Dave Trott’s Blog

Just before the Second World War, Leni Riefenstahl made “Triumph Of The Will”.

It was a brilliant piece of propaganda.

And a visually stunning film.

It begins with Hitler coming to a rally in Munich.

The camera shows the shadow of his plane moving over the ground like a giant cross.

The symbolism reads like the arrival of The Saviour.

She features overhead shots of massed Nazi parades, with long shadows.

Every shadow moving in perfect unison.

Graphically powerful enough to be virtually abstract.

Massive blocks of soldiers marching in faultless precision.

Like an army of robots.

Capable of trampling anything in their path.

This is a military tsunami.

This film is a master class in cinematography.

It’s not just propaganda, it’s art.

So how did the British propaganda ministry respond?

Just like most advertising experts.

They said, “The public are worried about these Nazis.

They’ve conquered Poland, Holland, Norway, Belgium, Denmark, and France.

Now there’s only the English Channel between them and us.

It’s having a bad effect on morale.

They look unstoppable, we need to change that view.”

So they did what most clients and agencies would do.

They tried to find something positive to say about their product or brand.

But unfortunately there wasn’t a lot positive to say.

The British Army had left most of its equipment at Dunkirk.

Just about the only thing they had left was motorbikes.

So they showed that.

Dozens of soldiers driving through fields in motorbike-and-sidecar outfits.

Covered in branches for disguise.

With a jolly, Mr Cholmondeley-Walker type VO.

“These chaps will ready to give Adolf a warm welcome, when he drops in for a cup of tea and a cream bun.”

(I’m not kidding.)

As you can imagine, this didn’t do much to convince the public that the British Army could stand up to Nazi supermen.

So it didn’t do much for morale.

In fact it had the opposite effect.

Everywhere it was shown it lowered morale.

Cinema audiences booed and threw apple-cores at the screen.

This film just showed how weak we were.

And that was really scary.

Meanwhile.

There was a new dance craze in England at that time called “The Lambeth Walk”.

A film editor was just playing about on his own one evening.

He took Leni Riefenstahl’s film and gradually recut it, frame by frame.

In those days there was no video editing.

Everything had to be done by hand, with scissors and glue.

He recut every frame until he had the Nazi soldiers walking backwards and forwards in exact time to the tune “Doing The Lambeth Walk”.

They looked like they were dancing.

He’d made them look silly.

Which meant they weren’t so scary anymore.

He showed it to a few friends and they loved it.

Eventually, he managed to get it shown at a cinema.

And it was such a hit that it was shown at every cinema in the country.

And it continued right through the war.

Because it actually lifted morale.

People began laughing at the Nazis.

And when they laughed they weren’t scared.

What was brilliant was the understanding of how people’s minds work.

We don’t have to prove we can beat the Nazis.

We just have to prove they can be beaten.

And we can do that in the way that the British have always done best.

Taking the piss.

Making them a laughing stock.

It breaks the spell.

That editor understood what the propaganda ministry didn’t.

That the answer isn’t always about the left brain: logic.

Sometimes it’s about the right brain: emotion.

But the experts didn’t understand that.

They were restricted by logic.

And when that didn’t work, they had nowhere to go.

Luckily the editor didn’t have experts to tell him what he could and couldn’t do.

He was free to make an intuitive leap.

So he did what felt right.

He took the piss.

The editor took an intuitive leap and it worked.

Because the editor didn’t have to listen to experts.

Because experts wouldn’t have understood taking the piss.

Because experts have learned not to think like ordinary people.

Vinny Warren did the ‘Wassup’ campaign for Budweiser.

It was one of the biggest advertising phenomena ever.

It caught on worldwide.

In countries where they don’t even speak English.

(But where they still drink Budweiser.)

Tons of free media, sales went through the roof.

So Vinny became a star and now has his own ad agency in Chicago.

Recently he was interviewed on Crispin Porter Bogusky’s blog.

Vinny thought a blog interview was a really good idea.

So he asked me to one on his blog.

The questions he asked were so thorough that it took me 11 pages to do them justice.

That’s a lot of work.

So I’m putting the link up here, in case anyone’s interested.

http://theescapepod.wordpress.com/2009/12/15/an-interview-with-dave-trott/

After you’ve read it, you may have some of your own questions.

If so, come back and ask them here, and I’ll try to answer them.

Paul Arden communicated much better graphically than verbally.

Because he thought visually.

