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.)

NOTE TO CREATIVE SELF: Stay young at heart and make prototypes. Lots of them.

We're doing another epic round of presentation classes. In doing these classes, we hope to accomplish 3 things:

1) Find out who's ready to work on new business pitches.

2) Demonstrate that selling horrible work is horrible.

3) Learn to be more confident and authentic in presentations, giving us a better chance to sell great ideas (far away from #2).

Speaking of #2, that's where we begin with our first assignment. Shitty advertising. With only 5 minutes to prepare, Travis, Matt, Marilyn and Michael had to pitch this turd of an idea to our fake client - Eagle Insurance.

Below are videos from their first quickfire pitch. We used these vids to work on our team's body language and pacing. Preso-wise, the only info we gave them on Eagle Insurance was the youtube video. That means they're pulling most of this shit out of their arses. Enjoy...

TRAVIS (aka "CREEPY EYES") - ART DIRECTOR

MATT (aka "599" or "FOLDED VULCAN ARMS") - TECHNOLOGY DIRECTOR

MARK? WHAT MARK? I'll STAND WHERE I WANT MARILYN - BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER

MICHAEL (aka "I WALK SIDEWAYS BITCHES") - DIGITAL PRODUCER

The verdict? Pretty clever and funny pitches, actually, for such a horrible idea. Sure, there's room to grow preso-wise, but the important thing is Travis, Matt, Marilyn and Michael all come off as likable. That's because they are. (One comes off as slightly creepy, but Travis can work on that.)

Stay tuned for Round 2:

ASSIGNMENT: Sell an ad you love.

THE ONLY RULE: The presentation must last at least 5 minutes.

After looking through a variety of portfolios, resumes, and interviews - we've arrived on our new Talent Farm. Drumroll please...

The interns' first day will include a viewing of our company video. Their first assignment will also be handed out. Thanks to everyone who showed interest in Talent Farm. Hope to hear from you again in 4 months.

Zara and I are back from our honeymoon in Japan. We highly recommend a visit. It's a magically crowded island. There were so many good things about the trip, I can't even begin to list. Well, maybe just 2 things.

One of the sites we saw was a hilltop temple in Kyoto. In itself, this is not out of the ordinary. Anyone who's ever been to Kyoto will tell you there's a temple around every turn. What made this temple stand out was a fountain.

As you can see, this fountain has 3 channels you could drink from. Each of the 3 channels represented one of the following: health, longevity and romance. Pretty cool. But here's the Buddhist twist, you can only drink from 2. Drinking from all 3 would deem one too greedy. To me, this is a trick question. Health, longevity and romance are interconnected. These 3 channels came from the same water source, after all, didn't they? I think if you chose the right 2 spiritually, you'll get the 3rd regardless. So which 2 channels would you drink from? Yeah, me too.

Let's see if this trick applies to advertising as well. But instead of water from a fountain, we can chose from 3 gold pencils. Here are their categories: the glory, the craft, and the relationships. Now pick 2 things. Yeah, I think it applies here too. If you pick the right 2, you'll definitely get a taste of all 3.

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.

One question we get a lot about our talent farm is, "What the hell are you doing with them?" We think the better question is, "What are we NOT doing with them?"

I believe that a brand's future doesn't belong to marketers, it belongs to the people. Sure, this belief smells of bullshit because we've seen it a million times in a million blended mission statements. How Pixel Farm is different is we're practicing what we preach.

We are a people company.

Hydra 9 is our creative approach to staying true to this promise. With it, we empower a new generation of thinking people (9) from outside of advertising with the same opportunities that seasoned ad guys have to drive brands. We do this without all of the "rational" ad rules (heck, we hardly have any rules, except one, connect creativity to real people).

In this TED talk, child prodigy Adora Svitak says the world needs "childish" thinking: bold ideas, wild creativity and especially optimism. Kids' big dreams deserve high expectations, she says, starting with adults' willingness to learn from children as much as to teach. As you watch, just remove "adults" and insert "advertising shitbergs" and you'll start to see why Hydra 9 is important to us.

People pick up storytelling formulas even if they don't consciously know they're picking them up. Sameness blends and clutters. Stand out content is simply content made differently. Not from formulas. But from somewhere else.

This scene is from the film "In The Mood For Love" made in 2000. I appreciated how the edit took its time and the way the director choose to portray loneliness. With extended length on each shot, the feeling lingered and simmered on each angle. I felt this scene developed the two leading characters' common bond of melancholy in a uniquely poignant way I've rarely seen in today's formulaic pop flicks. The emo song didn't hurt it either. (Paragraph added from a facebook comment to clarify my perspective. Thanks Beka.)