Adventures in the Screen Trade - Goldman

There are three interesting streams in this book: to plan or not to plan, account planners and screenwriter, and how to behave in an industry that is built on people having opposing interests. It might have made more sense to make three posts out of it, but I like to keep it at one post, one book.

First of all there is a great short story in the book, that stroke a chord or two with me and my job: especially the increasing demand to deliver on time and don’t spend too much hours on a job. I hate and refuse to do so. And it sometimes feels like the people asking you to keep within the schedule hours do so, out of a certain jealousy that you are so passionate about a job (something they, being the timekeepers) might not be privileged to feel.

The short story is about a barber who hires a new barber, who turns out to be an excellent barber – but sooner or later more people want to go to the new barber rather than to the owner of the shop – he gets jealous:
“”What do you mean by that, Morris?” my mother repeated, a trifle mechanically.
“I mean that Mr. Bimbaum takes too goddam long cutting hair, that’s what I mean.”
“Oh, surely that is not so,” my mother said.
“Oh, but it is so,” my father replied. “Just today he took a hundred and three minutes to cut the hair of old Mr. Hathaway, who is practically bald to begin with.”
“well, well,” my mother said. “Just imagine that.”
“A hundred and three minutes!” my father exploded, talking directly to Mr.Bimbaum now. “I timed it myself. Who can make money in a hundred and three minutes, I ask? Answer: not me. I can cut three heads in that time. Maybe four.”
“That’s because you’re a butcher,” Mr. Bimbaum said. “What does a butcher need with time?”” (Goldman, 1984, p.308).

“”Shut up,” he repeated. He took a snip of haur. “The butchers. The butchers are taking over. You mark my words. By the time you grow up, the goddam butchers will own the world. You’ll see.” (Goldman, 1984, p.310).

Second, screenwriters seem like the account-planners of the film industry: heavily involved upfront and then later in the process being seen as standing in the way. So here are just a couple of examples where we can learn from screenwriters:

“If you want to be a screenwriter and you live in Des Moines, that’s a terrible curse to bear. It’s a terrible curse in Los Abgeles, too – but at least you’re not alone.” (Goldman, 1984, p.84).

“If you need the job. If you do, if you actually need it, that fact must go with you to your grave, because they sense things Out There and they will never hire you if you are desparate. Because they then know you don’t care about their project.” (Goldman, 1984, p.94).

“In a sense, a screenplay, whether a romance or a detective story, is a series of surprises. We detonate these as we go along. But for a surprise to be valid, we must first set the ground rules, indicate expectations.” (Goldman, 1984, p.116).

“Once you start writing, go like hell - - but don’t fire till you’re ready.” (Goldman, 1984, p.124).

“There is a wonderful phrase of William Faulkner’s that goes something like this: “In writing, you must kill all your darlings.”” (Goldman, 1984, p.195).

“As a screenwriter, I test very high on paranoia. I’m always convinced of any number of things: that my work is incompetent, that I’m about to get fired, that I’ve been fired but don’t know yet that half a dozen closet writers are typing away in their offices, that I should be fired because I’ve failed, on and on.” (Goldman, 1984, p.239).

“When I write, I must convince myself that it’s going to e wonderful. (There is a character in a great play by Tennessee Williams, Camino Real. She’s the Gypsy’s daughter and she’s a whore, but in here heart, each moonrise makes her a virgin.) I’m like that – each moonrise makes me a virgin, too – I’m going to write it and this time, this time, it won’t be crap. When I don’t have the confidence, I’m in big trouble.” (Goldman, 1984, p.273).

But in a movie you don’t tell people things, you show people things.” (Goldman, 1984, p.316).

“of course I’m pleased that something exists, and of course I’m frightened that it stinks. But running along with those emotions is the knowledge of my knowledge – I know so much. I’ve made so many decisions about what to save and what to pitch – I could have written a five-hundred-page screenplay if I’d wanted. I am, as I stand there, the movie. And then comes the moment of mourning. Because the relay race must go on and my lap is ending; I must oass the baton to the other technicians. And when you give it away, the loss, of course, is the end of your imagination. The movie in my head is going to leave me. Other people’s fantasies are going to take over.” (Goldman, 1984, p.401).

“Once we pass the baton, we become, and I don’t know why, this weird thing, some vestigial lump, like a baby born with a tail. Get rid of it.” (Goldman, 1984, p.402).

