TV-commercial. Markenfilm did a great job and the commercial is going to be really cool. These last days have been really insane. I'm working 14 hours a day running from one job to the other. And there are always unexpected, time consuming jobs coming in between. I'm in the face to face week mood again.

My online portfolio is ready. You can see my portfolio and that of other Miami Ad School students at the website of The Door: http://thedoor.miamiadschool.com/portfolio/

Click on this link, then go up with your cursor to select my name and you'll see my best campaigns so far. Let me know what you think of them. I'm going back to work again. I have to make a photograph and run to the shopping centre to get some food and I have 35 minutes for that.

Shooting TV commercial Alzheimer

Director Paul talking to actor Eberhard

Fellow students looking at the monitor 

Me standing at the shooting

A while ago, I said I was so happy that one of my TV-scripts was going to be made. Today there was a shooting of the commercial. This is not the first commercial that I've made. This is not even the first shooting abroad or for a foreign client. Together with my former art director Peter I've made several commercials when I worked at McCann. But I was really excited because it has been a long time since I shot my own commercial.

I got the idea for the commercial together with teammates Gunnar, Lea and Nadine. This commercial was chosen from several commercials that the class handed in for the TV production class. We were taken through the whole process of TV production together with a teacher who works at Markenfilm, a big production company in Germany.

The idea is very simple and it was shot in half a day. I can tell the idea right here, but it's better if you see it when it's finished. So I'll keep you in tension. As soon as the commercial is ready, I'll put a link on this site.

ADC Awards

It´s award show time and that´s a good reason for students to work all week in order to finish all the entries. Today was the deadline for the ADC, the German art directors club. I´ve never seen the printer room so full of students this quarter.

Talking about awards: this week my flatmate Emilia has won a prize for a design of an award. The German newspaper Bild is going to give an award for a woman who has done something extraordinary and the design is going to be from Emilia. Of course, it's not a Cannes Lion that she has won, but I'm sure Emilia is going to win a lot more other prizes in the future.

I noticed this week that I'm not built of stone. I actually felt a slight illness coming up. It was as if my body said: Robin, take a rest. I listened to my body and I had two nights in a row of normal sleep. Even though I knew there was a lot of work coming up. Sometimes you have to know when to let it go.

TV production

At the turntables again

TV production class

I still had to put a picture of me spinning the turntables. I played at the birthday of a schoolmate. But that´s not what this post is about.

The picture below my DJ picture is that of TV production class. As I said before, they are making the commercial of my group now and the whole class is busy doing a part of the production. Some people search locations, some find the right props, some do the planning and my group had to take care of the casting.

I´m the only one in my group who speaks German. Guess who had to make all the phonecalls? It is very hard to make a phonecall in another language, but I managed to call some casting agencies and they even understood me. In the picture above, we are looking at some props with the whole class. Next week there's the shooting. This week it looks the face to face week has already started. I have to send in work for the ADC (German Art Directors Club) and in the meantime there's more homework than ever. Sleep is rare. I need a vacation.

About journalism

Robin (not Robert) in Croatia

Yesterday I had a meeting with the group of the Love Boat trip to Croatia (see earlier posts). I also read the article that was written about me in Maxi Magazine for the first time. It was really cool to read about myself. What's interesting is that I found out something that I already thought: in journalism it's impossible to stay neutral. I wrote some articles in Holland and you have to leave out a lot of important information in order to make a consistent, convincing story. Here's some examples from the article in which not everyting was told:

"Sometimes you forget that Robin is on board - most of the time he's got enough company when he's on his own". Now this implies that I'm a very introvert person. Well, I can't deny that I like to be on my own sometimes. But in the article nowhere is written that I was the only one in the group coming from abroad, which gave me a big language barrier. Furthermore, the other men in the group were friends of each other, which made it easier for them. Despite that, I got along very well with everybody.

"A strange arm is on Luise's leg". Which was about the fact that I was trying something with Luise. Well, caught me in the act, haha. I admit I was flirting with her. But I never try anything when there's no reason for it. Some people flirt out in the open, some in a really subtile way. I can tell Luise is one of the second category. But I think we both found out we're not really attracted to each other. I even said that in the interview that she's not my type, but I saw that this quote was wrongly attributed to Robert (I was sometimes mixed up with another guy on the boat, called Robert).

"Robin likes Swedish girls a lot and that's why he really wants to do his internship there". Yes, that's because I think Swedish girls have beautiful eyes and because I like blonde hair. But I also said that I'm a sucker for girls with piercings, tatoos and black hair. Which accounts for half of the female population of Hamburg. So I think I stay here for a while ;-). And I want to do an internship in Sweden because of the progressive advertising they make there.

By the way, don't see these last comments as criticism. As I said before: it's impossible to stay neutral in journalism. Remember that also this weblog is completely written from my point of view. To show all sides of every story is just impossible and would make an article unnecessary difficult. So I think the article in Maxi is very well written and I every time I read it it reminds me of this fantastic journey in Croatia. Only I remember it in a slighly different way.

30 years young

I seem to have lost my discipline. Normally I write two times a week for my blog, but is was too busy last week. The reason was that I wanted to combine school with a bit of a personal life. This weekend my good friend Edwin came all the way from Hamburg to visit me and that means there was no time to work for school.

It was also my birthday this weekend. I´ve become 30! A lot of people would probably hide for three days in a dark cellar to overcome the depression that comes with being another decennium older, but that doesn´t count for me. I feel 24 or something and I guess my psychological age is even lower. Besides, I was too drunk to be depressed.

No, I think my age is kind of funny. People already looked surprised to hear I was 29. Because 30 sounds a lot older, it must totally knock people out from amazement. And in my school everybody is fine with my age. I just got an e-mail from a girl of 32 who wants to apply for Miami Ad School, but she wondered if it's not weird be one of the oldest. I responded that it's no problem. Everybody at this school is weird anyway, whether they're 18 or 35. The only way you can be a real outsider here at school is when you don't work. Which reminds me...I have to get back to work.