Where's My Check??

Went last night to see a "panel of distinguished guests" speak about the recent news that Omnicom (holding company for the likes of BBDO, DDB, TBWA/Chiat Day and a host of other agencies)has changed its contract language to shift its liability to NOT pay vendors for services rendered until it is paid by ITS clients. In addition, they purportedly will no longer be paying any advances for production. Both changes are incredibly bad news to anyone who counts agencies as clients, and are ludicrous, if they are indeed put into in practice by Omnicom's agencies. My takeaway from last night's speakers panel was that there's not really a whole heck of alot we can do about it as long as there are people willing to work under the new terms, which in this economy, few would turn down. Ironically, we are working with Atmosphere BBDO at the moment. As much as we enjoy the folks we've worked with there, as well as BBDO/NY and Energy BBDO in Chicago, the agency's accounts payable has ALWAYS sucked, and getting money from them on a timely basis is impossible. On that note, one of the panelists made a great suggestion, which is to date the invoice with the date of the shoot, regardless of when it is billed. According to her, the invoice date is not scrutinized by the front line budget folks (ABs, ADs, AEs) but is by the accounting clerks, who schedule payment based on that date. I'm going to try it on my next job. At the same time as this bad news arrived, we're also seeing more clients willing to pay electronically, which speeds up the payments greatly. Could that be the silver lining we all are looking for? Maybe. Now all we need are some projects to bill...

Table for Twelve?!

What were they THINKING?! "We've got two sets of twins...let's take some more fertility drugs and see if we can field a basketball team!" Well, it did bring them their very own reality show on TLC, and thanks to them and the good folks at Discovery Communications, it brought Reimers + Hollar a photo shoot under the auspices of creating an image to promote the show's launch. Problem was, the family wasn't available for a shoot. Solution: Show only hands at a fairly chaotic dinner table. Problem: Budget won't accommodate hiring 12 different talent. Solution: Hire 2 adults and 4 kids, and play mix and match with positions, wardrobe and propping to come up with a combination of all of the elements that works. Oh yeah...and prep it in four days! As it turned out, the short prep time actually worked in our favor, as there wasn't enough time to over-dwell on any of the elements. The shoot was arduous but went smoothly, and believe it or not, everyone had fun! Berns Rothchild pulled another rabbit our of her hat on the production. Big Swing Productions handled all of the post production. Dan Cavey was the CD/AD at Discovery and Susan Wetherby was the AB. We LOVE Reality and hope to get another serving soon!

Kolenko Gets Some Furry Love

Eva Kolenko loves dogs. None more than her own, a pit bull named Bubby. So she was thrilled to work with Colle + McVoy on a campaign for a heartworm medication from Novartis depicting intimate moments between people and their canine pets. She shot four ads over the course of two days at three different locations in the LA area, each with a number of variations. Yes, it was a scramble. But, with strong agency support and a stellar crew she pulled it off with aplomb and left the client promising to come back. Agency credit goes to CD: Mike Caguin, AD: Nina Orezzoli and AB: Chris Peters (another favorite of ours!). Lynn Campbell of Lynn Campbell Productions did an outstanding job as producer. We love you, Lynn! Here are the first two ads to break:

Where's Wanda?

Zachary Scott got to go to Vegas to shoot three ads for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority with R&R Partners and AD Jessica Hazen. The challenge was to create three images with unique environments that integrated the hero talent into their design in a subtle, sophisticated way. The campaign is targeting event planners, portraying them as behind-the-scenes heroes.

Redpath Shoots Glacier Girls

Anthony Redpath teamed up recently with Toronto based agency Grip Limited to shoot the 2009 Glacier Girl calendar for Columbia Brewery and their Kokanee Beer brand. The shoot took them to the mountains in the Whistler-Squamish area of British Columbia for the cold and crazy couple of days it took to produce 14 images.
Here's Anthony setting up the climber image above.

Laara Cerman, Anthony's in-house digital tech/retoucher, using her computer to stay warm.

The production crew from afar.

New Websites

Several of our group have new or recently re-designed websites that are worth a look:
Reimers + Hollar, Michael Kelley, Hugh Kretschmer, Jamey Stillings. Stop by, then come back!

Is it REAL?!

Morgan Silk was just informed that two of his images from his Mongolian series have been shortlisted in the 2009 AOP Awards competition. Word got to him through the grapevine that the image above also impressed the judges and would have been shortlisted as well, but some on the panel suspected that the super-sized statue of Ghengis Khan was faked through cgi, and pulled it from the running! It's real, folks. This situation points to a growing problem photographers face in this increasingly digital age. Namely, that the public at large no longer trusts what they see. That lack of trust is helping further erode the value of the craft, and doesn't help us as we try to maintain the fees we negotiate for assignment work.

IS the Sky Falling?

The news of late isn't pretty. By all accounts, we should be in our economic bomb shelters, hunkered down with C-rations to wait out the climactic storm bearing down on us outside - especially those of us on the supply side of the print ad world. If that's the case, why the HECK have we been so busy? If anyone out there can tell me, I'd love to know, because I sure would like to figure out a way to keep this going. No one expects it to continue, but for now we're making hay while the sun is still shining - and still in the sky.

Food for Thought

The Christmas themed ads started appearing well before Thanksgiving this year, earlier than I can remember. I'm over it already and it's only December 1st! All the more reason to share this video I received today from a colleague. I can't endorse the sponsor's site, but I do endorse the video's primary point, which is to give of ourselves rather than join the tidal wave of consumerism that is a normal and expected part of the holiday season, and that if we want to do something with our hard earned money, we should give at least some of it to charity. I'm trying to sell the idea to my 13 and 16 year old children... Good luck, right?! It's ironic that while the video's message compliments the belt tightening most of us have been doing since the economy's crash, it opposes the only thing that will help the economy recover. I say, don't spend, and let the chips fall where they may...an odd position from someone who has made a career of helping marketers sell their goods and services. Happy holidays.

Playing Catch Up

No rest for the weary...or is it wicked? Both fit, so take your pick. I blink twice and a month goes by since my last post. So, there's lots of going's on to report, some of which seems like it happened another lifetime ago. Comrade shot William Peterson for The Chicago Tribune Magazine, and launched a new website that he designed and built himself. Check it out here, but come back after you're done. And beware of his blog! I went for a 'quick look' and ended up spending over an hour there! Really cool stuff. Here are his pics of WP:


Zachary Scott shot these fun ads for Castrol awhile ago, but we got our mitts on them only recently. Haven't seen them out there yet, but I'm not a gear head. More work our FX guy, Edward French. Agency: Ogilvy/NY. AD: Don Miller.






Eva Kolenko is turning into a fashionista, and has been sending us boatloads of new personal work lately. Here's a couple from a recent shoot:


Michael Kelley just shot a piece on Wayne Pancelle, CEO of the Humane Society, for the NY Times Magazine:

There's more. So much more...but I'll have to post that tomorrow (next month?). Nah.