Bruce Lee - an inspiration to us all.

Okay so Bruce Lee is actually a total freak - but we love freaks so thats all good. Just watch the clip and be inspired to greatness.

The creative devil wears Prada

Last Friday was a rather sad day for us. Our favorite senior freelancing creative Adey Richards finished his stint at Blackwood. The creative department has been a bit light, with only one intermediate team plus us as interns. Luckily Adey was freelancing almost the whole time we have been here. The Pond's senior copywriter, Phil Parsonage also worked for a couple of weeks, but these two were the only senior creatives we have been able to learn a few pearls of wisdom from (and not nearly enough!)

Adey walks in the office with his Prada shades every morning,
so we did this poster and stuck it up on the wall behind him. He loves it! (Adey is faking 'angry'!)

Both Adey and Phil were awesome guys. Phil loves making wicked comments about everything while Adey would sing to any and every tune on the radio. I still remember one afternoon Adey, Anna and I launched into an impromptu singing trio, singing along to an old cheesy BSB's classic! Although the two seniors were often stretched by the crazy amount of work they needed to handle, they were always nice enough to give us help even when they were totally exhausted near the end of the day. In particular Adey, who sat right next to us, gave me some very useful art direction advice. To have the chance to learn from a senior art director who has worked with the legendary Paul Arden and David Trott was just unbelivable.

Well Adey, we'll miss your singing and the Pad Thai lunches we had. Most of all we'll miss you as our mentor and my morning Man Utd scores update with you. Hope to see you again in our next agency!

TVC!

Recently we have been working on a brief for Alfa One Rice Bran Oil which ended up in a TVC and series of print ads! It was a real bonus being able to go on our first TVC shoot and we learnt a lot about the process - and how painstakingly long even the simplest things can take! While we think that the idea is perhaps better in print... it was cool to make a TVC too. After coming up with the initial idea, our creative director took the lead on most of the decisions about the details voice over and music - so some things we would have done differently, but all and all we are stoked to have had the opportunity to get a good idea of what a TVC involves.

AdMedia 'Make An Ad' Competition

We've just received the latest issue of AdMedia and found out that we won ourselves a 2 year subscription with one of our entries in the 'Make An Ad' Competition. Yeah~! So thrilled!

We had a fun time making the entries, and to win a subscription to our favorite magazine is really awesome. The mag keeps us up to date with the latest ads & local industry trends and the weekly Fastline is great for job hunters like us. Thanks for choosing our work, AdMedia's judges & Dave Gapes!

DIY DNA

You've probably seen these new ads for Mitre 10 made by DraftFCB but they are fantastic so we thought we'd put them on the blog! Such a cool insight, and just so darn cute.

[Updated] Just found out from AdMedia that Michael's AXIS classmate Iain MacMillan & Antony Wilson are part of the creative team who did this Mitre 10 campaign. Well done Iain & Ant~! :)

Out of tune radio

Our first brief at Blackwood was for the NZBus iPod promotion. Luckily we came up with the goods on our second day and got to make a radio ad! It was really interesting going to the recording, choosing the talent and stressing about getting the rights to the song (which changed about 5 times!). Our idea was also expanded into an ambient stunt with singers giving out flyers on buses. Enjoy :D

Click below to listen to the radio ad.

Our first team placement - Blackwood!

Hi everyone, we'd like to share some job hunting news. For the last 4 weeks we've been doing our first placement at Blackwood Communication Group (BCG)!

We've been thrown into the deep end from day one and are glad that we cracked a radio brief in our first week, which eventually expanded into an ambient idea as well. It was really cool when the ad was aired 3 weeks ago (we'll post it on the blog here soon).

Not wanting to be a one-trick-pony, we have pressed on to have more ideas through in the last few weeks. Contributing to a big pitch was stressful but we really enjoyed it. Overall we think we've learnt a lot and are glad about how well we work together in a real agency environment, considering we're a newly formed team. In fact, we feel like we've been here a whole lot longer than 4 weeks! 

