When we tell friends about authors, we say things like, “You know, the guy who wrote Owen Meany…”
When we talk about directors, we say “The one who did Juno.”
And when hiring managers say they landed a new hotshot, they say “We just got the guy who did ______”
I just sat on a panel called “Ready For Reinvention” for the ASPP. The audience consisted mostly of photographers and advertising professionals, trying to find some bit of inspiration about what to do when the traditional need for our services is disappearing before our eyes.
I spoke mostly about doing something amazing. Instead of tweaking another direct mail piece, or redesigning your web site, have an idea and execute it. Create some news. Do some project that makes people talk. Be the person who did _______.
It’s literally the difference between hoping for a return call and having to screen your calls.
And besides, tackling the project of a lifetime is a lot more fun than licking envelopes.
11 Comments
great things to ponder.
now if only i could figure out what my ____________ is…
How will _______ pay my bills.
Each time I’ve been laid off from a job in the decades past, I’ve ventured out on my own to take on a new ______. I too, am in this state again and have been trying to figure out just what that ______ really is this past year.
I’ve dove back into what I know how to do to make a buck… provide training for others to do what I do. DVD videos, Blogs, hitting the speaking circuit again and wrapping up another big book. But is this really what I want to be doing? Not entirely. Not satisfied. I want to do so much more and tap into my creativity once again.
I must say I was incredibly moved by your photo journal of your Dad’s final days. Beautiful work. Beautiful emotion in words and pictures.
Thank you for sharing… and inspiring.
Jeff
Death Or Taxes: _____ might not pay your bills. But it will lead to the thing that will.
Jeff: I wish I could claim credit for that journal. That was done by a photographer named Philip Toledano, but I linked to it as the kind of _______ that we should all aspire to.
Hi Erik – I realized that after I wrote my post and went back and looked at it again. Thanks though for posting it as I wouldn’t have seen it otherwise!
Jeff
It “may” lead to the thing that will pay the bills. If you’re lucky. But I do believe in being optimistic, so I agree with you that one in a layoff situation may as well follow their dream. I worked on a novel when laid off as an ad copywriter. Then I took a job cleaning up garbage on a construction site. Now I’m back in the corporate world writing online content, and happy to be doing it.
http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/108129/life-on-severance-comfort-then-crisis.html?mod=career-salary_negotiation
I am very thankful that you included the link to Philip Toledano’s journal. This is truly something to aspire to. My heart is still pounding.
Same rules over here in London town. (The English one, that is..!)
There are industrymen here in adland, but there are support professions that are almost totally freelance, which brings a whole set of uniquely excruciating twists. The disadvantage of a salaried position is that in one day you can lose all your income. The advantage is that you know it.
The disadvantage of being freelance is that in a single day you can lose all your income. Only no one comes and tells you… The advantage is that you’ve been living by the seat of your pants anyway, so nothing’s really changed apart from your ability to pay the rent.
I’m a photographer. It happened to me on 1st Jan this year. All the mags I worked for had their photo budgets slashed almost 100%. Not sure why they chose to be circumspect, but it was March by the time I realised the issue was long term. And by then I had some decisions to make – quickly.
The first, perhaps insanely, was to commit to the ___ that I’d been planning with my brother anyway, which was a series of art/fashion crossover shoots that *we* wanted to make.
Suddenly we had to do it on a budget! So, a shoot with over 20 models, 4 makeup, 4 hair, stylists, designers, gowns, runners, assistants, extra Hasselblads, data managers, lighting, catering, transport, production crew, documentary film crew, Fashion TV crew, all shot at a mansion in Mayfair for a grand. Yup. One thousand English Pounds (soon to be discontinued; see vendor for details).
And then we shot another. And another. On no budget at all. And we have ideas for 4 more series, and nowhere near done with the first.
Why? You know why!
And because we’re artists: it’s what we do. (and writers and musicians – some “they did ____??!!” moments coming up soon!)
And because we believe you have to be in the room. That old Harrison-Ford-becomes-Han-Solo story.
Media has been seriously hit over here, just as in the States, but no-one can admit to it, because what’s left of the industry is so insecure it seeks reassurance in the success (real or apparent) of the freelancers it commissions. So we’re all SUPER SUCCESSFUL BUSY!! out here, naturally.
But our quiet patch gave my brother and I the chance to shoot stuff that was *never* going to get commissioned this year. And that quiet patch seems to be showing distinct signs of coming to an end…
I totally wish you well with “Lemonade”. I love the trailer.
And I wish the featured creative folk well too. Make champagne, guys.
Phoenix,
Sitting alone in my basement office, I literally clapped out loud upon reading this comment.
“Why? You know why! And because we’re artists: it’s what we do.”
Bravo. Amen. You get it. Thank you for setting the example for what so many people aspire to do.
I completely agree! I was writing about this earlier this summer when I started doing pieces just for fun for some friends, without pay, because I had all these stories to tell and no one had the budget to pay me for it — and because my friends, who were sick of their jobs, had decided to create a new site where this stuff could live. Now they are “The ____ Girls.” And we are making art together.
http://ryanrose.blogspot.com/2009/09/making-art-and-tofu-on.html
I wrote that in fact it was *because* I wasn’t getting paid that I was actually able to make this art, since I am a journalist…
“Since my relationship to this site is personal and non-transactional, I feel comfortable writing about people in the food world whom I would consider friends — people who may have begun as sources, but who have since invited me into their homes, into their kitchens, onto their farms — and now they are something else. They are people I’m more likely to call at midnight for a drink than during the day for a quote. They’re people with whom I’d prefer to collaborate rather than simply chat. (Collaborate is one of my favorite words — along with frolic, it’s probably my #1 active verb.)
What this means is that instead of working on service pieces, guides, features, etc. in a strictly technical sense, my hope is that this fall, me and my people are going to make some art together. We are going to riff. We are going to ad lib. We are going to graffiti our words across the Internet and hope that someone wanders along and likes what they see. We will do it because we are compelled to point out the genius of the people who are creating things in this city in the same way that bees are compelled to make honey, that birds are compelled to sing, that Jessica Simpson is compelled to soldier on doing whatever it is that she does despite all those ‘mom jeans’ comments. We do it because we must create — not because we must create something we can ‘monetize.’”
Thank you for validating how many of us feel about our _____. It may not pay the bills, but it feeds our souls. (It’s also way more fun to do that than to update my portfolio site/blog, which has been woefully neglected as of late…but now I feel less guilty about that.)
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