Armand de Saint-Salvy: Won Gold at AWARD. So?

| | 5 Comments

DSC02406_mod (1).jpg//Thirteen & Co director Armand de Saint-Salvy won Gold at AWARD last Friday night. But before you think, here’s another ego maniac waxing lyrical about AWARD pencils… de Saint-Salvy lays out how it actually went down.

I enter the pre-drinks foyer wearing AWARD’s high fashion paper wrist band. I’m Armand. A passionate wanker (aka director) and this year I have a finalist in the Film & Video category, so I’m invested. I look around and note the hopeful glint in the eyes of my peers, who tonight are my competition. They’re thinking what I’m thinking: I hope this doesn’t run as long as last year. Despite holding AWARD in the highest regard, we gotta whinge about something. Because advertising is replete with first world problems. Or maybe it’s cause we need to take the edge off. If you’re a finalist, you pass it off casually – nobody likes a gloater. If you’re not, you pass it off casually. Nobody likes a sore loser.

So the awards begin, and some great work gets duly rewarded. Exciting stuff. But as much as I enjoy clapping every 45 seconds for someone else’s moment of glory, I found myself sifting through the booklet, counting how many more awards before my category comes up. Like watching Bold and The Beautiful, I occasionally tune in to see what’s happening.

Oh, Palau Pledge won another award. So happy for you guys. Hey, there’s those good-looking guys who did Stop The Horror, heading down the stairs…again. An award should have gone to the category title, Best New Product Launch and Re-Launch or Multi-Product Promotion at Retail. Flick flick flick, 4 pages of awards to go.

AS_The_Big_Deal_Alt (1).jpgBy the time my category came around I knew I wasn’t going to win. I was unconsciously applying reverse psychology on fate to influence a decision. And suddenly they’re announcing GOLD and my little “tomato sauce” spot for marriage equality, wins a Gold.

I puff out my chest, head down the stairs thinking, this is it! Armand de Saint- Salvy from //Thirteen & Co is the next big thing. But by the time I got on stage and accepted the award, I realised, no-one is looking at me. Hundreds of my peers are watching my work on the big screen. Now that, is cool. When else would this ever happen? So I extricated my cranium from my rectus and conceded that this wasn’t about me. It’s about the work. And that’s how it should be.

The major awards are handed out, some very talented and deserving people get pencils of colour deep into the rainbow. And then we all head back into the foyer. Now what? Yabbering. Drinking. Lots of tall people. It wasn’t hard to miss the sharp gold pencil in my hand, and it was too heavy to conceal in my pocket. Should I have also donned a novelty sized foam pointing hand and spruiked my success at the after party? Probably. Instead, I talked to a few lovely people then went home. At 10pm. I woke up the next morning refreshed and clear headed. I’m so not advertising.

Winning at AWARD is great. Peer recognition is always welcomed and time invested by the judges to consider our work, is much appreciated. But at the end of the day, the winner was the same creative entity, prior to winning. A pointy pencil, that could double as a gold-plated shiv, doesn’t actually change your ability. Whilst your brand stakes have just risen, unless you actually care about developing your craft as a creative entity, you risk being this year’s smashed avo. Popular until people realise the hype doesn’t match the offering.

Armand de Saint-Salvy is available for commercial work through production collective //Thirteen & Co.

Armand’s showreel can be viewed here: http://13co.io/work/armand-de-saint- salvy/.

For enquiries please contact Roy De Giorgio – roy@13co.io.