“And in movies, the screenwriter is the odd man out. But there is a trade off. That beginning lap we run, regardless of what happens later – that lap is ours. We have the privilege, if you will, of the initial vision. We’re the ones who first get to make the movie …” (Goldman, 1984, p.403).


Moreover, there is plenty of practical advice in how to act in meeting when multiple parties with different interest are involved (like all meeting in advertising, especially job interviews):

“the single most important fact, perhaps, of the entire movies industry: NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING. (…) Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what’s going to work” (Goldman, 1984, p.39).

“The proper note to strike in the audition meeting is a mixture of shy, self-deprecating intelligence and wild, barely controllable enthusiasm.” (Goldman, 1984, p.93).

“Never speak first.” (Goldman, 1984, p.95). When they have to talk first and you give the impression prepared to write every word they say down: “I was going to take down everything. All his wisdom. Record it then and there. And, like most producers and executives, he had nothing specific to say.” (Goldman, 1984, p.96).

Shakespeare - The Winter's Tale

It is not worth to condemn anyone – it just makes you even unhappier than the condemned.
Do not listen to your jealousy, as it serves and fuels only your pride, not your happiness.

Philipp Roth - The Counterlife

On the surface a book about being Jewish and potency and what it means – more fundamentally it raises the question of what makes us who we are. What is nature and what isn’t.

“As long as he was potent there was some give in his life between what was routine and what is taboo. But without the potence he feels condemned to an ironclad life wherein all issues are settled. “ (Roth, 2005, p.34).

“the humbling realization of what the affair with Maria had so painfully exposed: the fact that he was somehow not quite coarse enough to bow to his desires, and yet not quite fine enough to transcend them.” (Roth, 2005, p.52).

“Henry appears to have left his wife, his kids, and his mistress to come to Israel to become an authentic Jew.” (Roth, 2005, p.78).

“Then it wasn’t roots that he had unearthed (in Israel) (…) It was the opportunity to be uprooted, to depart from the path that had been posted with his ame the day he was born, and in the disguise of a Jew to cunningly defect.” (Roth, 2005, p.136).

“The treacherous imagination is everybody’s maker – we are al the invention of each other, everybody a conjuration conjuring up everyone else. We are all each other’s authors.” (Roth, 2005, p.149).

the pastoral:”at the core is the idyllic scenario of redemption through the recovery of a sanitized, confusionless life. In dead seriousness, we all create imagined worlds, often green and breastlike, where we may finally be ‘ourselves.’” (Roth, 2005, p.326).

“Well, that’s over. The pastoral stops here and it stops wth circumcision. (…) Circumcision makes it clear as can be that you are here and not there, that you are out and not in (…) Circumcision is everything that the pastoral is not and, to my mind, reinforces what the world is about, which isn’t strifeless unity. (…) To be born is to lose all that.” (Roth, 2005, p.327)

Dave Trott - Creative Mischief

A great collection of wisdon on advertising from the most outlandish sources – thus being all the more exciting.

“If it’s funny it’s not bad taste.” (Trott, 2009, p.5).

“There’s the story of two explorers walking through the jungle. Suddenly they hear a tiger roar. One explorer sits down and takes a pair of running shoes out of his back pack. “Your’re crazy, you’ll never outrun a tiger,” says the other explorer. “I don’t have to outrun the tiger,” he replies. “I just have to outrun you.” Conventional thinking is that the best man wins. That’s also lazy thinking. How do you beat someone who’s better than you? As Maurice Saatchi used to say. “I don’T have to win. I just have to make you lose.” (Trott, 2009, p.16).

“AS Chruchill said, “Never let the truth spoil a good story.” (Trott, 2009, p.28).

“On a voyage to of constant discovery. That way you squeeze every drop of your time on the planet.” (Trott, 2009, p.48).

“See he was a guy who was interested in rising inside BMP, and the only way he knew how to do that waby internal politics. I was interested in building a career in advertising. And I thought the only way to do that was through the work. So internal politics didn’t interest me.” (Trott, 2009, p.57).

“That’s why every agency has one type of briefing form. And every problem gets shoe-horned into that template. And every answer looks the same. As they say, “When the only tool you’ve got is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail.” (Trott, 2009, p.68).

“If the final film is the same as what’s in our heads, we accept that because we’re comfortable with it. It’s expected. But if it’s not what’s in our head, we’re disappointed. We feel let down. That’s why it’s worth remembering, we could be wrong. We have to keep an open mind.” (Trott, 2009, p.71).

“My point is, that was a pretty stupid risk I took, but I learned from it. I learned never to take a risk that can kill you. But I also learned: no risk, no reward. And, by and large, no risk that you take in advertising can kill you.” (Trott, 2009, p.75).

