Can I Drive This Thing? My move to a giant agency.

Here I am in my fifth month at the gargantuan agency Ogilvy. I swore to myself that I'd never step foot in another beast, opting to stay in the shallow marshes of agencies where I can be more "me". But a friend being my supervisor tempted me hard. As did the pitch. I was to come in early January to begin work on the pitch for IKEA NA. Dream assignment.

I worked through the pitch with unexpected unattachment - caring and thinking smartly, but no panic, no stress. It was amazing from the first day. The amazing amount of cash a giant agency throws behind your ideas was enough to put me in a candy shop. "You mean you want to produce these TV spots in the next two weeks? But I just wrote them yesterday." That kind of amazing.

The pitch was a step up process unlike anything I'd seen before. Start with developing a strategy. Meet again to pitch several strategies. Meet again to show work on those favored. Meet lastly to show how one of them can go to the moon and back.

It worked! We won. We won a huge account with my tag line. WE WON!

So I'm feeling amazing right about now. And really proud of my decision. Actually this was one of a long line a great decisions I've quietly made starting when I was 17. But that's a story for another time.

Costa Rica Tourism "Welcome to Planet Earth"

We think we live on Earth...but in these asphalt jungles and seas of minimalls, it's like we don't even know what Earth is. It's like Earth is a completely different planet. So to visit the most biodiverse place on Earth (Costa Rica) is like taking a spaceship, blasting off and landing on another world.

Costa Rica. Welcome to Planet Earth.

I won a Gold Effie!

It was a collaboration of Anomaly creatives creating some amazingly simple yet wonderful work.

I'm incredibly proud.

http://www.effie.org/winners/showcase/2009/3412

St Joseph: Who? Why?

I'm a lapsed Catholic. Since I signed up for a class in my University of Georgia English program called "Letters".

We started out the quarter (back when there was such a thing as a quarter rather than a semester) studying the sometimes saccharine letters of Abelard and Heloise. But by the middy part of the term, we were head first into the letters of Paul to the Corinthians. That's when I began thinking (knowing?) that my religion was a political movement rather than a spiritual one.

Today I stood in the lobby of St Joseph's hospital in the Sandy Springs neighborhood of Atlanta waiting for Mr Right's return from the facilities. I found myself drawn in to a gold and glistening life size portrait of a dude looking serene? forlorn? serious.

I assume it was St Joseph. So I looked him up tonight. But before I get to the part where I admit that I've relinquished control to the glistening, morose chap on the wall, let me explain how much sleep I've had in the past four days.

Upon hearing that oh-so-precious father had cancer in his bladder, I started a feast of psychosis. I will be an orphan. I will be alone. I will lose the rock of my life. Fuck. He dies and I won't know shit from asshole. Excuse me. But yeah. I don't know life on this earth without him on it. I don't want to either. So that's a week and a half or so ago. Slept fine, slept ok, slept weird, slept in space madness, slept with nightmares...then four days ago...slept for five hours, slept for three hours, night before a particularly critical interview...slept for five hours with nightmares, dad's surgery is next day...slept three hours, slept four.

Standing in front of a golden dude today, I said, "what's you're damn problem? Wings too heavy?"

Here's the prayer of St Joseph I just found.

Oh, St Joseph , whose protection is so great, so strong, so prompt before the throne of God. I place in you all my interest and desires. Oh, St Joseph , do assist me by your powerful intercession and obtain for me from your divine Son all spiritual blessings, through Jesus Christ, Our Lord. So that, having engaged here below your heavenly power, I may offer my thanks giving and homage to the most loving of Fathers. Oh, Saint Joseph, I never weary contemplating you, and Jesus asleep in your arms; I dare not approach while He reposes near your heart. Press him in my name and kiss his fine head for me and ask him to return the kiss when I draw my dying breath. Saint Joseph , patron of departing souls - pray for me.

And this is the translation of its meaning.

It is said that this prayer was found in the fiftieth year of Jesus. In 1505 it was sent from the Pope to Emperor Charles when he was going into battle. Whoever shall read this prayer, or hear it or keep it about themselves shall never die a sudden death, or be drowned, nor shall poison take effect of them; neither shall they fall into the hands of the enemy, or shall be burned in any fire or shall be overpowered in battle.

Drowning, eh? Seems familiar lately.

But the real point I'd like to make here, and the specialness of this day for me (a day set aside for mothers) is this:

Saint Joseph exemplifies a father’s presence as a teacher, a trustworthy man of faith, and a man whose faith inspires others to grow in confidence and wisdom.

It makes some sense that my father, my rock, my glistening golden portrait of a man, suffers his pain in St Josephs hospital.

Wanna see what I'll look like in 50 years?

This is me in 50 years.






This is me now!