Anyway, before we end this post and get back to work, we'd like to say a big thank you to all the CDs and lovely people we've met in the last few months who have been helping us and offering us advice & encouraging words. In particularly, a big big big cheers to Paul Catmur, Paul Nagy, Tim Hall & Scott Henderson, David Gapes, Jeremy Southern, Vaughn Davis  & David Bell and last but not least our ECD James Blackwood. Thanks guys~!

That's how interactive ideas should be!

(Just click on the image to experience...)

My brother Joseph is a bit of a hardcore gamer and yesterday he sent me this link & said, "You gotta see this ad, it's so cool!". So off I went and clicked on the link and watched...hmmm I thought...nothing really special...it's not even an ad...oops hold on...my God~!

Hahaha...I think I've given away the idea quite a bit now. Best see it yourself. We reckon that's what every interactive idea should aim to do - engage the audience (and wow them!). Enjoy!

NAB Newspaper Ad of the Year Award

On the 27th of August the NAB Newspaper ad of the year awards took place in Auckland. We invited ourselves along to the evening in the hope of seeing some good work, meeting some cool people and - hey it's advertising so of course we wanted to go! While there, we had a good chat to the awesome team from M&C Saatchi in Wellington. Marianne and Jeremy helped me out last summer with some briefs to help build a good portfolio and gave me and Katy lots of great advice. It was great to catch up with them and also see them win and take home that $10,000!

I'm looking at the student work. Some good, some not so good!

Jeremy Southern, Marianne Harvey and Mark Anstis receiving their award for their fabulous ad.

Since we've teamed up, Michael has talked alot about the CDs he met in Wellington. So I'm glad that I finally got to meet Tim Hall (CD of Saatchi Wellington) and Paul Nagy (CD of Clemenger) who flew up to attend this event. I enjoyed the chat with Paul particularly, who's warm and energetic! We also caught up with Vaughn Davis (Y&R) who contributed some very nice feedback to our blog after we first met him as a team at Ignite.

The winning student team receiving their award from NAB's Lexie Ribot. Well done guys!

To announce the winner, all of the work was lit up with individual spot lights which gradually turned off as each piece was eliminated. When it came down to the final three, everyone was looking in all directions to see which ad was left standing. It was a nice way to show the final winning piece!

Before the night ends, we had a good chat with David Gapes (Editor of AdMedia) and thanked him personally for promoting our blog post of Ignite in his weekly ad newsletter Fastline. It really helped our job hunting and we can't express our gratitute enough. Anyway, it was a fun evening - and they even had these cute mini cheeseburgers which were delicious!

Fashion shoot! shoot! shoot!

I love photography. And 2 weeks ago when my friend who is working with General Issue Fashion set me up to tag along as a helper on their seasonal fashion shoot, I was over the moon! I took along my gear (a Nikon D50 digital SLR with a 50mm f2.8 lens) and I was so glad their photographer Jae Frew was very kind and allowed me to shoot on the side while helping him as a 2nd assistant.

It was a real eye opener to go to a professional photoshoot, with real models, assistants, stylist, clients and most importantly, the chance to learn from a pro. Jae was very kind to teach me when I asked him the "why" questions, like "why wait for the clouds?". And watching how the photographer directs the models and chooses his angles of shot was real fascinating.

Having a peek of Jae's camera settings & trying to learn as much as possible!

Shooting from the side :)

The 5 models (from left: Elle, Bruce, Hilary, Justin & Amy) cuddle together with the big blanket while waiting for the next shoot.

We arrived at Devonport 8am and started shooting at around 9am after all the models had their makeup on and were dressed. It was a freezing cold day with showers of rain from time to time. But the models were very professional and despite the chilling wind they posed without any complaints. While Jae shot, I'd was trying to find a different angle to shoot without affecting him or the models. The models were very nice to look into my camera when they didn't have to look at Jae's. At the end of the day when we finished at around 5pm, I was quite tired, but was so thrilled that I'd learnt a whole lot, made a few new friends and took home 449 mostly stunning shots that I have never thought I could have shot with my camera!

Jae's assistant Caren posing up for me with the reflector.

Jae, with his made-me-envy-Nikon D3!

The stylist's bright yellow shoes.

My favorite shot.