As professionals we can’t simply say: I like it or I don’t like it. We have to say ‘It works, because..’ or ‘It doesn’t work because…’: “ “It works because …” is right on three counts. Number one: “It”, we’re talking about the piece of work, not just someone’s opinions. Number two: “works”, we’re talking about the function it’S supposed to deliver, not how it makes us feel. Number three: “because”, we have to back up what we say, with reasoned argument.

“It was rainng as the two leading Zn masters met to debate their different styles of teaching. The first Zen master was seated drinking tea. The second master entered and sat opposite him. The first master said, “On which side of your shoes did you leave your umbrella?” The second maser paused and realised he didn’t know. He immediately gave up being a master and became a pupil of the first Zen master. By not knowing something as simple as that. He realised he had been thinking about the debate instead of actually being alive. You see, the only time you can be alive is now. (…) We worry about the future, and we regret the past. (…) So we live our lives, not out in the world, but in our minds.” (Trott, 2009, p.125).

“John (Webster) had no memory of what happened yesterday. (…) So nothing was ever boring.” (Trott, 2009, p.126).

Tolstoj - Sämtliche Erzählungen - Dritter Band

I am simply in awe of these stories and the philosophy that is so elegantly woven into them.

“Sie war voller Glück. Sie brauchte niemanden, und deshalb fühlte ich, daß man ohne sie nicht leben konnte.” (Tolstoj, 1961, p.117).

“Und die Menschen streben im Leben nicht danach, das zu tun , was sie für gut und recht halten, sondern danach, möglichst viele Dinge ihr Eigentum zu nennen.” (Tolstoj, 1961, p.143).

“Die ganze schwere Last des Lebens war von ihm genommen. Er schloß die Augen und neigte den Kopf – niemand hielt ihn fest. Sein Hals bog sich nach unten, die Beine begannen zu zittern, der ganze Körper schwankte. Er war darüber eher erstaunt als erschrocken. Alles war ihm so neu.” (Tolstoj, 1961, p.166).

“Je mehr ihr eurem Zorn nachgebt, desto schlimmer wird es.” (Tolstoj, 1961, p.313).

“Und er begriff, daß Gott jedem Menschen eine Steuer auferlegt hat, die mit Liebe und guten Werken bezahlt wird.” (Tolstoj, 1961, p.369).

“Du willst das Böse austreiben, aber es gewinnt auch über dich Gewalt. Einen Menschen erschlagen ist nicht schwer, doch das Blut bleibt an der Seele kleben. Einen Menschen töten heißt seine Seele mit Blut beflecken. Du glaubst, du hättest einen bösen Menschen getötet; du glaubst du hast das Böse ausgetrieben, aber nein: in dir sitzt nun das Böse drin, und es ist schlimmer als das alte. (…) Man sole keine neue Sünde auf sich nehmen, sondern weiter dulden.” (Tolstoj, 1961, p.374).

“Mein Acker war Gottes weite Erde. Wo ich sie pflügte, da war mein Acker. Der Boden war frei. Von eigenem Land wußte man damals nichts. Sein eigen nannte man nur seine Arbeit.” (Tolstoj, 1961, p.412).

“Dies ist unser Glück: als wir reich waren, hatten wir nicht eine Stunde Ruhe, hatten keine Zeit miteinander zu redden, an unser Seelenheil zu denken und zu Gott zu beten. So vile Sorgen hatten wir. Bald hatten wir Gäste …. (…) So haben wir gelebt; eine Sorge folgte der andern, eine Sünde der andern. (…) Jetzt stehen wir frühmorgens auf und redden in Liebe und Eintracht miteinander; wir haben über nichts zu straiten, haben um nichts zu sorgen.” (Tolstoj, 1961, p.438).

“Ich sehe nun, daß das Böse nur durch Böses vermehrt wird. Je mehr Menschen das Böse verfolgen, desto mehr Böses schaffen sie. Man kann also das Böse nicht durch Böses vertreiben.” (Tolstoj, 1961, p.453).

“Eines Tages saß der Taufsohn da; er wollte nichts mehr, er fürchtet nichts mehr, und sein Herz war fröhlich.” (Tolstoj, 1961, p.463).

Hegarty - Turning Intelligecy into Magic

I love every single story in this book – they all make Hegarty’s point that if we want to make something memorable we better tell it as a story – but exactly that story seems to be slightly missing from the overall book. Yet, still a great read for everyone even mildly interested in advertising. Below you’ll find some of the best stories from the book:

“We’re also in the entertainment industry. In fact, you could argue that advertising, from the moment it was born, was trying to entertain us.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.9).

