Part 57
The whole point of being a creative writer, or a creative anything for that matter, is to have the freedom to create. I had earlier experienced the frustrations of advertising copywriting. This required writing to a usually quite vague brief, then be subjected to often devastating critiques by the account executive who had given the brief. He or she clearly had no real idea of what the client needed and relied on the copywriter taking a stab in the dark. This usually crystalized what the account executive did not want and resulted in sending the writer back to try again. Then, by a process of hit or miss, an idea evolved that could possibly appeal to the client.
Sometimes, it worked with the account executive taking all the credit. Sometimes, it didn’t work with the account executive blaming the copywriter. Either way, I soon realized that copywriting was not for me.
When I joined Filmlets, I soon discovered that our boss Pax had a variation on this same approach. He would also give us a vague brief or often nothing at all. He would say, “We need a thirty-second commercial on a pram (stroller),” for example, and plonk a brochure on his desk in front of me.
It was a very elegant up-market pram, so I went away and came up with the idea of having a baby in the pram wearing a deerstalker hat, with a colorful scarf around his neck, looking as though he were a young man in a sports car out for a drive. The voice-over spoke in a posh English voice about his “new set of wheels,” and so on, extolling the key features of the pram. Not madly original, but I figured it would work. I took it back to Pax. He promptly tore it to shreds, then gave me a completely different idea to develop, which made no sense to me. I did my best and returned to Pax who promptly tore it up in a fury and asked himself why on earth he had hired me.
I went back and tried again, using his idea as a basis. It was never going to really work, but I made the mistake of trying give Pax what he wanted. Feeling miserable, I went back again to the man’s office. Once again, I was subjected to abuse. Pax then had an idea: “I know what we could do; let’s have a baby who talks as though he’s in a sports car…” I couldn’t believe my ears. The only word that came to mind was the Yiddish word, “hutzpah.” That was my idea, dammit!
Over the years I worked for Pax, I think we developed a grudging respect for each other. He would do this over and over again, destroying my first attempt then gradually coming back to it and then claiming it to be his idea.
However, by the fifth year, he occasionally allowed me to take some credit for my ideas. I was given a brief for an ad for Shell to launch a new product called Vapona. It consisted of an unattractive yellow strip that emitted some insect-killing vapor that was designed to hang in a corner of a room. Unexpectedly, Pax let me meet with the ad agency on my own. The account executive told me that he wanted a serious scientific approach. It was a breakthrough in insect control, etc., etc. I felt strongly that we had to take a more creative approach. A dull-looking product given a scientific pontification would be the kiss of death.
Fortunately, the ad man agreed with me. My script opened on a picture of flashing beams of light moving across the screen to the accompaniment of some raunchy “bump and grind” music. The narrator then announced in a hyped-up way, “Presenting the fabulous, exotic, most exciting strip of all time…Miss Vapona!” Whereupon the animated Vapona strip appeared on screen wrapped in its silver foil wrapping and proceeded to strip off the foil, piece by piece, in time to the music. The animators did a fine job. The result was a “sexy” striptease which continued until the Vapona strip was completely bare. At which point a woman’s hand reached into picture, lifted up the strip and hung it in the sitting room by the string attached to it.
Unbelievably, Pax never messed with it. The ad went on to be one of the official entries in the annual Cannes advertising festival. I never heard whether it had won any award but, sometime later, I did hear that the Aussies had come up with exactly the same concept and were also featured at the Cannes festival.
Shortly afterwards, there was a management shake-up at Killarney Film Studios. The three film commercial writers, two others and myself, were unexpectedly relocated to the studios after years of keeping us away from the place.
One thing led to another and the new manager decided to give me a chance to write and direct my first documentary. It was the story of the players in the British Lions Rugby team, which was due to tour South Africa. The Lions comprise the best players from all four Home Nations: England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Every four years they would tour either New Zealand, Australia or South Africa. I called it “Lion’s Eye View.” Rugby was still an amateur sport in 1968, so I matched the careers of some of the players, with their equivalent in South Africa, such as the doctors whom I arranged to meet Professor Chris Barnard who had recently carried out the world’s first heart transplant.
Anyway, I’ve written about this documentary in an earlier blog. My only point here is that it seemed that the new manager had put a few noses out of joint by giving me the documentary to make. One of the misshapen noses was Pax’s who regarded his writers as his sole property. In addition to which, one of the film editors at the studio had expected to get the picture to direct and was furious when I was awarded it.
In the event, I was thoroughly sabotaged by the editor, who claimed that the picture we shot was un-editable. A roll of film was also “lost/destroyed” in the lab, which had to be re-shot. I was hauled into a meeting and yelled at by Pax. I had already decided to resign anyway and walked out of the meeting. Ironically, the small section of film was reshot and the picture edited. It contained over 90% of the footage I had directed and went on to win an award at a sports film festival in Europe. Sadly, my name did not appear on the credits. Sigh!
When I compare the dramas I had with Pax and others with my recent adventures with Peter Warren and the burgeoning ExoTech team, I can only say that chalk and cheese doesn’t even measure it. Despite the fact that I am the oldest member of ExoTech, I have found a pleasurable working environment that exceeds anything I have experienced before.
We are all closely aligned to the same purpose and are excited by its expected outcome. Furthermore, Peter is a person who acknowledges and validates good work when he sees it. Lastly, when one is striving to create something that will significantly and positively change the whole concept of communication on our planet, we all feel the rising excitement of achieving it. It makes for a harmonious team. I am proud to be part of it!
An ExoTech Ltd shareholder, Chris is currently authoring two of the four books to be published the day ExoBrain launches and has helped to create ExoBrain’s introductory video to the Confidential Technical Briefing. Chris has spent his working life in the film and television industry, starting with BBC Television in London, then ATV in Birmingham becoming, at the time, the youngest Studio Manager in Britain.
Later, in South Africa, he wrote and directed film and TV commercials, having four South African entries at the Cannes Advertising Festival. After a number of years of writing and directing or producing documentaries (eight international awards) and corporate videos, he concentrated on writing feature film screenplays (five screened) and television series (seven screened). He has a novel, ”Pursuit of Treachery,” with a literary agent and is currently obtaining finance for an action adventure feature film he has written and is co-producing. He is a published poet and has given many readings.