He won just about everything as an art director.

Then he won just about everything as a film director.

One day he was talking to me about motivating the staff at his company.

He said, “Look, I know what I want to say to them, but I’m not sure how to say it. So I’ve done this. What do you think?”

And he showed me an A4 size booklet.

Pages of pictures and headlines, photographs and graphics, stapled together.

And very few words.

I said, “Paul this is brilliant, can I have a copy of it? I want to show it to the staff at the agency. If you made this into a book I’d buy a copy for everyone.”

Well eventually, Paul did make it into a book.

But it took him ages to get it published because it’s not a conventional book.

There’s not much to read in it.

It’s mainly photographs, drawings, and simple graphics.

Paul wasn’t a writer, so he didn’t write a book.

He art directed one instead.

I loved that idea, a book that wasn’t a book.

I liked it so much, I wanted to do one just like it myself.

A book that was mainly pictures.

So I put one together and I took it to show Paul.

He said, “It’s crap, it’s awful, I hate it.”

That wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

So I said, “Okay, you’ve been a creative director, behave like one.

Don’t just tell me what’s wrong with it, point me in the right direction.”

After a few days he asked me to back to see him.

He had some sketches and layouts he’d done for me.

He said, “You’re not an art director, you’re a writer.

You shouldn’t have any pictures, just words.

And you should write like you speak. That’s what makes you different, that’s what makes you interesting.”

This also wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

I couldn’t sit down to write an entire book.

300 pages?

Never happen.

But you’re not always good at what you want to be good at.

And you have to listen to what the world tells you you’re good at.

So, now I had a problem.

How to write a book when I didn’t want to write a book?

Well, they say luck is when preparation meets opportunity.

And about this time, the guys at the office said we needed a blog on the agency website.

And they said I had to do it.

And it dawned on me that this could be a way to make myself do some writing every day.

And people began to read it, and quite a lot of them liked it.

And some even asked me when it was coming out as a book.

So I asked my wife to help put it together.

Cathy is an art director, and Paul Arden used to be her creative director.

Cathy idolised Paul.

She had helped him put his book together.

She kept the layouts he’d done for me beside her, while she was on the Mac.

She said it was almost like having Paul there.

And so we now have something roughly resembling a book.

It’s unconventional, because it wasn’t written the way a book is supposed to be written.

It doesn’t read like a book is supposed to read: front to back.

In fact, it isn’t really a book at all.

Which is why I think Paul would have liked it.

In critic’s film polls, Citizen Kane is usually voted the most important film of all time.

It doesn’t look anything special to us nowadays.

That’s because everything that first appeared in Citizen Kane has been copied so much, it’s become part of cinema convention.

It broke all the boundaries that existed in film before that time.

It changed cinema, and so it doesn’t look special anymore.

That’s what happens with truly revolutionary ideas.

They get absorbed and become the new basic ground rules.

Orson Welles said Citizen Kane was revolutionary, largely due to the fact that he knew nothing about film.

He was a stage actor and director from New York.

So all he knew about were stage sets and stage lighting.

When he got to Hollywood he was regarded with awe.

So no one dared question anything he said.

But Orson Welles didn’t know that.

He assumed if he was doing anything wrong, the people who knew about film would tell him.

But of course they didn’t.

They assumed all of his ‘mistakes’ were bold, daring innovations no one had tried before.

And they were right, but for the wrong reason.

He wasn’t restricted by the same conventional knowledge as everyone else. So he could question, reinvent, and change cinema.

He put ceilings on all the room sets, because he didn’t know that wasn’t done.

This meant the technicians had to use spot lighting.

Instead of the multi-directional lighting used in film.

He was the first to use whip-pans, breakaway sets, and sound across the cut.

Because he didn’t know it wasn’t done.

He ignored the rules and something really good came out of it.

So it’s okay to be different.

But not for everyone.

Apparently there’s a right way and a wrong way to use Twitter.

And I’ve been using it the wrong way.

I know this because the other day I saw some people having a conversation about me on Twitter.

It went something along the lines of, “Dave Trott has 1,300 followers but only follows 30 people. Doesn’t he understand how Twitter works?”

Several other people got involved and all agreed I was wrong in following so few people.

I thought this could be interesting so I asked why.

He said he would answer it on his blog.

The answer was, by following several hundred, or even several thousand, people you could tap into what was happening in the zeitgeist.

You follow trends amongst people in similar groups.

