On holiday in Umbria, we rented a place from a film director.
Umbria is different to Tuscany.
Tuscany is the renaissance part of Italy.
It’s Florence, and the Medicis, Michelangelo, Machiavelli.
Rows of beautifully neat cypress trees, well kept roads, the signs of people with money everywhere.
Umbria isn’t like that.
Umbria isn’t the renaissance, it’s medieval, it’s raw.
Little hilltop fortified towns and villages everywhere.
Tractors driving along the roads full of pot holes.
The locals bringing their plastic tables and chairs out onto the roadside.
To sit and drink wine, and chat and watch the sunset.
The place we stayed at was on top of a hill.
It was rebuilt from the ruins of an 11th century castle.
The actual top of the hill still had some of the original walls, overgrown and returned to nature.
But the house we stayed in was rebuilt from the remains of the dilapidated buildings, whatever walls were left standing.
There was nothing else up there, and it was a very tall hill.
To get to the top you had to drive up about about a mile of the worst road surface imaginable.
It was what Umbrians call ‘white road’.
Which just means rutted and pitted dirt track full of lumps of gravel and rock.
The car sliding all over the place with a steep drop to one side.
When you finally get to the top there’s a stunning 360 degree view all round.
About a mile below you can see the valley, sometimes shrouded in cloud like a huge lake.
We were so high we were looking down on the birds flying in the valley below.
And in amongst the ruins on the hillside are props from the director’s movies.
Huge stone gargoyles, that could be from “Baron Munchhaussen’, or ‘Brazil’, or ‘The Twelve Monkeys’.
Massive great things that looked like they belonged on the side of Notre Dame Cathedral.
Eerily looming out of the wild vegetation that’s grown over them.
Of course, if you knock on them they’re actually fibreglass.
And somehow that adds to the eccentricity of the place.
The strange mix between the ancient, and someone’s imagination.
It adds vibrancy to the overriding feeling of living in history.
At night you can feel the ghosts of hundreds of years walking around you.
The medieval world didn’t go away.
It just got reshaped, and carried on.
You feel you’re walking over the same dried, parched stubble that sandaled feet have trodden on for centuries.
Hearing the village bells ringing out the time from the valley below, just the way they would have.
The sense of being in history is overwhelming, on a mountaintop literally overlooking it.
Just before we left, on the last day, we read the guest book.
This is left for people who’ve stayed to record their comments.
The previous people to stay were very disappointed.
They said, “Yes it’s an amazing house but it’s ruined by the drive up every day. Can’t something be done about the road?”
They went on to say, “The lack of shade around the pool spoiled the whole experience for the children. Why can’t there be large umbrellas, instead of having to sit under the trees?”
They continued, “The insects are awful, we have to sit indoors with the windows shut.”
Now here’s a thing.
We experienced all those things, but we experienced them from the other side.
To us it was part of the adventure.
Sure the road is a drag, but that’s how people have had to get to top of the mountain for centuries.
If you make a tarmac road it will certainly make it a bit more comfortable.
It will also kill a little bit of the romance.
It will become as easily accessible as everywhere else.
Sure you could have giant sun umbrellas instead of shading under the trees.
But it will also make it just a little bit more like any posh hotel.
Why not have a waiter bringing you drinks by the pool?
And I don’t know what you do about the flies.
They’ve probably been there even longer than the Umbrians.
If you get rid of all that aren’t you getting rid of part of the history of the place?
Sure you need some of life’s conveniences.
But every time you modernise something you lose something old.
I was talking to my wife about it.
She’s an art director, and she said we have similar creative problems with clients all the time.
It’s the same with any idea.
When does solving the practical problems kill the magic?
When does it stop being an improvement and actually just make it more like everything else?
When does it take away everything you loved about it in the first place?
You like it because it’s different.
And the first thing you want to do is change what makes it different.
Fix it up and improve it.
So that it becomes more like everything else.
And it stops being different.
For creative people it’s always a tough call.
Where do you draw the line?