My friend Branan creates the most amazing special FX make-up, creatures and prosthetics! It took around 14 hours to do my face and hands. We then went to a Chinese restaurant to see if I could get the old lady discount. I didn't think it was right to take it but I did let the manager help me walk up the ramp.

Converse 2009 Coming Out Very Soon!

AD: Ian Toombs
CW: Mara Evans

Found Art Made Mine

I found this Thomas Kinkade-style painting on the sidewalk in the East Village and fixed it to my liking.

I added some furry creatures, a bike and a couple of F-16 fighter jets.


To come: the explosions where the F-16s let their feelings out.

SXSW 2009 - "Wake Up" Premier Screenings

For the last 3.6 years my boyfriend (and at times, I) made a documentary. It got into the South by Southwest Film Festival this year. It was overwhelmingly received. We were therefore overwhelmed. Jonas and Chloe are meeting with some very interesting people to discuss next steps this week. (I am in the film and received a camera credit.)

The film is Wake Up.

wakeupthefilm.com

Here are a few snap shots from a screening.

Enviga - BPW (Coke + Nestle)

What is it? Enviga invigorates your metabolism so that you burn more calories.

Is it good? I drank quite a lot of them while creating this campaign.

How'd it turn out? I'm proud of how it turned out considering it was a complicated assignment. How else can you metaphor-ize metabolism? This is how we did it.

Outside the Print Ad and Thinking

Before the economy took my job, we lost the pitch for Levi's.

I know... downer opening...not to worry because I had a blast pitching it, learned a lot about using my weirder ideas freely and got some sweet pieces out of it.

Here's one of my favorite.

Instead of the stage / audience set up used since the Cult of Osiris, why not surround the listeners with music? I was listening to my iPod Shuffle when this idea hit me.

Placing the audience in the middle so they're "together", I suggest that we have at least four stages and have the lights come up on different stages surprising the audience with who plays next. You won't know which way to turn until the lights come up on the stage.

Not only does the front row keep changing making the experience more holistic but the bands and musicians mix and match as well giving this concert the most spectacular element of continuous surprise.

Cartooning: Drawing the Candidates

Raise Your Hand

A comic series I'm working on that's kinda mean, kinda true and kinda I don't care I'm doing it anyway.

Costa Rica Pitch Media Release

So the news is out...Agency Spy just released the news about Costa Rica Tourism.

Click on the title to this blog.

I happen to be part of the team that is pitching this under Oberlander.

See my Costa Rica blog post below to review a few pieces of the work.

UPDATE: CAN'T SHOW THE WORK UNTIL THEY'VE CONFIRMED WHO WINS THE BIZ.

DOMAINATION: On A Shoestring

Click the title of this post to delve into the dark side of my mind. 

I made this as part of "Domaination". (See the DOMAINATION post for full up explanation.)

Bwahahahahaha...cough cough...yeah.

(and just in case clicking the title doesn't work...here's the site:)

www.onashoestringfilms.com

I Can Comp! A page takeover for Costa Rica Tourism Pitch. Shazza!

Copywriters don't usually get to explore arts outside the rich text format but on occasion we can be trusted to attempt something.

Here I made a phase 1, 2, 3 of what a nice take-over might look like for Costa Rica. 

The howler monkey comes swinging in, steals the Latest News headline and swings off with it while orchids bloom and the roots of the tree take over...and one of Costa Rica's amazing iguanas walks in. Oh and butterflies flutter across the page and through the tag line.

What do you think?

Weeee!

One Show Win

Worked with Denison Kusano on this back at the Circus right before we graduated. I blame this campaign for making me move to New York. I hadn't wanted to move here before that weekend, but by dancing with a pencil at the after parties, I was wooed by agencies in the city. 

Very glad it happened, even though I almost threw up on stage.

The brief was a bit weird in 2004. Sell advertising. Advertising people are less trusted than used car salesmen. I guess it depends on who you ask. But here was our solution. 

To see them up close click the title to this blog above.

Headline: Advertising. Creating a state of mind from a shoe.

Headline: Advertising. Creating a legacy from a soda.

Headline: Advertising. Creating an Apple from a computer.

DOMAINATION: Converse Google Spelling Bee

Created this video series with Stan Chin, the internet maestro. 

I wrote, shot and edited them. Stayed up all night. Had a blast.

It's the first ever search engine spelling bee.

To play the game, click the title to this post.

Converse 2009 "Laces Campaign"

The goal was to evolve a product campaign out of "Connectivity 2008" that was done by my partner Ian Toombs, the king of art rock.

This was the basic piece for Connectivity in the U.S. 

And here is the Laces campaign to follow it ------------------>

I think we did a fabulous job. There's an entire campaign from OOH to shoe boxes. 

