Laura & Elliott Cannes Young Lion
Laura & Elliott's award winning film for Barnardo's
"We entered Cannes Young Lions a few weeks ago and had to turn around a 60 second ad for Barnardo's in 48 hours. Idea, script, shoot, edit, all by our lonesome.
To cut a long story short, we won. Best UK team.
Not many actors are interested in working in a cold church on a Saturday night with 2 hours notice. So sadly, I ended up 'starring' in it. Mwahaha.
We got briefed on Friday at 4pm.
Friday evening (until 9ish) was spent on ideas.
As was Saturday 8-12ish.
Saturday 12-4ish was spent writing the script.
Saturday 4-6ish was spent finding locations, begging, borrowing and stealing.
(In the end, we were actually just given the keys to the church by a very trusting priest. We actually got the church just by knocking on the door and he happened to be in.
Says a lot for just getting out and asking for favours instead of making calls and emails.)
Saturday 6-10ish was spent filming.
Saturday/ Sunday 10-11 was spent editing overnight.
We actually came up with the idea for the script on Friday night, it was one of our first thoughts.
After pummelling through dozens more ideas we realised it was the best by far. We could spend hours trying to top it. If we did we'd only have a few hours to film and edit, if we didn't, we'd have wasted that time completely.
And so we went with it. I guess it's the nature of a 48 hour competition, you're never 100% sure because you could have spent longer coming up with ideas, I guess you just have to trust yourself.
The same thing happened Sunday morning. We'd stayed up overnight editing and had 8 hours left until it had to be submitted.
We could have continued editing it, but with the footage we had it would have only got about 3% better. Plus we were both knackered and couldn't think straight. So we just submitted it.
I think we learned not to take competitions like that TOO seriously, as you'll always have doubts and you'll always be comparing the finished article to how good it could be if you got a proper director, proper actor and you had more time.
But you don't. So it's important to just enjoy it and cross your fingers."
To cut a long story short, we won. Best UK team.
Not many actors are interested in working in a cold church on a Saturday night with 2 hours notice. So sadly, I ended up 'starring' in it. Mwahaha.
We got briefed on Friday at 4pm.
Friday evening (until 9ish) was spent on ideas.
As was Saturday 8-12ish.
Saturday 12-4ish was spent writing the script.
Saturday 4-6ish was spent finding locations, begging, borrowing and stealing.
(In the end, we were actually just given the keys to the church by a very trusting priest. We actually got the church just by knocking on the door and he happened to be in.
Says a lot for just getting out and asking for favours instead of making calls and emails.)
Saturday 6-10ish was spent filming.
Saturday/ Sunday 10-11 was spent editing overnight.
We actually came up with the idea for the script on Friday night, it was one of our first thoughts.
After pummelling through dozens more ideas we realised it was the best by far. We could spend hours trying to top it. If we did we'd only have a few hours to film and edit, if we didn't, we'd have wasted that time completely.
And so we went with it. I guess it's the nature of a 48 hour competition, you're never 100% sure because you could have spent longer coming up with ideas, I guess you just have to trust yourself.
The same thing happened Sunday morning. We'd stayed up overnight editing and had 8 hours left until it had to be submitted.
We could have continued editing it, but with the footage we had it would have only got about 3% better. Plus we were both knackered and couldn't think straight. So we just submitted it.
I think we learned not to take competitions like that TOO seriously, as you'll always have doubts and you'll always be comparing the finished article to how good it could be if you got a proper director, proper actor and you had more time.
But you don't. So it's important to just enjoy it and cross your fingers."
D&AD success
The mythical D&AD New Blood pencil.
This year Lincoln CA students achieved four 'in book' awards and one nomination for a coveted D&AD Pencil. The successful students this year were Chloe Bishop, Christina Worman, Jade Andrews, Masha Shukkore, Stanley Bennett, Bethany Applebee and Tuomas Watkins.
All of the students involved richly deserve their success but special mention must go to Tuomas who got an 'In book' and a pencil nomination, whilst still in the first year of the course!
The awards ceremony is being held in London on 3rd of July as part of the New Blood festival so we will be keeping our fingers crossed for Tuomas and hoping to add to the trophy cabinet.
Well done to all that entered the D&AD New Blood competition, it's a great way to gain experience and makes the students much more professional, long may it continue.
Another successful London Week
Just before Easter the third year students had their 'London Week'. The year group was split in two and each group visited one agency a day. In total the cohort visited 10 agencies in 10 days.
Some of the agencies set briefs the week before and ran a crit when the students arrived. Some agencies were even more demanding and set a brief in the morning and then critiqued the work in the afternoon. A couple of the agencies gave presentations on how to get a job in advertising, showed some of their recent work & gave advice on portfolio content, industry expectations & how to successfully make the transition from University to career.
