Matt Eastwood tells of his first time... in Perth
My
First Time is a book that tells of the first time ads created by
some of the biggest creative names in world advertising. Author Phil
Growick has banded together a list of contributors to write about the
first work they ever did. One of the contributors is DDB New York's
chief creative officer Matt Eastwood, who in the early days, worked at JMA/Ogilvy & Mather in Perth. Here is his story.Matt Eastwood was described by Britain's Campaign magazine as a "unicorn" in the communications industry. Having overseen some of the most innovative and recognisable creative projects in advertising today, his ability to guide an integrated agency vision across multiple and surprising media outlets establishes him as a star in the advertising world.
His career has spanned numerous agencies, specialties and countries. Beginning with stints in Sydney at DDB as copywriter and then onto Saatchi & Saatchi as Creative Group Head. Eastwood quickly excelled to become a partner and founding Creative Director of M&C Saatchi Melbourne in 1996. Under his creative direction, the agency went on to be named Agency of the Year a record four years running. In 2001, Maurice Saatchi caused a stir in Britain by installing Eastwood "an Australian" as Executive Creative Director of his newly established M&C Saatchi London. Then, in 2003, he went on to be appointed Chairman and Executive Creative Director of M&C Saatchi New York. Settled into North America, Eastwood then joined Y&R as Chief Creative Officer in 2004.
With home beckoning, Eastwood re-joined DDB Sydney in early 2006 as
National Creative Director and Vice Chairman. Within 18 months,
Eastwood's guidance resulted in DDB winning the coveted Campaign Brief
Agency of the Year title. Whilst the following year he also added AdNews
NSW and National Agency of the Year titles, as well as Australian
Creative Hotshop to his ever growing list of awards. From Cannes to One
Show to D&AD, the awards list is impressive.
Now firmly ensconced back in the United States, Eastwood works on Madison Avenue and dreams about spending weekends at his Lakehouse two and a half hours North of New York.
MY FIRST TIME - BY MATT EASTWOOD
As a young creative I was lucky enough to be working for Ogilvy & Mather who, at the time, was Agency of the Year for the second year running. Although, I was also unlucky in that it happened to be one of Ogilvy's smallest offices, JMA/Ogilvy & Mather in Perth, Western Australia.
Those people that know Perth, know that it is one of the most isolated cities in the world. And, as you can imagine, it has production budgets to match. The craft services budget on my last shoot in New York was probably bigger than the entire budget of my first TV spot. Or, more accurately, spots. There were two of them. Which was entirely my fault. My art director and I had written two spots for a local airline, Ansett WA.
The idea was that the client would choose one. The first spot was based on the idea that the airline would treat every passenger like their only passenger. Basically, we'd see a passenger being fussed over by a hostess and when the camera pulled back we'd reveal that his seat was the only seat in the plane.
The second spot would have a wife telling her kids that Dad would be tired and hungry when he got off the plane. This would be intercut with him absolutely living it up, looking anything but tired and hungry. He'd then exit the plane looking perfect. But, of course, he still wanted the sympathy of his family, so just before he exited he'd mess up his hair, ruffle his clothing and put on his best hang-dog face. Awwwh, you poor darling.
When we went to sell the ideas to the client, he chose the "Only Passenger" spot. Which would have been fine, except that I was convinced the other spot would be better. An award-winner, as I said to him. After much a cajoling, he agreed to make both spots. I was thrilled. But only if we could do it for the original budget. Shit. The budget was $60,000. For both.
This was Perth, remember, so I was used to small budgets. But, even in Perth, $60,000 for two spots is ridiculous. But I was about to learn my first lesson. Great scripts cost less to produce. If you've got a great script then production companies are more willing to invest their own money in making it. And that's what happened. Thankfully, Terry Stone, an award-winning film director from London, had decided he'd rather live in the most isolated city in the world. Go figure. Terry loved the scripts and agreed to make them both for $60,000. At least I was no longer the biggest fool involved in the job.
The actual shoot itself was an impossible undertaking. We couldn't afford to build a set, so we had to film on an actual plane. And, because it was an actual plane, we could only get access at night.
Starting at 11pm, we had to take every seat out of a Boeing 747, shoot the first spot, then put all the seats back to shoot the second spot.
