Jimmy Gilmore – Writer – Director

More than a few of my posts have been about the dif­fi­cul­ties of work­ing in adver­tis­ing these days. It’s always been a com­pet­i­tive indus­try with high burn out and turn over. But it’s been even worse lately thanks to the econ­omy and the rapid change in tech­nol­ogy. But there are also some really great things about the being an ad cre­ative. Things that make me glad I’m a copy­writer when I come into the office every morning.

1. The peo­ple. Sure they’re some real ego­tis­ti­cal jag offs in the busi­ness. But I’ve also worked with amaz­ingly smart, tal­ented, won­der­ful peo­ple. Includ­ing other writ­ers, direc­tors, pho­tog­ra­phers and, of course, art director-partners — some are still close friends years after work­ing together. If I didn’t have this job I never would have met them and had a chance to be inspired by them.
2. The job is never the same. I once spent an entire year doing noth­ing but adver­tis­ing sun­glasses. But each day was dif­fer­ent, with new prob­lems to solve. With the advance in tech­nol­ogy, that’s even more the case now.
3. I write for a liv­ing. This was a dream of mine as a col­lege stu­dent. Yeah, I imag­ined liv­ing on the west bank and writ­ing brood­ing nov­els about the iso­la­tion of mod­ern man, but I’m doing what I dreamed about even if the top­ics are more mundane.
4. I love mak­ing things. Most peo­ple don’t make things. I do. From start to fin­ish, I cre­ate things from the blank page.
5. Pro­duc­tion. The trips aren’t as fun as they used to be back in the day but stand­ing on set for twelve hours a day, work­ing with a pro­duc­tion crew, and see­ing actors bring your vision to life is just cool.
6. Learn­ing every­day. Maybe there are a few days here and there where I don’t learn some­thing but most days I do. Much of it is really obscure stuff. But have you ever played trivia with a copy­writer? We love this stuff.
7. The chal­lenge. Even with a “bad” client, the job is chal­leng­ing. And I be bored if it wasn’t.
8. You’re not expected to fit in. No one expects me to dress a cer­tain way, talk a cer­tain way or even behave a cer­tain way. As a cre­ative, we’re even encour­aged to be a bit eccen­tric. Which is good, because I am.
9. Lov­ing pop cul­ture is OK. Lets face it, where else in soci­ety is watch­ing a ton of TV and movies, mak­ing Simpson’s ref­er­ences, read­ing comic books, and immers­ing your­self in social media encouraged?
10. That feel­ing you get when you’ve really nailed it. It doesn’t hap­pen often enough, but there are days when it all comes together, you walk out of a meet­ing and you know that your hard work just floored them. And it’s awesome.

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This entry was posted Wednesday, August 25th, 2010 at 11:17 am and is filed under advertising, creative. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.