The opening twenty minutes of ‘Saving Private Ryan’ is the best war footage ever.
That’s because Spielberg based it on ten famous photographs of D Day.
But why are there only ten photographs of an event of such historical significance?
The photographer was Robert Capa.
He went in on one of the first landing craft.
It hit the sandy bottom about 100 yards from the shore.
The ramp went down.
The men jumped out as the bullets came in.
Capa crouched on the ramp taking photos.
The boat captain kicked him in the arse, off the boat and into the surf.
So the boat could get the hell out of there.
Capa struggled through the surf to get to the shore.
All the soldier’s equipment, and the knee-deep surf, made it hard to move, like in a dream.
When you want to run but your feet are like lead.
Which made them an easier target for the German machine-gunners in the pillboxes.
Capa and the other soldiers tried to shelter from the bullets behind the landing obstacles.
Crude shapes made from steel girders welded together like a giant X.
As he crouched there, he took more photographs.
Shots of other soldiers crouching.
Shots of soldiers crawling through the surf.
Some dead, some wounded, some firing, some running.
He photographed everything he possibly could.
When he’d used up all his film, he ran back out into the surf.
Another landing craft came in, the ramp came down, the men jumped out.
Capa ran up the ramp and yelled that he was a war photographer, and he wanted to get back to get his pictures developed.
So, having gone in with got the first wave at Omaha Beach, he got out alive.
With 3 rolls of film, 108 pictures, of the greatest invasion the world has ever seen.
He got back to London and took the film to the offices of Life Magazine.
Where a 15 year old lab-assistant turned the heating up too high in the drier.
And it melted all the emulsion and virtually all the film was destroyed.
They only managed to save 10 photographs out of the 108 that Capa took.
Imagine that.
90% of your work gone.
You’ve just risked your life in the biggest battle of the war.
Hundreds of ships, thousands of planes, tens of thousands of men.
All going heads-to-head in a vast, cataclysmic confrontation.
And you’re right in the middle of it with your camera.
A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
You risk your life to capture every frame.
All around you thousands of soldiers die, but you get back alive.
And it was all for nothing.
What do you do?
What can you do?
You can’t reshoot it.
You can’t do D day again.
That’s it.
Nearly all your work, everything you risked your life for, gone.
I think it’s worth remembering that.
Next time we lose an ad because planning turns it down.
Or the account man can’t sell it.
Or the client won’t buy it.
Or Clearcast turn the script down.
It’s good to get it all in perspective.
Ironic that Life was indirectly responsible for his death.
Having vowed not to cover another war they persuaded him to go on assignment in French Indochina.
john w. - 5 January 2011 3:05 pm
Dave, I hear you. I shoot a lot of photos. Not war, of course. After I bought an expensive dSLR, I lost most of my shots because the CF card (the electronic film) crashed and wiped out most of my family shots.
Recently, during my agency Christmas party, I lent another camera to the receptionist. She lent it to the studio manager, who decided to re-format the camera. Thus wiping out all my holiday shots.
For me, I forgive the assistant because he was 15. I forgive the studio manager because he’s an idiot.
But the planners and the CF-card manufacturers, I’m less easy on.
They are professionals and I don’t think it’s unfair to expect a level of competency from them.
Robin. - 5 January 2011 4:45 pm
Robin,
Am I missing something here, or are you comparing the importance of your family and holiday photos with the photos that Capa took on the D-Day?
That’s just… wow.
Jacek - 5 January 2011 5:07 pm
Robin Capa. Robert Capa. An easy mistake to make.
As for the D-day balls up. Life was a little bit crapa for Capa.
Ok, I’ll get my coat.
john w. - 5 January 2011 5:34 pm
Jacek,
I suspect you miss the point.
Of course I’m not saying my photos are as good as Robert Capa. whom I respect a lot.
And just so you know, I even applied to Magnum for internship.
I was a photographer for a while and I can tell you this – that most people value their wedding photos more than they do those those of Capa or McCullin, whom they have never heard of.
I once went out of my way to shoot extra pictures for a couple. 2 weeks later, an arsonist set fire to their house and they lost everything.
They asked if I had any of ‘spare’ shots. I didn’t.
Again, not saying I’m a great photographer.
Or that the wedding couple were royalty.
I’m sorry, I don’t get your point.
Robin. - 6 January 2011 2:53 am
It’s all just visual signposts to the past. That’s why we have memories.
john w. - 6 January 2011 3:59 am
True, John W
That’s why to so many newly weds, their wedding pictures mean a lot more than a major global event that happened more than 65 years ago
Robin. - 6 January 2011 5:51 am
These comments are fucking bizarre.
