AWARD School and The Communications Council present two-day AWARD Pre-School workshops
AWARD School organisers, The Communications Council, in conjunction with veteran creative director, Mark Amdur will be holding a series of two-day AWARD Pre-School workshops as a primer for AWARD School 2013.
Location:
The Communications Council Offices
Workshop Dates:
Friday 9th & Saturday 10th of November
Or Friday 16th & Saturday 17th of November
Time:
Friday 8:30am – 5:30pm
Saturday 9:30am – 5:00pm
For more information please contact Tesha Jones, AWARD School via email here.
P: 8297 3877
To be accepted to AWARD School, applicants need specific idea generation techniques, an understanding of the key creative tools for each media, presentation skills, and more.
The AWARD School application brief requires candidates to know how to create and present their work so it will get noticed. Remember there are hundreds of applicants and the creative directors who judge the work are on the run. Contenders need to stop them in their tracks.
This two-day workshop will help potential students be prepared to complete the application portfolio and give them the initial skills to survive and conquer AWARD School.
It covers:
- Idea generation – creative strategy development – facilitator-led ‘mind-warping’ workshop
NOTE: The Communications Council makes no guarantees that you will be accepted into Award School after doing this two-day workshop. The workshop is designed to increase your chances of success.
About the Tutor / Mentor
Mark A. Amdur
creative & managing director
On Creative Sydney / Hong Kong
Veteran Advertising creative director, writer, film and video producer/director, songwriter and author. With a career spanning 40 years in advertising and film production, Amdur has a wealth of experience both in Australia and in South East Asia.
Starting as a copywriter with McCann Erickson Brisbane in 1972, Amdur has worked as a senior creative in some of the world’s biggest agencies in Australia and abroad – Ogilvy & Mather, D’Arcy, MacManus and Masius, DDB, Y&R, Leo Burnett, and Saatchi & Saatchi.
He ran his own regional advertising agency and film production company in Hong Kong for 20 + years (including a stretch as DDB’s Asia Pacific’s second agency brand, Window Creative in the 1990’s). He founded On Creative in 2001.
For the past three years in between projects he has been teaching film & video production and advertising and has mentored many young creatives.
Also an accomplished composer he has recorded four CDs of original songs, and writes and produces music for most of his films. He is also a published author with two books in print.
7 Comments
Cough up $660 to have a better shot at a $2000 course? I’m sure the uni students and wannabe creatives, working for tips at their local cafe, can afford that.
The mentors aren’t paid, the speakers aren’t paid, but that money is going somewhere. Which fat cat is taking the piss?
From the AWARD site:
“This brief changes each year, but usually consists of writing ads and submitting them in a very basic form – no professional artists required!”
Is this not part of the problem being discussed in the “open letter” from a week or two ago? You want to be an art director – but the selection process doesn’t favour artistic or design ability? Concept is half the battle – you have to be able to communicate what it is you want to achieve, and the best way of doing that is with a combination of word and image.
I’m sure a lot of people will argue that advertising is about the concept and the execution can be done by someone else – sure, but this is where we run into problems of fees, respect, underbidding, time, etc. The best Art Director’s I’ve worked with know how to use photoshop, illustrator, indesign, and yes, after effects, to a high level of polish. They know how to kern a super, how to set copy for optimal line length and what kind of leading makes a paragraph easier to read.
Back when I did design at Uni, they let anyone with the right HSC score in. And of course, we got a bunch of maths or science nerds who decided that design looked “fun” as a career – until they couldn’t design their way out of a paper bag, and dragged down their teammates in all the groupwork they had to do. We all complained, and sure enough 2 years later the entry requirements were changed to HSC score AND a portfolio.
I say we do the same for AWARD. Entry is based on concept AND execution, AS WELL AS previous body of work (whether professional or student – mandatory requirement is a website containing all of this).
All I want is the best talent in the industry filling these jobs. Not a bunch of jokers who think Advertising will be a laugh, and can come up with a great idea once in a while, but who can’t answer the hard questions or give decent feedback or direction. And if you want the super set a certain way, f***ing set it yourself, and kern it properly.
Let the arguments begin.
Valid points from everyone but I would gladly pay the fees. These workshops should be held more frequently and in all states.
@No Qualifications
Just because it doesn’t “officially” favour artistic or design ability I can tell you that as a writer doing AWARD school this year I was waaaay behind the 8 ball because I had no artistic ability and very little design capability. Two of my best ideas were completely dismissed in tutes because I couldn’t draw. It was only once I’d found a way to execute the ideas well that the ideas were recognised as being good.
My big tip for anyone wanting to get in to AWARD is do a drawing class before you apply. Nothing got on the wall in Melbourne that wasn’t well executed.
Agree with Melb 2012. Awardschool felt almost anti-copy. Awardschool/ entry into the industry needs a long and hard review.
If you can trace, you can draw.
Hi all,
I think this is a great idea. It would have helped me when I did award.
A few tips I’d give any potential student, art director or writer:
Learn how to draw like art directors do. Stick figures are ok. Do a basic course on how to use a photocopier and tracing paper. Those skills will get you through award, but they’ll help down the track immeasurably.
Learn how to present an idea, which means learning indesign and work on your presentation and articulation skills. Take a course in sub editing, or, take a paragraph of your favourite book and learn how to summarise it down to the bare bones. Practice this skill, it will help you for years. Simplify, simplify, simplify.
Read up on design and layouts. Study type. Learn the do’s and doh’s.
But most importantly, study the annuals. The current annuals (which would be Cannes or D&aD online these days), also study the old ones. Look at what’s winning awards, and ask yourself why. But look beyond the ad. Look at the thought behind it. Learn strategy, because guaranteed no planner or marketing director will do it for you. Understand the difference between an idea, and an execution.
Then practice. Take every ad you see and write ten better ones.
Then treat award as a way to get your work in front of people who matter. Rarely will you get a tutor who teaches you much.
Final piece of advice: keep going. Especially after award school. Tenacity beats talent and bravado tenth one.
Good luck.