“without understanding those fundamental facts of engaging, entertaining and exciting an audience, digitization isn’t going to help you, it will in fact destroy you faster. That’s the power of the net.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.10).

“’Turning intelligence into magic’. At its simplest this is what has defined BBH’s best work” (Hegarty, 2011, p.10).

“You are someone with the chance to change the world and inspire large audiences. I was excited by advertising because it gave me a platform to talk to the masses.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.22).

“And with ideas, the more you have them, the better you get at having them. That’s one of the reasons why advertising is such a stimulating environment in which to work.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.24).

“typically a great piece of thinking that gradually become compromised in an attempt to get the client to buy it instead of putting it out of its misery and starting again. There is always a belief in these situations that, somehow, the compromises won’t show when the finished work is produced. Sadly, this kind of whishful thinking affects us all.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.25).

“The unpredictability is what males what we do in advertising so exciting – you literally don’t know where you’re going to end up.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.27).

“But using irreverence for its own sale is dangerous. Do that and you risk becoming irrelevant. The function of irreverence should be to help question and, in doing so, offer a possible solution.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.34). “humour has an important role to play in advertising. We use it because it’s a way of making relax and listen. When your audience is in that state of mind they’re more likely to remember what you’re saying and act upon it.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.35).

“A brand isn’t only made by the people who buy it, but also by the people who know about it.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.43). “fame is fundamentally important to a brand’s success. Why? Because it is a form of shorthand in the decision-making process that takes place in a hugely competitive world. (…) Fame adds value and protects the brand from competitive pressure. (…) The dictionary defines fame as ‘public renown – great esteem. “(Hegarty, 2011, p.43).

“But today things are different,. For today’s audiences it’s not about status – that’s class ridden and old fashioned – it’s about staying ahead. (…) Wearing the right pair of jeans in the right finish doesn’t cost a fortune, but it does require an understanding of fasion.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.52).

“At BBH we refer to ourselves as an ‘ideas factory’ – a factory that helps to manufacture brand difference. (…) service industry.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.59).

“if you’re genuinely going to be better than your competitors, you’ve got to love what you produce above everything else.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.60).

“I’m much happier when a client talks about the business problem they are trying to solve. I always think getting them talking about their business, the things they understand is more productive than their talking about the abstract business called advertising.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.79).

“It’s amazing how many agencies never behave like a brand despite the fact they’re constantly advising their clients on brand behaviour. Great brand have a point of view – they stand for something.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.87).

“it’s essential that brands remain constantly youthful. Why? Because if you’re youthful, you have a future.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.90).

“So it’s simple really, isn’t it? You want to win more pitches? Then have a better showreel. And play it up front.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.94).

“And, of course, when employed correctly, storytelling can make things incredibly memorable, especially for brands.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.96).

“you don’t instruct people to do something – you inspire them.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.102).

“a brand is an agglomeration of stories linked together by a vision.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.102).

“He quite rightly brought me to my senses , saying that the worst thing that could happen inreality was that we could fail. If we failed with BBH it wouldn’t stop me being an award winning art director.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.150).

“brands more often than not go wrong because they lose touch with their roots and the values and qualities that made them successful. This doesn’t mean you simply talk about the past, but it does mean that connecting a brand’s audience with the positive beliefs that established the brand’s original success is important.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.155).

Coming up with solutions were the agency wants to change the product: “It saves them having to find a solution to their problem and instead it rests with the product.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.163).

“We argued that if music could be global, film could be global and art could be global, why couldn’t advertising?” (Hegarty, 2011, p.171).

“’words are a barrier to communication’. Not because I didn’t value them – I did – but all too often they were over used to explain an idea instead of enhancing it.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.187).

“It’s an obvious point to make, but I believe that if creativity is at the heart of you company and your company is not constantly evolving and expanding, then it’s dying.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.205).

“Always remember that creativity is a business tool –never be ashamed of that.” (Hegarty, 2011, p.212).

Mr Sammler’s Planet – Saul Bellow 1969

A critique of American society and its legalization (or acceptance)of crimes as long as they make profit for the market.

“Sammler is obsessed with an understanding what causes a civilization to embrace ruthlessness as the best way to realize its ambitions and handle its fears” (Bellow, 1969, p.viii).

