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.