21 campaigns

Hello, here´s 21 campaigns waiting for ya!

As said in earlier posts, every campaign for Bild so far was rejected. For two weeks in a row. So me and my teammate Dominik had to do something. And we did something. We stayed in school until 2 o'clock to make the most campaigns I ever made for a class. After that I slept at school again. A total of 21 campaigns was the result.

How did we do that after having thought nearly of everything for 2 weeks? We simply scribbled every idea that was above average or completely insane. Our concept class teacher liked three campaigns in particular and we're going to execute them. That means we got ourselves in trouble because of the timing, but at least we're in the running to do very well at the exhibition again.

Next week there's the face-to-face week (evaluation week). And I'll already apologize to all the people that I can't speak anymore this coming weeks. There's a tidal wave of work coming up so don't be surprised if I don't return mail or don't respond on Messenger. After that I'll make it up. I'll be online constantly to tell everybody about the heavy, but exciting face-to-face week. And after this week of rest, I'm coming back to Holland. Right now I just want to go home to enjoy (probably the last) eight hours of sleep.

Overprofessionalism

Me with a girl I met in China Lounge

I had a better week than last week, but it wasn't perfect either. For the second week, all of our ideas for Bild are rejected by the teacher. As I said before, the teacher for concept class is one that can piss me off, after which I make better work. Unfortunately, the pissing off comes to a point where it's getting really annoying.

I mean, I can handle it to have all of my ideas killed, but I realized this week that this guy actually can't teach at all. The only thing he learned me were links to funny websites. For the rest he does absolutely nothing. He just kills all the ideas that students have, without bringing the ideas to a higher level. And he rarely gives any homework. I actually had to ask him in class for extra assignments because all we made so far is a postcard.

In the beginning I thought he just has to get used to teaching a little bit. When I asked him whether we could get an assignment for a campaign, he said to me that he doubted whether our class can handle making a campaign. He obviously didn't know that in the first quarter we've been making so much campaign that our hands still hurt from writing them down.

When he critisized all of my Bild ideas, I had to go in discussion to get some useful feedback. Which I didn't get. All I got was a disrespectful comment: "Yeeaaah, it's a tough school huh, Miami Ad School!". So what the fuck does he know about our school? He's there only three hours a week. He only knows the school from the classroom to the kitchen, where he gets his cola. You want to see something tough Mr. concept class teacher? Then in two weeks, get out of your lazy bed at three o'clock in the evening and go to the school. You'll probably see all the students still working hard for their face-to-face meetings. In my opinion, there's a difference between being tough and just being an ass.

The problem with this guy is that he's too professional. He's the type of creative that always critizises other peoples work and who hates award shows because 'the ads that win prizes are ads that aren't made in an assignment'. He's so perfectionistic that he's getting the fun out of creation. I had a few creative directors like that once and I can say it's almost impossible to make good work under that kind of supervision.

But the fact that I have problems with the teacher doesn't stop me from working even harder. I will show him what good work I can make together with my teampartner Dominik. I might even make work that end up being a star at the exhibition, just because he's looking for the best idea ever. But even that won't change my opinion about him, because I see the rest of the class being demotivated, making nothing and skipping class. He has a negative approach about motivating people, while advertising should be fun to do. Yes, it's just a job, but it's also called 'the most fun job you can do with your pants on'.

Talking about fun: the advantage of having a not so good week is that you're glad it's weekend. I always take my time to have a little drink on friday or saturday (or both). It's good to have your own moments not to think of school anymore. The picture above was taken last week, which was a bad week. It's hard to see that the guy on the picture (me) was a wreck the day before as a result of many dissapointments at school. Oh well, in my case going out for a beer and dancing works better than even the best shrink in the world.

Cleaning up the trash

I started the week ´cleaning up the thrash´ from last week. I must say that there are some improvements. Today, I just heard from Emilia that internet at my home is finally working. She had to call to the ´service-line' (which costed about 2 euro per minute) but eventually she activated the modem so I should have internet at home by now.