Ciaran
Ciaran McCabe - 6 January 2011 9:19 am
On a separate point. If you’re working with good planners and they turn an ad down, it probably wasn’t worth keeping in the first place. I refute the implicit notion that good (the “good” is important) planners are not a valid and valuable part of the quality control process.
And good account management is not about selling. It’s about not selling – http://philadams1.wordpress.com/2009/11/26/great-account-management-is-about-not-selling-ideas/
Phil Adams - 6 January 2011 9:52 am
‘allo Phil,
Of course if ideas are turned down by good planners for valid reason, then what else is there to say?
My point was, Capa and the world lost a great deal when a 15-year old accidentally ruined his film. That’s unfortunate but since the lad was 15, it’s excusable.
But for people who should know better – like clients who turn down ads because their spouses/partners don’t like the idea, or planners to reject ideas because they ‘instinctively know it won’t work’ – that, for me, is harder to accept.
Akio Morita defied his marketing people who said the Walkman won’t work. Sir John Hegarty went against research/planners who said Vorsprung durch Technik was too German.
On another note, Dave – what if a CD feels a campaign’s brilliant but the planner hates it? Thanks.
Robin. - 6 January 2011 10:09 am
Hi Robin.
The best planners push as hard as the best creatives to make originality happen and then help it see the light of day. But we’re in the business of applied creativity. Pure creativity that won’t solve a commercial problem is the kind of work that creatives sometime hate to lose, but which planners are right to knock back.
Phil
Phil Adams - 6 January 2011 10:20 am
No argument there, Phil.
Thanks.
Robin. - 6 January 2011 10:36 am
So Phil, do planners ever make mistakes or are they infallible?
dave - 6 January 2011 12:34 pm
Planners are utterly, miserably, mistake-riddenly fallible.
But no more so than creatives.
Phil Adams - 6 January 2011 1:03 pm
To state the bleeding obvious: Everyone’s perspective is different!
Curator - 6 January 2011 3:16 pm
Hi Dave,
Great story.
Would Spielberg have done a better job with more shots?
I don’t know. I sat in a Frankie and Benny’s the other night
and couldn’t make my mind up what to eat because I had
108 meals to choose from and only one stomach.
Every time I worked on Silk Cut I had the time of my life because I knew I had to
advertise a product that had everything going totally against it.
It created an awesome challenge. I loved it!
The greater the challenge, the harder I worked!
The more ads were rejected the harder I worked
waking up in the middle of the night
jotting down notes on paper (we’ve all done it).
This was a Golden Age at Charlotte Street.
It didn’t matter if it didn’t get published.
I’ve shredded more layouts than I’ve ever run.
Let’s call it: Work in progress.
Time is irrelevant.
If an ad passed, it had to jump through massive hoops;
Meeting 1: Creative to Alex Taylor,
Meeting 2: Alex Taylor with Paul Arden.
Meeting 3: Jeremy Sinclair et al.
Meeting 4: Charles Saatchi et al.
and those are only the meetings I was aware of.
There were undoubtedly more.
Then Charles would decide which ads would be shown.
One Day I was shown a memo with Charles’s comments on my ad!
I nearly fell over.
It said “Great idea”.
That’s something worth dieing for.
It never ran.
I don’t care.
It doesn’t matter because in their minds it lived.
Creatives had to learn how to die for their Creative Directors if they wanted to live.
I sometimes wonder if Art Directors and Writers even get a chance to die in today’s world?
Are there any big broadcast media opportunities left other than global events?
Olympics, World Cup, Grand Prix.
In Capa’s Day, a few shots in Life Magazine could make it all happen.
Today’s unfocussed disparate media makes it very difficult for
Jeremy Sinclair’s: ‘Simple Universally Recognised Thought’ to breathe let alone live
without being cut down in its prime by global White Noise as locally generated
Junk Mail seems to have churned mysteriously out of the letterbox and gone Online.
It now makes up 10% of all UK GDP and leaves massive black holes in media budgets.
In D-Day terms, it’s like Razorwire catching the clarity of thought for millions of creatives
and their customers before they’ve even had a chance to hit the beach.
Is this a job for Dr. Strangelove?
Kevin Gordon - 6 January 2011 7:39 pm
Hi Kevin,
Today I was trying to find that story you sent about the hospital where the questionaire results were skewed because the nurses could write English but the cleaners couldn’t.
(I may have got that wrong.)
