Alien – By @alexbottner_

By Alex Bottner

Alien

I have noticed a subtle change in my human life since joining SCA.

I am taking note of the world around me.

I love people watching on the tube and catching interesting bits of conversation, but now I’ve been writing down these moments on my phone, in case it could be useful for a piece of dialogue in a video ad or as a concept.

I have been watching TV and movies differently, making mental notes of scenes that I think would make a cool ad.

I have been doing this without fully being aware of it, but I guess Marc’s advice to “collect the dots” is sinking in. I am realising more and more how important it is to capture relatable moments in our work.

When I received feedback on my scholarship video, Marc told me that my brief didn’t show any personality. It looked generic, and could have been made by anyone. I used to think that that’s what you had to do in advertising. I thought that you had to completely embody the brand and leave no trace of your personality in your work, because you are making it on behalf of a company.

When I was talking to Michael Durban (mentor) about my group’s poster brief, I related our message of an “unplugged” tourist experience to an experience I had camping in Canada. The island I was camping on was so quiet at night, you could have heard a pin drop or a conversation from two tent’s away. He suggested that I should use that experience as part of the ad. It hadn’t occurred to me that a small observation that I’d had about a personal experience could be used to sell a place in Saudi Arabia!

In both of these projects, though months apart from each other, I had been so caught up in researching the topics that I forgot that at the end of the day, I am trying to connect to humans and make them feel something.

If I am not connecting to people, then what is the point?