“The thing evidently, as Mr. Sammler was beginning to grasp, consisted of obtaining the privileges, and the free ways of barbarism, under the protection of civilized order, property rights, refined technological organization, and so on. Yes, that must be it.” (Bellow, 1969, p.4).

“Power and money of course do drive people crazy. So why shouldn’t people gain power and wealth through being crazy?” (Bellow, 1969, p.52).

“Of course he was rich, but the rich were usually mean. Not able to separate themselves form the practices that had made the money: infighting, habitual fraud, mad agility in compound deceit, the strange conversaitons of legitimate swindling.” (Bellow, 1969, p.61).

Another theme are the endless possibilities in post-war society and how they actually are restricting to people. Bellow constantly opposes these possibilities with finalities
like the death of his nephew and mankind moving to the moon.

Saint Augustine: “”The Devil hath established his cities I the North.” (…) But now Augustine’s odd statement required a new interpretation. (…) The labor of Puritanism now was ending. The dark satanic mills changing into light satanic mills. The reprobates converted into children of joy, the sexual ways of the seraglio and the Congo bush adopted by the emancipated masses of New York, Amsterdam, London.” (Bellow, 1969, p.25).

“the struggles of three revolutionalry centuries being won while the feudal bonds of Church and family weakened and the privileges of aristocracy (without any duties) spread wide, democratized, especially the libidinous privileges, the right to be uninhibited, spontaneous, urinating, defacating, belching, coupling in all positions, tripling, quadrupling, polymorphous” (Bellow, 1969, p.26).

“For what it amounted to was limitless demand – insatiability, refusal of the doomed creature (death beingsure and final) to go away from this earth unsatisfied. A full bill of demand and complaint was therefore presented by each individual. Recognizing no scarcity of supply in any human department. Enlightenment? Marvelous! But out of hand, wasn’t it?” (Bellow, 1969, p.27).

“In their revulsion from authority they would respect no persons. Not even their own persons.” (Bellow, 1969, p.29).

“Humankind could not endure futurelessness. As of now, death was the sole visible future.” (Bellow, 1969, p.60).

“Feffer could not let him go. Feffer could not be quiet. His need was to be perpetually arresting, radiant with fresh interest.” (Bellow, 1969, p.101).

“In a revolution you took away the privileges of an aristocracy and redistributed them. What did equality mean? (…) it meant that all belonged to the elite. Killing was an ancient privilege. This was why revolution plunged into blood.” (Bellow, 1969, p.118).

“This attempt to make interest was, for Mr. Sammler, one reason for the pursuit of madness. Madness makes interest.” (Bellow, 1969, p.119).

“Both the USA and the UDSSR were, for Sammler, utopian projects. There, in the East, the emphasis was on low-level goods, on shoes, caps, toilet-plungers, and tin basins for peasants and laborers. Here it fell uponcertain privileges and joys. Here wading naked into the waters of paradies, et cetera.” (Bellow, 1969, p.129).

“I think we may summarize my meaning in terms like these: that many have surged forward in modern history, after long epochs f namelessness and bitter obscurity, to claim and enjoy (as people enjoy things now) a name, a dignity of person, a life such as belonged in the past only to the gentry, nobility, the royalty or the gods of myth. And that this surge has, like all such great movemets, brought misery and despair (…). As long as there is no ethical life and everything is poured so barbarously and recklessly into personal gesture this must be endured. And there is a peculiar longing for nonbeing. Maybe it is more accurate to say that people want to visit all states of being in a diffused state of consciousness, not wishing to be any given thing but instead to become comprehensive, entering leaving at will.” (Bellow, 1969, p.194).

“Of course at the moment of launching fom this planet to another somethingwas ended, finalities were demanded, summaries. Everyone appeared to feel this need. (…) each accented more strongly his own subjective style and the pracices by which he was known. Thus Wallace, on the day of destiny for his father, roared and snored in the Cessna, snapping photographs. Thus Shula, hiding from Sammler, was undoubtedly going to hunt for treasure, for the alleged abortion dollars. Thus Angela, making more experiments in sensuality, in sexology, smearing all with her female fluids. This Eisen with his art, the Negro with his penis. And in the serie, but not finally, himself with his condensed views. Eliminating the superfluous. Identifying the necessary.” (Bellow, 1969, p.230).

“The best, I have found, is to be disinterested. Not as misanthropes dissociate themselves, by judging, but by not judging.” (Bellow, 1969, p.195).

“It is fearful! Not to be borne! Intolerable! Let us divert each other while we live.” (Bellow, 1969, p.244