It’s a great example but I’ve lost it, could you send it again please?
dave - 6 January 2011 8:22 pm
Dave,
Kev’s Nurses & Cleaners’ is here. http://bit.ly/9VHJrB
john w. - 6 January 2011 9:03 pm
Hi Dave,
Kevin’s ‘Nurses & Cleaners’ is here: http://bit.ly/9VHJrB
john w. - 6 January 2011 9:04 pm
Don’t worry Kevin.
John W just found it and sent me a link to it.
dave - 6 January 2011 9:12 pm
Kevin – when Charles Saatchi said of an idea “That’s brilliant, make it happen.” It happens.
Grilla Login - 7 January 2011 12:41 pm
Hi Dave,
I’ll see if I can find it.
In the meantime…
Big Thanks to John W!
Grilla: He just said: “Great Idea.”
I’m a simple man.
That was enough for me.
He could have said:
“Go and clean the bins out”
and I probably would have been just as happy.
The point is,
People have to respect Creative Directors.
John W has done that today.
When Charles and Maurice were tipped-out of their own agency
everyone at Charlotte Street was well and truly gutted.
It was like we were all the children in a divorce settlement.
It was wrong.
Everyone knew it too.
It was bad for the industry as a whole.
It should never have happened.
I have a feeling one day they will buy back Charlotte Street.
Kevin Gordon - 7 January 2011 1:11 pm
Hallo Kevin,
Wonder if you’ve read the books about the Brothers. Not many people know that Charlie’s contract did not spell out any responsibilities, all it said was how much he would get a year.
I used to think David H, the guy who engineered the brothers’ removal from their own agency was an idiot. Then again, if you run a listed company and the share prices keep falling, is it wrong to remove the directors?
Yes, the brothers did a lot for the agency.
But I think that like advertising, \you’re only as good as your last financial year\.
And just as creative people should be fired for not performing, directors should also be removed for not delivering.
Rob. - 7 January 2011 2:35 pm
Dave
Any thoughts on Keano’s sacking. I thought ilife was all about being a nuisance and obsessive?
john w. - 7 January 2011 5:00 pm
John,
I think iot’s a step forward for Roy Keane.
At least he didn’t walk away in a huff this time, he stayed long enough to get sacked.
Just proves the best players don’t make the best managers though.
Same with creatives and CDs.
dave trott - 7 January 2011 5:17 pm
Is it just a lack of diplomacy on their part. Are they too singularly obsessed and unable to embrace how others go about their work? What would you say is the ultimate management trait one should have bags of …patience?
john w. - 7 January 2011 5:26 pm
1. The ability to bring out the best in people? 2. The ability to delegate with confidence? 3. The ability to quit while u’r a head + not take the gloss off it by waiting around 4 the abdomen + the arms+legs to show?
Grilla Login - 7 January 2011 7:24 pm
Grilla
So basic man management then.
Please accept a virtual bowl of bananas and custard.
john w. - 7 January 2011 10:57 pm
You’re absolutely right Grilla,123,
That’s exactly what I enjoyed in Saudi Arabia,
but when I came back all the UK employment agencies
turned their noses up at me because I’d worked overseas.
Then they looked at my book and were shocked I did ads
that looked like ads with no production budget.
Those guys nicked, redrew and distorted every image they
could lay their hands on just to get something decent done.
4 was the most fun and also the most painful
for all the poor guys I had to leave behind.
That hurt me as much as the 98 shots hurt Capa
because we lived and breathed together as a group of friends.
I took a one-armed writer out once called Taj,
He was a Somalian Muslim Schoolteacher and refugee.
A kinder, gentler man you could never find,
and, he could write, albeit with one hand.
It took him twice as long to write anything as anyone else,
it was always worth waiting for, and I made others wait.
His wife would bully him for money to buy gold and he
could never sleep for his screaming kids all around him
but he soldiered on to get his kids to university.
Maybe that’s what a British Creative does well.
We conquer the world:
India, Middle-East, USA, Canada, Australia, Africa, New Zealand,
give it an unshakable infrastructure
then hand it back freely complete with interest accrued and minimal bloodshed.
Kevin Gordon - 8 January 2011 12:15 am
There’s a big difference between doing it yourself and getting other people to do it.
For me, Kenny Dalglish summed it up nicely when he was player-manager at Liverpool.
He said “I’ll know I’ve got the team right when I can’t get on it.”
That’s how I feel.
I’ll know I’ve got the department right when they’re showing me stuff better than I could have written.
When you’re a creative the object is to beat the rest of the creative dept.
When you’re a CD the object is to get the creative dept to beat you.