The models decided to have a dip before the end of the day!

It's quite a shame that I couldn't share more of the better photos from the day due to the rights issue with not having a model release agreement. Anyway, a big thank you to Jae, his assistant Caren, the stylist and the models, the girls from General Issue and most importantly my friend Cathy who set it up. Cheers!

Lego Genius

Just some more fantastic print ads for lego. There have been tonnes of ads for lego but this series is definitely one of the best. Inspiring and totally makes me want to get out my old lego!

Semi-Permanent 08

Semi-permanent is a design conference held in Auckland this year on the 15th and 16th of August, with an extraordinary lineup of speakers from all over the world. It was an incredibly inspiring weekend and we learnt so much about design, technology and life in general.

Marian Bantjes explaining the method behind her remarkable work.

Stephan Sagmeister talks about life, design and sea elephants.

The first presentation (and my favourite) was by typographer Marian Bantjes. Her work is amazingly detailed and beautiful and also has a lot of her personality in it, which is something I admire in a designer. Other presentations were done by David Pidgeon of Design by Pidgeon, Interactive designer and artist Joel Gethin Lewis, Collider, The Wilderness, Karsten Schmidt (aka Toxi), Sea Design, Debaser, Stephan Sagmeister and our favourites - Kate Bezar (Dumbo Feather), photographer Derek Henderson and director Danny Yount. They were all awesome actually!

Kate Bezar speaks about her creation - a mook called 'Dumbo Feather, pass it on'. She is Michael's favourite!

The amazingly talented Danny Yount showed us some of his work from film titles. He has worked on movies like Iron Man, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and the opening sequence of Six feet Under.

There must have been over 2000 people at the conference and it seems to be getting bigger and better every year. While there we saw Anthony and Alysa from Axis and also managed to meet Matthias and Jono from BCG and had a little chat with them which was cool. So all in all it was a fantastic couple of days sitting in the dark eating skittles and listening to some people talk about their crazy thoughts and creative lives.

SKITTLES!!!

Just before the Saturday afternoon presentations.

The aftermath of an inspiring weekend - slightly crazy creatives.

Introducing...Emily~!

Extraordinarily lifelike characters, like Emily in the clip, are to begin appearing in films and computer games thanks to a new type of animation technology. Maybe someday they will be used for advertising as well?

Ignite Launch

Held at the Ignite bar (Komodo's) in Auckland on the 7th August, this was a really exciting event for young creatives. Ignite has just recently been set up to help us talented advertising babies get a foot in the door of the advertising world, creating opportunities to network, meet some of the top creatives in NZ and even giving us the opportunity to work on real briefs.

Amazing people from left to right:

Katie, Paul, Sonya, Jody, Ben & Vaughn.

The launch of this new initiative was awesome. Michael and I got to meet a whole lot of people including Ben Lightfoot (Managing Partner - Blackwood Communications Group), Jody King (General Manager - BCG), Katie Ray (Account Manager - BCG), Sonya Crosby (National Marketing Manager - NZ Post), Vaughn Davis (CD - Y&R), and we had a friendly chat to Paul Catmur who was also the guest speaker. His little presentation was really interesting with lots of laughs and some little pearls of wisdom and advice. We also got to chat with David Bell (Course Leader - Axis Adschool) and met some students from this years class. Overall we met some amazingly nice people who all took the time to chat with us and were genuinely interested in what we were up to. Thanks guys!

Chocolate Suicide

Lion Love

Sometimes it's good to remind ourselves there is life outside our little advertising world :) Just a warning - this is totally cheesy.

Paul Catmur

Right now we are working on a brief from Paul Catmur. We've already got a couple of decent ideas - wonder if he would like them...?

Rumors have it that Paul's laser glare could kills any shit idea!

Mr. Catmur is ex-ECD of DDB and Y&R, who has recently returned to NZ and setup his indie agency with friend Daniel Barnes. He is one of the hottest CD in Australasia, so it'd be a fantastic opportunity to get our new book in front of him. I have shown him some ideas for the brief before I met up with Anna, who met Paul during Portfolio Night 6.