Worse, we had to be finished by 8am so the plane could take off the next morning. Luckily, because this was an actual plane, the only people who could take the seats out were union workers, and union workers are known for being notoriously fast. Needless to say, by 4am, and with 4 hours to go, we still didn't have the seats back in. And we hadn't even started shooting the second spot. The so-called award-winning spot.
At 5am, with only half the seats back in, we decided to start shooting. I was learning a lot. Fast. Like that the 1st AD is the one that does all the really hard work. And that, at 5am in the morning, he's the only one that will be truly honest with you. We were not going to make it.
But we kept shooting. We got some great stuff. And, even though we didn't finish on time, the plane was only an hour late taking off. Of course, it's important to note that the one hour delay probably cost the client more than the entire shoot. But, hey, they got their ad. And I got mine.
As I'd promised, the spot went on to win "Commercial of the Year" at the Perth Art Director's Club Awards. But, this exciting accolade was tempered by the fact that in the months that followed the shoot JMA/Ogilvy & Mather had gone into Chapter 11 and I'd been made redundant.
So, although I accepted the biggest award of my career so far, I now had no career to speak of. Gold trophies are great, but they don't pay the rent. However, as fate would have it, one of the show's judges was Chief Creative Officer of a hugely awarded Sydney agency, and was in the audience that night. He offered me a job then and there. Within a couple of months I had moved to Sydney and was again working at an award-winning agency.
My first TV spot carried far more significance than I could ever have known. It taught me to fight for what you believe in. And to treat every spot like it might be your last. Because it very well might be.
My First Time is available from all good bookstores including Amazon and for download on Amazon Kindle and iPad.
Here's a partial list (in alphabetical order) of the top global creative leaders in the book: David Angelo (Chairman, CCO, David&Goliath) Rosie Arnold (Deputy ECD, BBH/London) Nick Bailey (ECD, AKQA/Amsterdam) David Baldwin (Lead Guitar, Baldwin &) Jamie Barrett (Partner, ECD, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners) Susan Credle (N.A. CCO, Leo Burnett) Greg Di Noto (Partner, CCO, Deutsch, Inc./NY) Matt Eastwood (ECD DDB New York), Mark Fitzloff (Partner, Co-ECD, W&K/Portland) Ian Grais (CCO, CO-Founder, Rethink/Canada) Kevin McKeon (ECD, StrawberryFrog/NY) Robert Rasmussen (N.A. CCO,TribalDDB) Kevin Roddy (CCO, Chairma, Publicis & Hal Riney/SF) Ted Royer (Partner, ECD, Droga5/NY) Mariano Serkin (CO-ECD, Del Campo Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi/Buenas Aires) Rob Strasberg (CCO, Vice Chairman, DONER) Carlos Vaca (President, ECD, BBDO/Mexico)
Phil Growick is managing director at executive search company The Howard-Sloan-Koller Group by day, and a published novelist by night. Growick now also has a second book out - My First Time
Now firmly ensconced back in the United States, Eastwood works on Madison Avenue and dreams about spending weekends at his Lakehouse two and a half hours North of New York.
MY FIRST TIME - BY MATT EASTWOOD
As a young creative I was lucky enough to be working for Ogilvy & Mather who, at the time, was Agency of the Year for the second year running. Although, I was also unlucky in that it happened to be one of Ogilvy's smallest offices, JMA/Ogilvy & Mather in Perth, Western Australia.
Those people that know Perth, know that it is one of the most isolated cities in the world. And, as you can imagine, it has production budgets to match. The craft services budget on my last shoot in New York was probably bigger than the entire budget of my first TV spot. Or, more accurately, spots. There were two of them. Which was entirely my fault. My art director and I had written two spots for a local airline, Ansett WA.
The idea was that the client would choose one. The first spot was based on the idea that the airline would treat every passenger like their only passenger. Basically, we'd see a passenger being fussed over by a hostess and when the camera pulled back we'd reveal that his seat was the only seat in the plane.
The second spot would have a wife telling her kids that Dad would be tired and hungry when he got off the plane. This would be intercut with him absolutely living it up, looking anything but tired and hungry. He'd then exit the plane looking perfect. But, of course, he still wanted the sympathy of his family, so just before he exited he'd mess up his hair, ruffle his clothing and put on his best hang-dog face. Awwwh, you poor darling.