Some changes are reasonable and will make your idea better.
And some changes just kill the magic.
How do you know when to stop?
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Good to hear from you again, Dave.
Just curious - were the whining folks from the Far East?
Sounds like the kind of comments they would make.
And just so no one gets offended, I am from the Far East.
What you said reminds me of a show I watched on TV.
It was Charlie’s Angels, the movie version.
As a kid who grew up with the original TV show, the movie was a disappointment.
They changed so many things.
Folks used to say the TV series was dumb.
But still it was popular.
The movie, for me, was just not true to the original.
Yes I agree it reminds me of the Chateaubriand restaurant in Belsize Pk many moons ago - great food - but Sergio the owner had to keep 2 waiters in the Fawlty Towers style in check while running the place. It would not have been the same going back to find them gone and replaced by perfection that was the fun of it. Seems a bit like here - winding road, never quite there - at the top of the mountain - but that’s the point………. http://www.scottsgalilea.com/eng/index.html
Hi Robin,
Nope, I think they were also from North London.
Loving something and then trying to change it is a universal condition I think.
It’s like Hilton hotels.
Everything works, but they’re the same wherever you are.
You couldn’t tell what country you’re in.
Why would anyone want to go to a different country and remove everything that made it different?
I agree with Damon.
I’ve read somewhere that “to create ideas is a gift, to choose wisely is a skill” and I guess this sort of applies when you come to amend/improve a great idea.
It’s a skill knowing when to stop.
A creative director of ours once said that our job doesn’t just stop with a great idea - it’s all in the crafting.
And crafting takes time.
Craft too much and it loses what made it different. Don’t craft enough and you’ll have too many battles trying to save it.
The guys that left those comments sound like clients unhappy with a piece of work.
What they failed to see is that road was crafted just enough to get the right audience there, but not enough that every Tom, Dick and Harry could drive up and ruin your holiday.
I’ve read somewhere that \to create ideas is a gift, to choose wisely is a skill\ and I guess this sort of applies when you come to amend/improve a great idea.
It’s a skill knowing when to stop.
A creative director of ours once said that our job doesn’t just stop with a great idea - it’s all in the crafting.
And crafting takes time.
Craft too much and it loses what made it different. Don’t craft enough and you’ll have too many battles trying to save it.
The guys that left those comments sound like clients unhappy with a piece of work.
What they failed to see is that road was crafted just enough to get the right audience there, but not enough that every Tom, Dick and Harry could drive up and ruin your holiday.
Had to chuckle when I read your description of Umbria: medieval, indeed. Todi. Deruta. So different from primped up Tuscany. Homogenization is a drag.
I remember being on a beach in the Caribbean, and these guys would come along selling carvings and stuff. One guy had a sort of sales model, a half-finished carving, with one half polished and the other still the original raw material. “That’s the one,” I said. “We’ll buy that one.” The guy was quite peeved, and said no, that was just to show how it was done, I had to buy a finished one. But I wouldn’t. When it was finished, it was just another polished representation - but this one, just half emerged, was something special.
Heyo Dave
Re “Why would anyone want to go to a different country and remove everything that made it different?” think that’s why Hegarty once said he likes Japanese ads - even though they made no sense.
Your take, please?
Robin.
I’ve always lived by,”If you can’t be better be different.”
It’s a good start point for any advertising.
Nobody ever told an interesting story about a perfect holiday. It’s always the challenges and setbacks that make the good bits interesting. Smooth all the edges off an ad and it’s usually just as uninteresting.
GMTV to you Dave
it’s all YOUR fault.
I’m never sure whether I should fuck life or whether I should let it fuck me.
The older I get the more I find the latter more exciting.
“Where do you draw the line?” I asked Tony the same thing yesterday. He didn’t really give me an answer, other than “You have to decide for yourself”.
Vik,
I think that’s the right answer.
And it changes all the time, so you can’t get a formula.