Dave Trott - 8 January 2011 1:00 pm
Are we talking attitude as well, Dave?
I’m not sure there are many, if any, out there that have the beating of the likes of Roy Keane (and dare I say your good self) when it comes to drive and determination.
Maybe you have met the odd equal on that score?
Critically it also goes to show how personality must fit with the culture of the company.
Roy was never gonna last with the distance Mr Squeaky clean Niall Quinn at Blunderland nor realistically at a club like Ipswich that have a history of Ramsay and Robson at the helm. Maybe the chairman were wrong in employing him in the first place. Maybe Roy was wrong in taking on the jobs? Ever felt that way, Dave?
john w. - 8 January 2011 1:33 pm
John,
Gifted players (football and advtng) often have a problem adjusting to coaching (or CDing).
Bobby Moore, Bobby Charlton, Roy Keane, Alan Shearer, Kevin Keegan.
It’s often easier for people who aren’t naturally gifted.
Jack Charlton, Alex Ferguson, Bill Shankley, Bob Paisley.
They haven’t had the talent so they had to use their brains.
And that’s something they can pass on to people who also aren’t gifted.
Glenn Hoddle found his players didn’t have his ability so he failed as a coach, because he couldn’t help anyone who couldn’t just do it naturally.
Dave Trott - 8 January 2011 8:27 pm
Would you say the cultural fit is critical too?
Could you ever have seen John Webster at the helm of Mother or Paul Arden at Ogilvy for instance?
john w. - 8 January 2011 8:36 pm
As long as the culture’s similar.
David Abbott worked well at DDB and AMV.
Tim Delaney worked well at BBDO and Leagas Delaney.
Robert Saville worked well at GGT and Mother.
Webster worked well at Pritchard Wood and BMP.
Ferguson worked well at Aberdeen and Man U.
Mourinho worked well at Porto and AC Milan.
Clough worked well at Derby and Forest.
Dave Trott - 8 January 2011 8:58 pm
I catch your drift but Cloughy fell foul at Derby, Dave. Chairman/CD relationships. Any tips?
john w. - 8 January 2011 9:06 pm
I guess at the end of the day Dave, if ‘they’ are at ‘shooting’ at you, you must be doing something right.
john w. - 8 January 2011 10:52 pm
Sorry, that should have read ‘if they are shooting at you…’.
john w. - 8 January 2011 11:10 pm
By-and-large, if you keep winning (games, awards, accounts) you’re safe.
Your chairman/CEO is unlikely to fire you.
Even if they do, you’ll get another job pretty quick.
As a winning manager/CD you have strength beyond the particular team/agency you’re at.
Dave Trott - 9 January 2011 12:33 am
After Derby Cloughy was enticed to Brighton. The only firm offer on the table at the time.
Completely inappropriate. Sometimes maybe the problem can be too big for even an indomitable duo like Clough & Taylor (Trott & Smith).
Maybe the Michael Caine adage that it’s better to be working doesn’t always ring true?
john w. - 9 January 2011 10:34 am
SSSSSSSSSSlllllllllllllllrppnannnnannnnnerrrrrrrpwhat’s that, Holly Wood on the phone? Tell her she’ll have 2 wait – John, they’ve virtually gone – do send some more por favor.
Grilla Login - 9 January 2011 2:26 pm
+ when u’r Avram Grant the object is to get the rest of the Premiership to beat u, isn’t it Dave? [A cheap shot but Robert Green still let it in].
Grilla Login - 9 January 2011 2:37 pm
Grilla,
Don’t get me started, this is a national tragedy.
The club that won the world cup.
Dave Trott - 9 January 2011 3:45 pm
Dave,
Was it a bit like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo1Sve32KDk ?
john w. - 9 January 2011 8:28 pm
john w, do you actually do any kind of work, apart from fawning over Dave that is?
Curator - 11 January 2011 3:11 pm
Thank you all so much for all your valuable contributions.
The above comments have been highly thought-provoking.
Kevin Gordon - 12 January 2011 11:22 am
Curator,
Don’t unduly tax your brain with what anyone else is doing with their time, you just concentrate on your needs in hand.
john w. - 12 January 2011 3:08 pm
Oh I’m well taken care of…Don’t you worry you pretty little head princess.
Curator - 12 January 2011 5:30 pm
Well they say a women’s work is never done…so you best crack on.
john w. - 12 January 2011 7:03 pm
I don’t know if you know the ending of this story. Apparently when he heard that this had happened he rang LIFE and told them that if they sacked the assistant, he’d never work for them again. Now that’s a real man.
Reuben - 12 January 2011 7:03 pm