Monday saw visits to Leo Burnett & DLKW:–
Some of the agencies set briefs the week before and ran a crit when the students arrived. Some agencies were even more demanding and set a brief in the morning and then critiqued the work in the afternoon. A couple of the agencies gave presentations on how to get a job in advertising, showed some of their recent work & gave advice on portfolio content, industry expectations & how to successfully make the transition from University to career.
Monday saw visits to Leo Burnett & DLKW:–
Fresh faced and raring to go at Leo Burnett
Kieran pretending to work hard at Leo Burnett
Quick! Write lots at DLKW and look busy!
Agency: DLKW
Taking the escalator up to DLKW
Tuesday and the students visited Grey and creative recruitment agency The Talent Business:–
Lots of sugary drinks at Grey
Agency: Grey
Creative recruitment agency, The Talent Business
The Talent Business
Wednesday and it's agencies Creature and JWT:–
Agency: Creature
Cool things at Creature
In the reception at Creature
Need a break? Don't go to JWT - it's hard work.
Woah! JWT's impressive reception.
Agency: JWT!
Agency: JWT
Thursday and it's off to Inferno and Mother:–
Kieran presenting at Inferno
Sarah & Natalie presenting at Inferno
Agency: Mother
Waiting in reception at Mother
Agency: Mother
And finally, on Friday the students visited agencies Ogilvy and VCCP:–
All aboard The Mayflower meeting room at Ogilvy!
Stan and Beth arriving at VCCP
As you can see it really was quite a week!
Thank you SO much to all everyone at the agencies who helped organise the week. We simply couldn't have done it without you. The vast majority of these were past University of Lincoln Creative Advertising graduates so you see how it goes: come to Lincoln > graduate from Lincoln > get a placement (or two or three) > get a job at a top agency > keep in touch with the staff team in Lincoln > help the next generation of creative talent. You get the idea.
Next up for the third years, pull everything together that they've learned in Lincoln and London and prepare for their portfolios for final assessment. And then it's the degree show (and Private View party).
Nice.
Creative Jam
Tom's personal branding on his Behance Portfolio page
We're delighted to discover that Tuomas Watkins has been invited to take part in Adobe's 'Creative Jam' meet up for New creatives having been discovered through his Behance portfolio (which has had nearly 300,000 views, by the way). It sounds good anyway, but it sounds even better when you realise he was picked out specifically as one of the Top 20 new creatives in the whole UK.
From now on we'll call him Sir and make sure not to look him in the eyes.
A snippet of Tom's D&AD entry for the Body Shop - see the whole campaign HERE
In the meantime, you can follow Tuomas' adventures at Creative Jam by watching the whole event live HERE as it is a live streamed programme.
If you feel like finding out more but only 140 characters at a time, Creative Jam will also be on twitter using the hashtag #CreateNow
The Greatest Debate
Fantastic video of the event by San Ngan, Shaun Maclennan and Olamide Soyemi
The CA Great Debate
All of the First Years and Second Years are put into pairs/threes in their respective year groups. Two weeks before the event they are given five questions, each of which could have a Yes or No response.
Harry tries using his psychic abilities to win his debate
But here's the hook. The Great Debate is a knock-out tournament consisting of five rounds.
Carys gets into the swing of things, whilst Callum listens to the latest sports results
It is judged by Third Years and the students competing will not find out which questions is in which round until just before that round begins.
Elly forgets the question and, instead, describes the world's largest tomato
But more than that, they will not find out which side of the debate they must fight for until seconds before the match begins, giving them a moment or two to look at their notes before battles commences.
Debating on a grand scale
So it's all about understanding not only your argument, but also the perspective of your opponent. You have to, because the only way to win is by having a truly rounded understanding of all sides of each topic.
This year, it was the First Years who claimed glory and whilst we must congratulate Jag from the Creative Advertising Second Year who performed brilliantly to reach the final, our biggest applause is reserved for Carys Thomas, Stefan Renton and Callum Wright who won with a unanimous vote to claim the win.
Thanks to everybody involved for making it the best one yet and particular thanks also go out to San Ngan, Shaun Maclennan and Olamide Soyemi from the CA First Year for putting together the wonderful video that heads this post.
Interviews in Progress
Every year at this time we get a flood of potential new students, eager to earn themselves a place on next years First Year.
This year is no different and we've experience a third consecutive year with a rise in the number of applications. Fantastic!
You see, it's like picking players for your team. You're looking for the right mix of talent, energy, personality and hunger and if you get the right bunch of people together, you can achieve anything.
So, line them up and send them in… We're waiting.
Lily & Amanda, where are they now?
Anyone for a balloon.
'Shedding our uni skins we headed straight down to London, bright eyed and bushy tailed, into our first placement at VCCP, which kicked off in July.
