Minus my brief love affair with David Copperfield's magic mojo in the 80's, I've never been a fan of magic. To me, most magicians are clones of each other. You see one, you've seen them all. Then there's David Blaine. Admittedly, I got caught up with the Blaine phenomenon in the beginning, then hated on him later on. Mostly because I didn't think what he did was magic, I thought they were PR stunts. But after watching his TED piece (below), I see now that I hated on him because he didn't follow my conventional rules of what magic was (lame). Instead, he's pioneering a new way to look at what magic can be (I can't believe I just said that about David Blaine). The TED piece is a little long, but it's worth it to see how humble Blaine comes off and how dedicated he is to pushing his own limit. I admire this kind of crazy passion and believe it translates into any business. Or better yet - any quest.

(If you can't wait for it, Blaine shares his answer @ 19:38.)

On Wednesday, we'll meet with each intern individually and talk about our time together and we'll let them know what their future is with our people company. I look forward to our conversations. I've watched each one of them climb and fall and climb again. What they tell us will help us shape the future of this program. I'm not sure they realize how special they were when all 9 of them came together. The following is my favorite memory of each of the 9*:

Baii: When she was photographing our company picture, she literally did some break dancing moves to get the shot. Talk about dedication. On another occasion, I threw a sharpie at her eyeball by accident. Luckily, she had her glasses on. Eva: When I didn't include Eva in a new business website assignment, she did it anyway. The design was good enough to present and good enough to be the winning design. So pretty good. That's how I remember Eva. Glenn: So talented on so many levels. My favorite memory of Glenn was the night Zara and I drove him home from work. We talked about life more than work and I got to know the Glenn he should always be. Oh yeah, I also fell into and broke our company ping pong table in a heated game against him.

Matthew: My favorite memory of Matthew was how well his character held up when we broke everything around it down to test the talent underneath. I'll always remember a shitberg-free email I got from him after a grueling pitch. He is wise beyond his years (which is pretty old to begin with). Travis: Travis loves people and it shows. You see, Travis flashes people a lot. In my entire advertising career, I've never seen an intern's nipples more than I've seen his. Stop it, Travis. Stop it. Will: When I met Will in an informational interview at another agency, I instantly saw how much potential he has, despite his horribly art directed book. Luckily, he's a writer.

*Hydra9 will release a results video at the end of their internship.

Gattaca Ad Rules:

1) Great talent is highly desirable.

2) Sometimes, under the right circumstances, hard work can be mistaken for talent.

Don't get me wrong. A hack will always be a hack. But if you're smart, have good talent and unrelenting drive (most important), you can still sneak your way onto the rocket. You just have to want it more and work harder than everyone else. That's all.

The one thing we can't teach an intern is talent. But what we can do is create near ideal conditions for talent to rise.

No time. High standards. Big opportunity.

www.hydra-9.com

One of my first Creative Directors from Periscope, Brien Spanier, came by Pixel Farm for a visit on Friday. It was good to see him. When I met Spanier back in '00, I was a snot nosed kid with something to prove. One of my first jobs for Spanier was an Arctic Cat ATV shoot in wine country, California. We were shooting action footage in front of some beautiful mountains, but what the camera didn't catch was all the cow shit that got caught under the ATVs. When those ATVs pulled up to us, Spanier immediately slid underneath one of them and started brushing patties off without thinking twice. He didn't know it, but Spanier blew my mind. Here's my Creative Director, lying in mud, scrapping cow shit. Doesn't he have people for that? Heck, shouldn't I have people for that? In that moment, I realized being a good leader had less to do with how you tell people what to do, and much more to do with how you show them.

I got to be Spanier's art director for 6 years, and in all that time, he only yelled at me twice. I was definitely wrong both times. What he was more prolific at doing was giving me great opportunities, including my first brand TV spot for Arctic Cat. The last Arctic Cat spot I did for him almost wasn't a spot. Writer, Tom Witkowski and I came up with a concept we loved, but it didn't match the lead print campaign and it was way out of budget scope. But Spanier knew how much we believed in it and gave us time to revise and room to present it. Miraculously, it was approved. But how the f were we going to make it? Budget didn't match up with our vision. Spanier, with the help of producer, Abby "Blade" Stavig, worked out deals with Warren Miller Films and director Kent Harvey to shoot the necessary footage and Pixel Farm to do the post production. Pixel Farm artists, Kurt Angell, Tom Doeden, Rich Haesemeyer, Tom Jacobsen and Deb Kirkeeide turned our vision into reality with their awesomeness. Little did I know this was just the beginning of my relationship with Pixel Farm...

But none of that would've been possible if a CD didn't believe in his creatives. I'll never be able to thank him properly, but I know brushing cow patties with Spanier will always be more valuable to me than any award on my shelf.