Although Paul always seemed like a person with few words, when he does speak, those comments are insightfully said with a uniquely cool manner. Honestly, we can't wait to meet him again! But better work hard to have more good ideas ready to show him... :P

Dream kick-off

Normally it takes awhile before two person gel, but somehow there are definitely magic between Anna and I. Within the first five days of us working together, we've designed our team business card and setup this blog. On our 7th day of work, we're already tackling briefs. What a dream start it is! Now we really can't wait to get out and start knocking on agencies' doors!

Anna got a MacBookPro too! That's mine sitting at the front when we were designing our team business card. The LCD at the back belongs to my PC (running an anti-virus scan...not that I'd need to do that on our Macs!).

Our favorite area for ideation - sofa & bean bags!

Anna is reading AdMedia, the best ad magazine to keep us up to date with the local industry. Imagine the day when we'd have our ads listed in it...

Looking back - Portfolio Night 6

Probably the most important annual advertising event for aspiring junior creatives would be this one. The Portfolio Night, the 6th year of its running and the brainchild of ihaveanidea. It was only the second time being held in NZ but what a night it was! Free drinks, free pizza and most importantly the chance to meet some of the best Creative Directors in the country.

It was held on the 8th of May at DDB Auckland, barely two months ago and back then Anna & I were still with our ex-creative-partners respectively. But every time we've spoken about the event we both agreed on how much it helped us to progress creatively and got us to network with like-minded young people.

Toby Talbot (ECD, DDB NZ) doing the kick-off speech.

Portfolio Night 6 was particularly helpful for Anna since she had only just moved from Wellington, so it gave her to chance to meet with some top notch creative directors for the very first time. As each creative team would get assigned to three different CDs for the night, Anna took home some valuable advice from Nigel Corbett (ECD, Sugar), Paul Catmur (creative managing partner, Barnes Catmur & Friends) and Josh Lancaster (senior creative, Colenso BBDO).

Nigel Corbett & Josh Lancaster

As for me, I was lucky to have Jamie Hitchcock (Josh's creative partner), Nigel Corbett as well plus Darryl Parsons (CD, Consortium) as judges. While it obviously felt great to learn that they liked the work, they've also gave some really good advice on how could the ideas be pushed further (including a few handy gardening tips from Darryl~!).

Right through the night, I caught up with some old schoolmates (Carlos & Damien from DDB, David Bell my mentor back in AXIS Adschool), made some new friends (Dev from AUT 2006, Ray, Madeleine, Titan - a designer, and a few students from this year's AXIS) and chatted to some DDB creatives about the work they were working on.

In the break-out room (a place you visit during your break in between meeting CDs), I met Karen Maurice-O'Leary of DDB Auckland. Karen & her co-creative Verity Butt are currently the 2nd hottest creatives in Australasia (acc. to Campaign Brief). For someone so high up in creative rankings, Karen was incredibly down-to-earth. It was really fun chatting with her about their VW print ads and other creative stuff.

Anna sitting on the left with other PN6ers & DDB creatives in the break-out room.

To top off the night, I've even squeezed in 15 minutes with Paul Nagy, recently crowned CD of Clemenger BBDO, Wellington. I've been in e-contact with Paul since a job hunting trip to Wellington three months ago, but just didn't get to meet him personally until then. So I was really glad to pin down a tired, hungry Paul at the fag end of the night - when everyone incl. even the chairs were leaving. Thanks Paul, for those precious 15. Much appreciated.

Apparently, I was the only one clicking (apart from PN6's pro-photographer that is!)

I'd attended PN5 last year as a solo, but to be able to go with a partner this time was really much better. It was also great to catch-up with some ex-AXIS Adschool creatives e.g. Carlos & Karen plus new AXIS students & David Bell. I've always felt the warmth of that creative family. All in all, Anna & I had a good night and even though we went there separately, we sure hope it helps us creatively and get our first gig soon. Many thanks to all the Creative Directors for their time.

A big shout out to Toby Talbot (and the entire team starting with the wonderful DDB PR Manager, Claire McKay) for bringing Portfolio Night 6 free of cost to the creatives - a good idea indeed!