As fate would have it, just after finding out our time there was almost up, we received an email from Indy, associate creative at Kindred. He asked us to pop in for a chat after seeing our portfolio via ‘Ken at BBH’– someone to this day we haven’t actually met, but to whom we are eternally grateful! So pop in for a chat we did, setting up our second placement.
Over the past five months we’ve had a fantastic time with great opportunities from going on several shoots, (including one where our balloon-blowing-up skills were put to the test for Beat Bullying), to working on a series of big pitches and taking the creative reign on a number of campaigns. Three extensions on and one amusingly informal conversation later, we’ve been hired! Our first real life jobs in the mad bad ad world as Junior Creatives – it was like Christmas came early.'
Mother agency visit
Their Mother's would be proud of them.
'It was only 3 hours after leaving Anomaly before we were waiting outside Mother, a building contrasting both in size and style to where we were earlier. The buildings situated 5 minutes away from the train station, but in the time between the two, we passed 1 giant rat, about 45 trainers hanging from a telephone wire and about 100 hipsters, it was awesome. As we walked into the reception area of Mother we were greeted by the slogan “Graffiti is advertising to me” in massive font above the elevators, this pretty much summed up Mother’s creative and youthful style.
An elephant is about to sit on Jonny.
Mother’s policy is about “doing work that makes your mother proud”, and to emphasise this every employee has a picture of their mother up on the wall in the corner of the foyer. As I sat there, admiring the obvious ambition and creative feel of the place, I realised how good it would feel to see my mother up on that wall, and how proud that would make me feel.
However, my daydreaming was soon interrupted as we were shown into their meeting room, the only room in the whole agency with a door. This was not the most interesting aspect of the room though. There was a massive elephants arse coming out of the wall apparently for two reasons, acoustics, and “to kill the elephant in the room” so that people feel more comfortable speaking.
Jonny and Georgie playing with their friend.
We were then lucky enough to be given a presentation by two creative directors Martin and Kyle, as well as Ben Heap. The guys told us all about Mother and its work, all of which I recognized and appreciated. It was not long before I got the sense that this was an amazing place to work. They described how they have events almost every night; they take part in their own projects and they work together around a massive table, like a big family. To me it seemed like a place where everyone is appreciated and you can truly be yourself. It was not long before question time. They answered a variety of questions, some told us about the importance of pairing up with someone that challenges you and also highlighted the necessity of creative pairs in the industry, now, and for the foreseeable future, and one answer in particular disappointed second year Simon, “No, the agency isn’t like Mad Men.”
Unfortunately, it was not long before our time in London was up. But I can tell you, after that day, I wont be gone for long.'
Second years visit Anomaly
The only way is up for Anomaly
Part of the philosophy you will find at Anomaly
No sausages
Upon entering the agencies building we were greeted by a wall of creative quotes, scamped from top to bottom. This was a good start; it already seemed like an interesting place to work. Upon having a few minutes to enjoy the creative wall, we were ushered into tight lifts and taken to the agencies floor.
As the doors of the lift opened, we were greeted by a bright, warming red glow radiating from the hallway, which was painted strikingly, to say the least. We were then led into a boardroom to start the presentation.
The presentation started with Ben Moore telling us all about the company and its strategies. He told us how they really tried to be the “anomaly” of all of the agencies, providing a service completely different and surprising. Through a business like approach, and strong opinions on the direction that the industry is heading, they are a relatively new agency in the UK trying to make big waves, with bigger clients. The presentation carried on, and it was quite interesting, with him showing us the agencies best work, including work for Budweiser and Adidas. But for me, the more interesting part came when we got to speak to the creative pairPaul Mann and CA graduate Mike Cuthell. They are both freelance creative who were very open with us, providing first hand experience of the ups and downs and completely new perspectives on the industry. They reassured us that getting the job is possible, and that it is truly worth it. One particular reoccurring theme of the agency that really made me think was their questioning of the importance of the creative partnership roles. They suggested that the industry would evolve into a place that makes partnerships redundant. However, we soon came to realise that, different agencies have different philosophies when we visited Mother in the afternoon.'
Christmas Crackers
On the lincoln Creative Advertising programme we look at everything as a potential educational opportunity, that's why we thought we'd really test out the students art direction and copywriting skills by getting them to make some Christmas crackers.
The art directors were tasked with creating the most original cracker design whilst the copywriters had to write the best cracker joke. Fun was had by all (partly fuelled by an industrial sized bag of sweets) and the students produced some very creative crackers. As we all know Christmas is all about giving, so Matt Paxton got a giant Toblerone for his Cracker design of Santa delivering D&AD pencils and Alfie Daniell-Waldron also won a Toblerone for a very funny joke which we can't print here.
Ho Ho Ho.
This course is starting to look like an episode of Blue Peter.
Ready, steady, pull.
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