I have now packed my bags and I am ready to go home! The plain leaves in a couple of hours and I am looking forward to get home to my family. It also seems like my suitcase is getting easier and easier to recognise for every time I go on a trip. I just hope what I have put on it this time will stick, unlike the Donald Duck sticker in the midle that fell of several years ago.
I just got a call from Niel at De-construct saying that they wanted to have me as an intern at their office and I said yes! This gives me three more months in Amsterdam, then we will se where it goes from there. I am looking forward to April 1st, my first day at the office.
Today I went to foam, a photo museum in Amsterdam. I really liked it and I found a picture of Lofoten there. Which was a big pluss! There was a lot of great pictures there, defenitly worth a look.
Later today I went back to foam to a Lomography workshop. That was really great! I got the chanse to win a mini diana kamera, but I didn’t so I boght the big one in stead. Got to see a film, The Lomo camera: Shoot from the hip’ made by Alex Graham, about what Lomo is, how it is used and where it is from. It was a nice film! then I walked around the museum looking at all the beautifull and inspiring photos that where there. There was also a playground in the museum where you could try out a Diana. They had put up this cool urban room for people to play with the diana in. this is my result:
Yhea, it looks a bit shitty. I took the photo of the photo with the webcam..
One of the best things at the workshop was getting to talk to some lomography photographers. I chatted a bit with this girl who had taken some great pictures. I am for sure going to do great things with my camera!
Today I feel like a homewife, even though I have no one to be a wife for. I have cleaned the whole apartment, and cleand up in all my stuff, made the apartment nice looking and inviting. I am very happy with myself now=) I even put up some Christmas decoration on the window. Yhea, I know the spring started yesterday, but after Christmas I took down these things from the window and put them in a corner. After lying together for three months the things started to take colors from each other.. Santas white beard became red on one santa and on the other it became green. So I wanted to put it up again.
So, I am sitting here in Amsterdam wondering what is next? My internship is done and I am still looking for a new job. If I dont get one I will be moving home in 11 days. It kind of wierd that this does not feel wierd, not knowing what I will do in 11 days. Whatever happens happens and I just gotta go with the flow. Friday when I had my last day at Euro RSCG 4d was amazing. I even got a book, Ignore Everybody and 39 other keys to creativty by Hugh MacLeod. The books was field with greetings from everyone at the office. I am going to miss working at Euro, but at the same time I want to broaden my expiriences.
Going home is going to be nice no matter if I stay there or not (yes, I already have a plain ticket at the 11th of march, but I still have the apartment in Amsterdam as well) I just talked with my mom and my two younger brothers and they told me there where about 100cm of snow at home! I just hope it stays there.
So, my internship is soon finished and I am looking for a job. These months here have been fun and full of learning experiences, I can’t believe how fast the time has flown by. It’s only one month left and I have to find a job or resign my apartment in Amsterdam. I have started fixing my portfolio and the about me page for people to check out. I still have some projects I need to put in my portfolio before I feel like I can start applying, but I’ll be there soon.
I have now developed another round of fisheye pictures. here are some of them, the rest can be found at flickr
I just came in from my weekly treasure hunt with one piece of gold, a “put your bike on your car thing”. It wasn’t even opened. Just like from the store, only I don’t have a car so I wouldn’t buy it… hmm.. what am I going to do with it without a car? Ill probably get one sometime
Yesterday I went out to buy some Christmas gifts for my family. I had sort of a plan of what to buy, but when I came home I had only bought stuff for my self.. some perle beads, a pair of glowes and a new pair of snowboard pants. Now I am ready for the winter season, I just hope it will come to the Netherlands.
I bought them in a snowboard and ski store at weteringschans. I don’t remember the exact address but they had a lot of clothes for both boy and girl, skies, snowboard and accessorizes. Very nice store with a lot of stuff on sale.
Day 2 at Eurobest started with a workshop from Hyper Island, Meet The Talents, that I helped out hosting. About 30 people turned up and they all seemed to enjoy the workshop and presentation that some fellow class mates of me hold. After that I listened to The making of Carousel, Zero Budget Campaigns, King Kong vs Godzilla: Expanded Storytelling and Entertainment Hybrids and Is it time for a radical re-think of the role of the copy writer.
TribalDDB and Stink Digital, The Making Of Carousel
If you haven’t seen the Carousel campaign for Philips it’s time you do. One of the first things they started out with telling us was: don’t just say you are cinematic, BE cinematic. They went thru the movie and told us about how they made it. The people in the movie are real people and the camera is filming as they are staying still, frozen. all the actors are gymnastics and alike. They got incredible body control and where hocked up with wires. They filmed the shoot three times before taking all the people and wires away and filming one last time so that it would be easier to replace the wires and other accessories holding the actors.
Here is the youtube making of:
thenetworkone, Zero Budget Campaigns
This guy was talking about how zero budget campaigns can effect even more than high budget campaigns, just look at google. While normal ad-agencies are having about the same profit as last year, google doubled their. A nice example they used for how zero budget campaigns can ruin a brand was a video of a guy that didn’t get anything when the American airline, United, broke his guitar. He went to them and told them his story, but they ignored him. Since he was a musician he made a song about it:
After he made the movie United flight sales dropped with 10% and they had a 180 million dollar fall. So they wanted to make friends with the guy and flew him over for discussion.. But ironically they lost his luggage on that trip so no deal was made. Simple sum up from the presentation: Zero budget campaigns can be dangerous.
Bongo Advertising, King Kong vs Godzilla: Ezpanded Storytelling and Entertainment Hybrids
Unfortunately the zero budget campaign presentation lasted for so long that I only got to listen to the last part of this presentation. But here is a sum-up of the things I got to hear: You should always know who is the boss and who is the creative boss withing a team so that you know who’s fault everything is. You can’t just play, you need to take responsibility. The rest of the presentation was mostly a very nice showcase and a tiny workshop in form of a two minute speed dating session where we talked to two different people we never had met before for one minute each. It was a nice thought, but to fast to get anything special out of it.
AKQA, Write off: Is It TIme For A Radical Rethink Of The Role Of The Copywriter?
Yeah, Is it? and by the way, “what do I mean with copywriter, and what do YOU mean with copywriter” was the opening words of this presentation right before the presenter took up a great example of amazing copy by Hemingway. One time Hemingway was asked if he could make a six word novel and he sure could. If you haven’t heard of his six word novel it goes like this: For sale: Baby shoes, never worn.
Its an amazing novel, considering that it is only six words and contains so much information. I had never heard it before, but I really like the way I just imagine more and more every time I read the words. That is good copy. Another thing with copy is that everyone is doing it today, by email, SMS and letters. Everyone is writing and a lot of people are writing blogs. Everyone are language experts and can be a great advertiser. I am sure that If you told someone about your favorite place you would have no problem in convincing them to take a trip there, but as the lectures said, I don’t think you would win me over with a picture. I agree with the lectures that wining someone over with only visuals is harder than with words since we are so much more used to expressing our self with words. But I want to test it!
So, draw a picture of your favorite place to make me want to go there, upload it and paste the link in the comment field of this blog post.
If you want to share the name of your favorite place or you want people to guess is up to you. Have fun, be creative and don’t be afraid that you are not a good painter. Since paintings are all about taste, we are all great painters no matter if we draw stick people or portrait’ish faces.