When we went to sell the ideas to the client, he chose the "Only Passenger" spot. Which would have been fine, except that I was convinced the other spot would be better. An award-winner, as I said to him. After much a cajoling, he agreed to make both spots. I was thrilled. But only if we could do it for the original budget. Shit. The budget was $60,000. For both.
This was Perth, remember, so I was used to small budgets. But, even in Perth, $60,000 for two spots is ridiculous. But I was about to learn my first lesson. Great scripts cost less to produce. If you've got a great script then production companies are more willing to invest their own money in making it. And that's what happened. Thankfully, Terry Stone, an award-winning film director from London, had decided he'd rather live in the most isolated city in the world. Go figure. Terry loved the scripts and agreed to make them both for $60,000. At least I was no longer the biggest fool involved in the job.
The actual shoot itself was an impossible undertaking. We couldn't afford to build a set, so we had to film on an actual plane. And, because it was an actual plane, we could only get access at night.
Starting at 11pm, we had to take every seat out of a Boeing 747, shoot the first spot, then put all the seats back to shoot the second spot.
Worse, we had to be finished by 8am so the plane could take off the next morning. Luckily, because this was an actual plane, the only people who could take the seats out were union workers, and union workers are known for being notoriously fast. Needless to say, by 4am, and with 4 hours to go, we still didn't have the seats back in. And we hadn't even started shooting the second spot. The so-called award-winning spot.
At 5am, with only half the seats back in, we decided to start shooting. I was learning a lot. Fast. Like that the 1st AD is the one that does all the really hard work. And that, at 5am in the morning, he's the only one that will be truly honest with you. We were not going to make it.
But we kept shooting. We got some great stuff. And, even though we didn't finish on time, the plane was only an hour late taking off. Of course, it's important to note that the one hour delay probably cost the client more than the entire shoot. But, hey, they got their ad. And I got mine.
As I'd promised, the spot went on to win "Commercial of the Year" at the Perth Art Director's Club Awards. But, this exciting accolade was tempered by the fact that in the months that followed the shoot JMA/Ogilvy & Mather had gone into Chapter 11 and I'd been made redundant.
So, although I accepted the biggest award of my career so far, I now had no career to speak of. Gold trophies are great, but they don't pay the rent. However, as fate would have it, one of the show's judges was Chief Creative Officer of a hugely awarded Sydney agency, and was in the audience that night. He offered me a job then and there. Within a couple of months I had moved to Sydney and was again working at an award-winning agency.
My first TV spot carried far more significance than I could ever have known. It taught me to fight for what you believe in. And to treat every spot like it might be your last. Because it very well might be.
My First Time is available from all good bookstores including Amazon and for download on Amazon Kindle and iPad.Here's a partial list (in alphabetical order) of the top global creative leaders in the book: David Angelo (Chairman, CCO, David&Goliath) Rosie Arnold (Deputy ECD, BBH/London) Nick Bailey (ECD, AKQA/Amsterdam) David Baldwin (Lead Guitar, Baldwin &) Jamie Barrett (Partner, ECD, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners) Susan Credle (N.A. CCO, Leo Burnett) Greg Di Noto (Partner, CCO, Deutsch, Inc./NY) Matt Eastwood (ECD DDB New York), Mark Fitzloff (Partner, Co-ECD, W&K/Portland) Ian Grais (CCO, CO-Founder, Rethink/Canada) Kevin McKeon (ECD, StrawberryFrog/NY) Robert Rasmussen (N.A. CCO,TribalDDB) Kevin Roddy (CCO, Chairma, Publicis & Hal Riney/SF) Ted Royer (Partner, ECD, Droga5/NY) Mariano Serkin (CO-ECD, Del Campo Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi/Buenas Aires) Rob Strasberg (CCO, Vice Chairman, DONER) Carlos Vaca (President, ECD, BBDO/Mexico)
Phil Growick is managing director at executive search company The Howard-Sloan-Koller Group by day, and a published novelist by night. Growick now also has a second book out - My First Time
Anyone got a link to the ads he's talking about?