“But can he shoot cats?”

Ben HP’s musings as a director…

Hello gang.

After an ever-insightful chat with the very clever Aaron Hutchinson and after he gave my website the sort of rinsing usually reserved for crime scenes and restaurant chopping boards, I’ve decided to stop telling stories on the Croisette, about the Croisette, and start telling them here.

So here goes.

This week: “We just want to make award-winning ads…”

So there I was, out flogging myself around town after finishing my first big commercial.

And when I say big, I mean big.

Proper old-school big.

Four-day location shoot in London. Three cameras. Anamorphic lenses  (obviously a favourite). Motion-control rig. 400 extras. The lot….

I felt like I had arrived.

And, in many ways, I had. It was a hugely successful commercial for Next. They sold out of everything. Sales went through the roof. Everyone had seen it. The client was super happy. The campaign smashed it.

Riding high on ego, success and probably too many pats on the back.

So off I went on the hustle in my new found commercial career…

Whilst out on the hustle, I met a very Senior Creative in a pub, as you did, over a game of pool. Flush with the smell of victory and beer-soaked carpet, I gave him the story of my super success.

He said, “Cool. Come in and show me.”

The next week, with a freshly created U-matic in hand, I strode into this well-known agency with the confidence of an overactive rooster who had just discovered hair gel.

Meeting booked.

…with Very Senior Creative.

Don’t you know.

I was ushered into his office, again, the good old days, when people had offices, did the formalities, showed him the reel…and he was polite enough to watch it in its entirety.

Then he asked a few questions.

I leaned in, ready to land the killer blow.

“And the best thing was, we sold out of everything. Sales went through the roof. It was a massive success…”

He cut in with the immortal line:

“We don’t give a shit about sales. We just want to make award-winning ads.”

Right.

Of course.

Silly me.

For a moment, I genuinely thought I’d walked into the wrong building.

This is an advertising agency, isn’t it?

The sofa began to swallow me whole. My forehead started producing water at a rate Thames Water could only dream of. My confidence quietly oblitorated.

My ego, previously inflated to parade-balloon proportions, deflated with a sharp little hiss.

Like a Silk Cut billboard.

I left in a hurry.

Imposter syndrome had me by the collar.

It started to rain.

I didn’t have an umbrella.

Obviously.

And there, damp and humbled on a London pavement, I made a solemn vow to myself:

I am never, ever going to sell myself like that again!

Anyway.

Never learned ;)

So, what’s the most incredible line anyone from an agency has ever said to you in a meeting?

Answers in the comments please.

Over and out.

Ben HP