A dangerous business

Popular culture would have you believe that production is a fun, safe and glamours business. In fact, it's none of those. Sure the A-list actresses get to shimmer on the red carpet on premiere night but most work days involve early call times, late wraps and a lot of tedious…

The empathetic copywriter

Could you write about how it feels to be a new mother if you were a 55 year old man? Could you truly understand a 35-year-old blue collar man's perspective if you were a 25-year-old african american woman? Could you understand the needs of tiger mom if you were a…

The agency holiday card done differently

During my agency days, every year the creative department would "gang bang" on a "Christmas card." Which later became the holiday card. And then became the digital holiday card. And then the holiday video. (I can safely say that many agencies should have stuck with cards.) The idea is to…

Five tips for video shoots with celebrity clients

If you work in advertising and marketing long enough you will eventually find yourself working a celebrity shoot. And almost always, celebrities are not like the rest of us. Their lives are different and therefore they must be treated differently on set. Here are a couple pointers. 1) Most have…

New URL for jimmy-gilmore.com

Do you want to know what happens when you pay your domain registration late with certain domain providers? First, they won't take your money Second, they come up with a bunch of expensive charges Thrird, they won't release your domain I'm sure this nets them a lot of cash from…

Goodbye 2012. What a year it’s been.

2012 has been a pretty good year for me. Not without it's challenges but personally and professionally I have to say through hard work things going well. The industry as a whole doesn't seem a whole lot healthier anecdotally. Agencies are still seem slow to hire four plus years after…

Being a great creative won’t make you a great agency owner. Or 10 reasons why creative shops fail.

If I had a nickle for everytime a creative agency failed in this town. Then I wouldn't need to be in a creative business. But I am in the creative business and am currently on my third start up of my own and have also worked at two other start…

The truth about user generated content

I'm sure someone out there would argue that this blog is user generated content and thus proves that UGC is the wave of the future (actually I've been a professional writer for quite awhile). They may even go so far as to say UGC is all that people will be…

Bending the triangle. Great production quality in an unreasonable market.

In the agency world and production it's long been a trope that there's a triangle with three sides named good, fast and cheap. You can have any two sides but you can't have all three. Agency professionals understand this just as well as those of us on the production side.…