I haven't tried it yet because I'm actually still at school. Me and my teampartner Dominik are going to sleep in school because we had to think of a new campaign for German newspaper Bild. Because last week (the bad week) all of our campaigns for it were killed, we had to think of new ones. And besides that we have two other campaigns to make. The other campaigns were easy, but the Bild campaign was quite hard.

But luckily, we've got some good ideas. Let's hope our teacher thinks the same. I already forgot about the disaster after our Berlin trip and I still have to phone to see if they found the digital pocket camera I have lost. Everything is not so bad right now. I'm going to put my matress somewhere in school and have a short but nice sleep.

Bad week

I wanted to place a nice photograph of me in Berlin on my weblog. Unfortunately that´s not possible because I left my digital pocket camera in the train yesterday. It´s just one of the bad things that happened this week. This week has been bad. If it would have been possible to kick a week´s ass, I would have done it already.

The beginning of the week wasn´t so bad. I had a lot of work to do but hey, what's new? It started all when I had concept class. All of my campaign ideas for a German newspaper called Bild were ruthlessly killed. Okay, that can happen. Next week I'm going to have better ideas.

Then I went to Berlin on Wednesday. I had a filmworkshop there. We had to think of commercial ideas for MacDonalds and MANEO, an organisation that wants to do something about violence against gays. There was a lot at stake because the best ideas would have been developed. I worked really well with teampartners consisting of Julien (one of the most promising art directors from my school) a producer, a cameraman and a director. All of them were very coöperative and -most important- creative. We had some good ideas. I even managed to go out for a beer and afterwards I typed the scripts. At 4:30 in the night I finally went to sleep. The birds were already singing outside. The next day I got up early again so I didn't have a lot of sleep. But the good thing was that we took sheets full of good ideas to the presentation. The teachers that evaluated the ideas were impressed by our ideas for MANEO. We were even invited to be at the shooting already, so I was pretty sure that we were going to make one of the commercials.

The bigger the dissapointment to get an sms this morning that we lost the pitch. I haven't got a clue what happened, but I reckon the client chose a different concept.

So today I'm pissed off big time. I don't feel like working but I have to. And tonight me and Emilia are going to try to get internet working. The only thing that can cheer me up a little is that internet is finally going to work or that I get a phonecall that they found my camera. But nothing can make this week a good one anymore. Fuck this week.

Vacation

Last week we heard that we´re going to do a workshop with a filmschool in Berlin. That´s great, I´m going to Berlin again! (at the end of last quarter I went there as well to meet my good friend Edwin, who lives there). We're going to have a cool workshop with some filmschool students, at night we're going to enjoy the nightlife of Berlin and the next day we're going back again. And the school pays for the travel expenses.

That was the good news. The only bad news is -and that's the only thing- that we actually lose two days to make our homework. That means that everybody from the 2nd quarter hasn't got any spare time this weekend.

While for some classes the working pressure is actually too high, I went into discussion with my concept class teacher that the working pressure is too low. I mean, he's a good teacher. He's the type of guy that pisses me off by killing all the ideas, and the next week I'm going to make even better work. But he gives everybody too much time for the work. It might look sometimes that I'm complaining a lot about being in school so much, but I actually enjoy it. I need the pressure. Everybody does in a way. It forces students to work harder than they ever imagined. And judging by the good work everybody makes here, pressure and hard work is the secret of making good ads.

Talking about more pressure. I really have to work for Energize, the Dutch online company, but the server is too slow at the moment. That's why in the meantime I'm writing this post. I really need a vacation. Hey, I'm going to Berlin tomorrow!

Holland stoppen?

The tension is rising as we come closer to the Weltmeisterschaft, the world cup soccer that is played in Germany this time. How convenient to be in Germany excactly in the year that the world cup is played there. Even on the electronic signs on the ceiling of the subways they are counting off until the big day.

