Writing for Television

Have now met the infamous Dave Trott. Was quite a scary guy!

The session was at his Agency Chick smith Trott, on a very posh floor all glass and sofas. We weren't allowed any tea (didn't finish till half 9) and a team who were 3 minutes late got a bollocking for being unprofessional. Argh!

When we got started though, Trott gave us a lot of good advice. First we went through the structure of advertising, how to decode it, how to tell if it was working. Impact, Communication, Persuasion. He told us never to be subjective ever again, no 'i like this' 'I like that'. Instead, this is working because... this is not working because. If you know why something is not working you can change it.

Then he talked about the structure of agencies- If you don't like the brief then change it. Get the client people to rewrite it. Convince your client they are wrong.

He told us he thought Northeners worked harder because they were scared, not as complacent. (Peter Saville told me this too)

The most influencing thing i took from Trott though, was how to behave. He told us you have to outsmart, Out think everyone, beat them. You need to do whatever you can to make sure you constantly have the advantage. The beauty of advertising is you can beat people who are better than you. That is the aim of the game. It is no fun beating people who aren't better than you.

From this moment on I am not a student. I am an unemployed creative.

And Dave Trott thinks the whole point of going to Art school is to rebel. To do everything you are not supposed to do. To actively seek out the rules and break them.

This was the brief he set us:

G- Whizz car.

Thats it.

And then he told us we had already done it wrong.

We present to him next Monday.