Click on the link (title of this post) above to view more pieces in detail.

Converse's Suspended: A Graphic Novel That's a True Story

Came up with this when I read a news report this past Fall about a girl who dyed her hair pink in honor of her father who died from cancer. She was suspended from school for it. 

Converse loved the story so I drew up a concept for a series based on true stories of kids getting suspended for ridiculousness or simply expressing themselves differently. 

This is the first edit. There's a typo in the text, the timing is a little slow and I would rather end on a different frame that's left out. But I'm really proud of where it's going. Click on the link above will take you to the non-animated, frame version.

VH1 Black History Month Concept + Print

Concept: Since VH1 is a music entity let's create a amazing collection of sounds of Black History available for download on the VH1 site.

Great speeches, quiet ones too, boxing matches, court room recordings and clips from the radio, you could experience Black History by listening to the joys, successes, struggles and poetry of it.

Each download is to have a minimal charge in part donated to Historically Black Colleges and Universities. 

We called it The Pride Collection.

Kennedy Headline: Download compassion.

King Headline: Download courage.

X Headline: Download intensity. 

Where have all my feathers gone?

So I've been licking the wounds and well, showing them off a little I must confess. It makes gashes feel better to take them out and on parade. But the parade ended.

Freelancing is... interesting. It brings up a lot of old feelings. Since I've been nosing around midtown again and let's be honest...the building is right next to the building where I spent 2.5 years working on ads. So yeah. I guess old feelings are bound to surface.

Am I backtracking then? I hope not. But then again I get hit with a mean virus which won't let me think. Is this the fates telling me something? One sec...I need to blow.

In the meantime though, I'm working on projects that are wildly interesting. That's something.

I do miss my friends though. Working way up there is lonely. I miss the warmth of SoHo, the fancy espresso machine, the tunes blasted in the space between us. I miss the way briefs made more sense, ideas came out like wine and nights out laughing were a dime a dozen.

We can all hope this stimulus package gets something done and quickly. Good feathers are hard to find when no one has any money.

Who Needs a Head?

Oh me oh my, children. I haven't blogged in forever and ever because I worked forever and ever since the last blog. As this little chick looked back on all the time in the field, and sat rocking in the chair drinking sweet tea and waiting for the train, she realized that she wouldn't get to see the crop come up as they axed her head off in the southside conference room. Woe is me!

I could almost hear the whistle coming to take me to South Africa where I was to shoot my commercial, then my sobs overcame all consciousness. I looked to my desk to try to get my things together and no one stood up, no one grabbed me and hugged me, no one looked at me. They left me there in that strange dimension to grope around for some decency. After all the times I cared to hear their ideas even when they were plain terrible, after all the times I said good morning with a chipper smile, after all the hours upon hours we worked together that seemed more like play and we laughed until snot drooled out each nose...no one could garner a hug? I was overwhelmed and couldn't find the difference between me and my agency's belongings. Where I ended and it began you might say. I reached for the lap top...no, that's not mine any longer...I reached for my purse and left with what I came in with minus dignity.

Now here's a delicate question: why not a cafe down the road? Why in a glass box where everyone can watch and see? Why not let me produce my commercial that I worked all year on? Why not just after filming it? The tickets were bought people. I was to leave in two days.

Since my head was cut off all I had was my heart to think with. My heart kept telling me you shouldn't have smarted off to that one or you should have stayed later or you're just not good enough. Loads of that kept pouring out of me. I'll not dwell on that rubbish.

Let's just all remember how awesome we are and pray that those greedy bastards on Wall Street go to jail as we loose our jobs and are kicked out of homes. Is that okay to do? To pray those jackasses get ass raped? Ouch. Well my heart's all I got and it doesn't know good manners.

The Problem with Small Wings

We were just throwing around quotes attempting to get a great one - possibly for "Bartletts Familiar Quotations", I mean why not?

And here's a selection for voting:

1. If you try harder less, you'll live longer.

2. If you use a parachute, you'll live longer.

3. If you don't have a parachute, you die.

There they are. Let me know what submission wins?

Content

Where I work you get to do the most amazing stuff. Working with a team of brainiacs who like to laugh and get up for work in the morning, we've gone double time creating content to entertain our audience.

Hope you all like it. There's tons more coming.

OnAShoestring

Here's what I've been up to lately.


www.onashoestringfilms.com

ChickenLegs

My friend was right, knee socks drive men crazy.



Left my house wearing granny blues to the knees and FDNY across the street couldn't help themselves. Though I'm dorkie, townie and pasty, I still get thumbs up and smiles from the penis-sect with some knee highs on. What if they have happy whales on them? What if they're argyle? We must investigate if it's the coverage or if it's the pattern or if it matters at all.