I wonder what it would mean for a foreigner like me. I wonder if the streets will be full with orange dressed people pretty soon. I also wonder if the opinion about Dutch people will change. I mean, the Germans like the Dutch more than the Dutch like the Germans. That's what I've already found out. In some strange way, they like Dutch people here. Once, I got into a club just because I told the doormen I was from Holland. Even more bizar is the following story. I once met a girl in a bar who wanted to dance with me for a while. Her boyfriend didn't think it was such a good idea, but then she said to her boyfriend: "oh, come on...he's from Holland". So, that makes it okay?

I have no idea why they like the Dutch so much, because I think Dutch people are quite rude compared to Germans. It must be that we've got some sort of underdog position, because we're from a small country. And in the ears of German people, Dutch sounds like some strange language that dwarfs speak in their toadstool houses.

And every German I speak about the world cup thinks Holland has a bigger chance to win than Germany. There's even a site about it: www.hollandstoppen.de. For both Germans and Dutchmen this site is hilarious. Check it out. And if you're from Holland, please leave a nice Dutch message in the guestbook ;-)

Partytime

I mentioned in other blogs that Hamburg is not much of a party city. It still isn´t, but lately some famous DJ´s suddenly come to Hamburg. Yesterday for example, I´ve seen Felix the Housecat, a famous electro DJ. I've seen him twice in Holland and it was cool to see him playing again.

And next friday, my all time favorite producer T. Raumschmiere (yeah, Marvin!) comes to Hamburg. He´s giving a concert with his band in a place called Uebel und Gefaerlich. I already bought the tickets two weeks ago and I´m really looking forward to see him playing again.

I remember when I saw T. Raumschmiere the first time. It was at Lowlands, a famous 3-day festival in Holland during which everybody is permanently drunk. At the last day I was waiting for Miss Kittin to play, but before that there was T. Raumschmiere, of whom I never ever heard before. He started with strange, loud noises which lasted for five minutes. After that the hardest electro-punk I've ever heard came from the loudspeakers. With the bases pounding like big explosions.

So friday he comes to Hamburg. A lot of people from school and some people I know from outside school are going as well. My flatmate Emilia is also going and Diddo, a guy I know from Dutch advertising, happens to be in Hamburg the day that T. Raumschmiere plays. So he's coming as well.

Tonight I'll just take a rest from all the partying. I'm going to work for school because I've got a lot to do. By the way, I've just heard that an idea for a postcard is going to be made for real. The concept is probably not good enough to end up in my portfolio, but it's cool that pretty soon my work is going to be in all the pubs of Hamburg.

The 'big idea'

Inspiration is a weird thing. When do you get the best idea? You can think about a campaign for two weeks and still have nothing. You can also get the best idea at the first glance of the briefing.

The problem is that nobody knows for sure when you get the 'big idea'. This week, in Computer Class, I had to make a campaign for a sports brand. Because of lack of time, it wasn't possible to think of the assigment until the day before. But unfortunately, the day before I didn't have any inspiration.

So I was working on my way back. I was even thinking about the assigment on my way back home and when I was in bed. The next day, I was a little worried when I walked out of the subway. It was 9:30 and I had to make three advertisements before three o'clock in the afternoon. I didn't even had a concept yet.

As I was walking on the street, suddenly the idea struck me. I can't talk about it yet, but it was good. I suddenly felt illuminated. Everything around me was suddenly happy. But after inpiration comes transpiration. I still had to execute the campaign. So I worked on the three ads the whole morning. Working in Illustrator, printing, making photographs, printing again. I was so busy that I didn't even realize my class had already started half an hour! So I ran to the printer to print out (only two) ads that I made and I ran to the class.

Even though the ideas where only half finished, it still impressed the teacher with the idea. And, judging by the look on the faces of the students I think they liked it as well. It was all in the nick of time though. You're never sure when you get the 'big idea', but one thing's for sure: somehow nothing works more inspiring than big pressure.