You could even set up your own groups to spot trends.

To do this, the more people you’re following the better.

Which is really interesting and definitely a good use of Twitter.

If you’re a planner.

But I’m not a planner.

I’m a creative.

I don’t spend my time spotting and analysing trends.

I spend my time trying to get messages to stand out in the massively over communicated media.

And for that I need to be different, I need to be impactful, I need to be interesting.

So that’s how I’ve been using Twitter.

To find things that interest me.

Things that make me laugh, or think, or learn.

Things that provoke me or amuse me.

Because I’m more like a magpie than a trendspotter.

If I follow hundreds, or even thousands, of people I’ll get bored.

So why do that?

Why not treat Twitter like creative people treat most things?

Experiment with it, see how I can use it.

Maybe I’ll turn up something new.

But even if I don’t, why must there be only one right way to use it?

Why would you want to stop someone being different?

It’s not a safety issue.

I won’t harm anyone by using Twitter the wrong way.

But I might learn something I didn’t know before.

Isn’t that a good thing?

 

 

Mick Dean was a really successful advertising photographer.

He gave it up because he wanted to be an artist.

Now he spends all his time painting.

He loves painting scenes of erosion, around London.

In London of course, a lot of the erosion is due to water.

So naturally, Mick spends a lot of his time painting around The Thames.

When he’s painting, he hates the rubbish strewn everywhere.

Plastic bags, plastic bottles, beer cans, condoms, burger wrappers, shopping carts, bikes, tampons.

All left on the banks, or in the mud, or just floating by.

So Mick joined a group called Thames 21.

Volunteers who meet up to help clear up as much rubbish as they can.

I asked Mick how it worked.

He said, “You turn up with your rubber gloves and wellington boots, and off you go.”

So these are quite dedicated people.

While he was picking up rubbish one day, he got talking to a woman who was also helping.

It turned out she was an estate agent.

He asked her how business was.

She said not so good.

She had lots of empty properties people weren’t even looking at.

She asked Mick how his business was.

He said not so good.

He had lots of paintings but nowhere to exhibit them.

They carried on picking up rubbish.

Suddenly a lightbulb went ‘ping’ in Mick’s head.

He said, “How about if I could get a lot of people to visit one of your properties? Somewhere you think is really nice, but you’re having trouble getting anyone interested at present.”

She said, great, but how would you do that?

He said, “Well, I need a place to hold an exhibition of my work. If I held it in one of your properties, lots of people would turn up.

A fair proportion of art lovers are well-off and well-connected.

So you’ll be getting a lot more people looking over your client’s property. Maybe thinking about it, maybe spreading the word, you never know.

Meanwhile you’ll be showing it off in its best light, because the property would look really busy and attractive.

Instead of just be sitting there vacant, looking undesirable and empty.”

And that’s what they agreed on.

Mick got a really nice gallery space in a large shop, next to the Thames in Limehouse.

He also uses it as a studio.

Which means Mick can do several jobs at once.

Supervise the gallery, chat to the visitors, and paint.

People come to look at the pictures, and stay to watch Mick paint.

And to talk to him about his technique, his life, and his paintings

So far Mick’s sold five paintings.

Meanwhile the exhibition has created an aura of desirability around the otherwise empty property.

Plus the activity lifted the mood and energy level in the area for the local residents.

The café nearby want Mick as a permanent feature, because of all the extra business they’re getting.

Everyone wins and not a penny has changed hands.

He didn’t wait for a brief.

He didn’t complain there was no budget.

He didn’t grumble about the client.

He made it happen.

There’s a very nice walk along the Thames right by Mick’s exhibition.

He wanted to put posters up along it, telling people about the show.

He asked the owners of one of the wharves, but they said no.

He asked the owners of the other wharf, and they said no.

So that’s the end of it right?

Not quite.

Mick investigated ownership of the water front.

He found a tiny strip between the two wharves that neither owned.

So he put a poster up there.

Between the two people who said no.

I went to visit Mick’s exhibition yesterday.

A very nice Scandinavian lady and her friend came in.

She said they’d seen Mick’s poster as they were walking by the Thames.

She watched Mick paint and chatted for quite a while with him.

She said she put on art exhibitions, and she’d like to do one of his work.

She gave him her card and it said Baroness somebody.

Now if Mick had let all those excuses stop him, none of that would have happened.

That’s real creativity.

Creating from nothing.