The preparation...

Answer: Yes, yes, yes and yes and your all good to go!

The stress...

I believe that Debbie and I are the only ones on this planet that hate the idea of a bank holiday this Monday.

Uni don't believe in things like half term and easter holidays but as soon as a bank holiday comes along everyone abandons ship on the one day we need it and its A3 scanner the most. Typical.

All our work has to be uploaded BY Tuesday 6th. I've put the 'by' in capitals because its causing me some bother. Does by mean monday midnight or tuesday midnight? Portfolio night contacts wern't too helpful. "as long as its all done by the deadline then its all good" was the response. WHATS THE DEADLINE? I hate vague outlines for things.

So Debbie and I are going to be taking photos of our work and uploading them that way. Not ideal but I suppose it will have to do. 10 to 1 if we leave it till tuesday we'll probably find out the deadline was Monday midnight and then we'll be in trouble.

Grrrr.

The retraction...

Ok I have to take it back. Sonys Foam city is better than I originally perceived. (It just came on tv.) I dont know if we saw an early release that wasn't finished yet but it felt and looked alot different than what I originally saw. It felt alot more believeable (I cant believe I used the word magical before...) this time round.

There. I said it. I was wrong. :)

What I also like is that the website lets you download the advert and theres a "paste to blog" section. Sony are so thoughtful.




UPDATE: Okay I take back my comment about foam city but... FALLON ARE TAKING OVER TV!!! lol ok I exaggerate slightly but this is just what I watched on channel 4:

• Foam city ad
• TV programme
• Foam city ad
• Budweiser ad
• some other ad
• bact to TV Programme

How much air time have they bought?????

The good news and the bad....

Changes. Nothing ever stays the same with us for very long. There we were all sorted for portfolio night, the only thing to do was draw em' up.... Then in walks Ken Davies, Creative director of Underdog advertising in Chester. Ken comes in every now and again to set briefs and see what were upto but we haven't seen him for months so it was nice to catch up.

Good news is that A smyths (Irish toy shop) brief we were set a while ago was rather sucessful with the clients but still questions on what will and wont run.

Bad news is that he had fantastic ideas for work! Our ideas had a right good workout and were moulded into new versions of themselves. at least we hadn't drawn too much up by then!

But everything is finalised now nothing is changing. well we don't think so anyway!

The record?...

Ok so if may massacre wasn't busy enough already we just made it that little bit more. The line up for may 8th now stands at...

• Wieden + Kennedy (great way to start the day...)
• Saatchi & Saatchi (To see Rach and Izy but also Brian if he's available...)
• Lunar BBDO
• PORTFOLIO NIGHT (which comprises of 3 crits for Rachel and 3 for Debbie)

9 crits in one day... is that a new record? Thats usually what we do in a week. So if you dont hear from us until the monday after you know its because we momentarily collapsed from exhaustion.

The one thing thats keeps us going though... Is it will all be worth it in the end.

The list...

Okies here's the products we're having in our book for portfolio night...

• Nandos
• Toyota IQ
• Slim Fast
• Fed-ex
• Virgin Experiences
• Euro 08'/ Thomas Cook
• John Smiths Grand National (viral as below...)

Just thought we'd keep you updated :)

The good day....

Well we have some very exciting news, something quite good is happening for us in the next couple of weeks but we have to keep it under wraps for now. (Its not a placement and its not a job) Lets just say I was nearly sick when we recieved an email from a certain person today.

Anyway thats not the only thing on our list for today. John Allison and Chris Bovill came back to where they began to tell us all about the trials and tribulations of "smelly briefs"

They gave us a nice talk on how to crack briefs and how they came to be where they are today.



After, they gave us a crit but it was kinda a group session on teaching some 2nds years how to go around getting crits, anyway they said that we had a really good book, its not great yet (we wouldn't expect it to be!) but for the stage were at its really good and we've got some things that they said we should have a good go at from some ideas we had. And also commented on what an easy book it was to look at, the way it flowed. Some of our stapline/stratagies need work but otherwise all systems go go go for portfolio night!

The mystery...

Now im not one for stirring up trouble but... I was looking around a few agency sites, and Leith up in Edingburgh have some impressive clients and some adverts that I remember, especially this one from Carling...

Visit4info confirm that Leith made the advert, but Farm communications (who we visited for a crit a couple of weeks back) also have it on their website in their portfolio. I'm confused. Who made it?

The final countdown...

haha bet thats stuck in your head now isn't it!

anyway, yep 10 days till Portfolio night or what is known to us as May massacre. Were quite chuffed with the stage we're at, we have half a book sorted and this week we are finalising some new ideas.

An extra crit has surfaced, apparently John Alison and Chris Bovill have managed to come up to Manc to see us all at D&AD so we should get a crit off them! I should be taking photies and filiming bits so ill stick that up if its any good! They've attempted this twice before so hopefully its third time lucky!

The Difference between good and evil...

Good Mac....
(kept me warm and dry this morning in the pouring rain.)



Bad Mac...





It displayed this msg 2 seconds after we finished our viral, just before we could get it onto an external drive!!!!


Thankfully Big Kev (our wonderful IT technician ) managed to save it! :)