Robbie, that reminds me of a quote from the Situationist philosopher Raoul Vaneigem:
“You sometimes get a fuck, but you always get fucked.”
Bit depressing, eh?
i meant it more in regards to dave’s umbrian gambit. when you have something peculiar or difficult in front of you, embrace it, let it wash all over you. if it’s difficult, let it impress itself onto your life. it’s better than the alternative which is going in and rearranging it so it’s all your own way. i like people who can withstand life in its purest form. i think it shows more of a passion for life to let it fuck you, like a bitch, than to get your tallywhacker out and give it what for. i’m regretting writing every single one of these words, by the way.
not the place for a jewish princess….nx
it’s a bit like new york city dave. when i lived there it was scary, when you lived there it was even scarier. and now it’s kind of losing its dangerous edge thanks to mayor giulani’s improvements. it’s much safer and nicer.
but now new yorkers pine for the days when times square was dark and filled with hookers and drug dealers!
dave, in my experience the more thought given to an idea the more it loses its magic. you have an idea, people like it, you do it. should be the flow. not everyone does it this way though.
I agree Vinny.
First you get the “Wow, that’s a fantastic idea” rush.
Then following right along behind is the “Now, can we spot any flaws in it” damper.
I think the real problem is there are whole departments full of people who only see their job as the latter.
there is a formula
http://ex-blank-page.blogspot.com/2009/09/in-reply-to-daves-great-posts-74.html
This says it all for me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbkXRB29kT0
\An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all\. Oscar Wilde
and
Books won’t stay banned. They won’t burn. Ideas won’t go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas.
- Alfred Whitney Griswold
every road to a new idea or experience is wider than it is longer, and the more lumps and bumps the better, as it is, in your words Dave, memorable, has impact and persuades those to either return to the ‘known zone’ or pursue the need for something fresh and exciting with a touch of fear added into the mix - that cliff edge…
John,
That’s one of my favourite films. I love the line about the ducks. It’s full of a cultural iconoclasm that we’ve lost.
Anca and Vik,
I think you have two very different ways of saying the same thing, they benefit from each other.
David,
I agree, as Helmut Krone said, “If you can look at something and say ‘I like it’ then it isn’t new.”
We try and build fear into the creative process. how many meetings do you recall where an idea was so off the wall, and yet on strategy and yet it was binned due to fear. fear of looking silly, fear of being wrong, fear of something new…
if we are not scared of it, then we just want to be safe!
hope all is well with you. best, David.
When Sir Mick and his lads were inducted into the Rock &Roll Hall of Fame he said “First you shock them, then they put you in a museum”, or something to that effect. Hey, the Rolling Stones should know a thing or two about museums.
I think Sir Mick’s comments speak to Dave’s first point, namely that a great concept has to be fresh. (Great to have your BLOG back BTW!) Some ideas just keep on giving (I can think of a couple examples not suitable for JP’s at this point) but presumably will become old hat at some point. And I suspect everyone can tell when an idea is used once too often.
Dave’s other point is that a great concept has to be dangerous. Or defective. Or fly ridden, or some such like. On this I would agree totally. It is only in knowing their flaws that we really get to know and love the people in our lives (please reference Tolstoy’s famous opening line of Anna Karenina). And I think that unless and until we know the weaknesses in our concepts, we are not prepared to present them.
As for Times Square and it current makeover, I am afraid brand “Europe” has this problem generally. See: Disneyfication; defined as the conduct of business and consumption in such a way that the “real world” becomes more and more like a theme park.
Welcome back Dave,
Michael
It reminds me of presenting ideas to the Japanese client. They seem to have an uncanny knack of killing the magic. Good luck with the new Subaru client Dave, I think that will be a particualar challenging one. Very happy to share my experiences with one particular Japanese car brand and nurtured a healthy relationship if it helps.
whoops, less haste…that last sentence should have read “…and how we nurtured a healthy relationship if it helps”.
Thanks James,
So far all our clients are English, but if we do come up against a Japanese (so to speak) I’ll be in touch.