I have had mixed feelings about International Women’s Day. I go through the spectrum – pride, celebration, anger, resentment, dismissal, joy.
It is great, but why does it have to be? And really in which case why not IMD. I know why not. But why not?
At it’s best it is exactly what it is meant to be. A reminder of and a shout out to the best and the great. Bringing the lesser lauded to the very front of the day. A day for the kweens. At worst it can be smug and whiney.
Some time in the recent 2000’s, early March, I visited Trudy. Full of hot outrage I told her that my cleaner (yes, you got me) had told me that she wasn’t coming in because it was International Women’s Refugee Day. What what? Had the fancy classes appropriated something so worthy, so important, so relevant and empowering, and turned it into a cheerleading pat-on-the-back day for people who could bake cakes in heels?
I ranted and I ranted to the 90 +year old lady. The woman who, as a teenager had come off a train at Paddington with her auntie, fallen into a strange land, learned a new language, stood up in a class full of strangers and secured for her mum a housekeeper position, thus enabling her a last minute escape from the Nazis. A woman who took on whatever employment presented itself and made it her own, from shop girl to shopkeeper to motherhood to secretary for the clergy. Who was never happier than the day she got her British Citizenship. Who fell in love with a man who was enjoying the benefits of being single and eligible in a world of sports cars and bachelor pads, and married him. Who, rumour has it, had a number of miscarriages, and a stillborn (my twin brother) and never ever spoke of the trauma of those she lost, only the delight of the babies she had. Who brought up two girls and nurtured them and educated them and feared for them and encouraged them and listened to them and believed in them and laughed with them and loved them fiercely.
She nodded and gasped at my tirade and listened and agreed and commented. We then moved the conversation on. Probably to The Repair Shop and what the cats had been up to.
Several months later I was off to Montevideo for a big old shampoo shoot. A couple of days before I left, I received a card in the post. Inside, a £20 note and a card with Trudy’s continental cursive: “July 7th is World Woman Producer’s Day in Uruguay. Enjoy.” Having been through nearly 10 decades, heard it all, lived it more, she had the wit and the smarts to listen, consider, store, and use my nonsense posturing to send a slow burning gag of love.
To Trudy. The very best International Woman.
Footnote. Big up on IWD to Victoria Drummond. Not only was she the first woman in the Navy, but it was her great gift, after witnessing Hitler’s arrival in Vienna, using her funds her goodness and her influence, to enable my grandfather to bring his sister and his daughter, our mama, over from Austria in 1938. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Drummond
Are Treatments getting out of hand? Is it all just smoke and mirrors hand in hand with conspicuous consumption?
Surely a job could be rewarded based on a director’s skill, charisma and vision rather than some nice type and a good picture researcher?
Perhaps it is the agency and client’s ever-increasing petulance that demands these huge and colourful tomes, or maybe it’s just production companies finding more ways to out-do each other and kill more trees.
I am not so old that I remember when clients just gave you some cash, said “make a movie” and you went away somewhere gorgeous with your director of choice and then came back with a nice film. But I do remember Life Before Treatments.
This is how it went: As a PA you set up a meeting with a couple of directors. You had a chat. You set up a Recommendation of Director meeting with the client. If required, you did a three-quote comparison. As a producer you and the creatives shared your favourite reel. You said what was and what wasn’t included. The client faffed. You maybe got some start up money. You nagged for the full sign off. You threatened there would be no PPM if the first 50% wasn’t paid.
Not so different really, except the director bit.
Back in the day you talked through what the director had to say, you gushed a bit, perhaps showed a couple of examples, resorted to explaining who the cameraman was if they weren’t buying it, said you would find some more relevant commercials if they wanted to see them. Again, same old. But you didn’t turn up with a forest worth of paper and plastic with some gorgeous and thoroughly-researched mounted photos and a paragraph that started: “Casting is really important”.
The first glimpse I remember of the Treatment was when I was told off by a HTV for not taking notes in the director meetings. These notes were crucial if we were going to distinguish which director said what. Suitably chastened I stopped relying on memory, instinct and chemistry alone.
Then directors started sending in summaries of what they said and they wanted to do. Note taking was now redundant. Which was nice.
Next, account people started demanding to see treatments: “Client must see them as soon as they can.” Blind panic and raised blood pressure if, God forbid, you wanted to recommend someone who really didn’t do treatments. What kind of director were we talking to? Who did they think they were?
And along came Treatment Wars.
Who would use the heaviest paper? Will the heft be thicker than the walls in most people’s houses? Bound or not bound? Who will have the best tearsheets of models we could never afford as examples of the kind of natural beauty we were looking for?
What if they didn’t say “thank you for the opportunity,” “I really love this script”? Did they hate us or were they just restrained? He did say “it’s going to be awesome,” which is great because that’s just what we want. Any gimmicks? A video treatment – cool. But the client doesn’t like guys with beards, could he shave and re-film it?
The first big fat parcel arrives in TV. Six plastic-coated books of wisdom. Producer waves it at creatives who promise to look at it later. But then the bundles of joy from their new favourite production company arrive (great meeting, nice of them to take us to lunch). All is marvellous. But that shot of the Eiffel Tower is a bit phallic and misleading according to the account director.
Can they just change the reference to St Paul’s before it goes up to the client? Production company is informed of the change and re-sends some more laminated loveliness.
The other director’s treatment is now begrudgingly dissected:
It’s actually brilliant! Oh God, now who are we going to recommend? Could we just change the wording on casting to say ‘quite attractive’ rather than ‘stunning’ for the leading lady and re-submit?
Runners are re-copying now. Not all of them will be fully bound is that okay? On their way any minute.
Bike comes late; everyone is already on the train to Preston. Can we email the revised one to client please? File too big. Never mind – we will present the original then and talk through the girl next-door qualities of the star.
Marketing manager really liked it – that Kate Moss photo was hot, but he hates the scene with the pigeon. Can we have it re-sent before he presents to his boss? Oh, sorry, forgot to say lose the reference to Spinal Tap. Creative sulks, the whole thing lives and dies on the flying rat. Director sulks, he loves a mockumentary.
Negotiations are done, version 6 of the treatment goes to senior client. It is approved subject to making sure there is a version that actually spells the name of the product correctly. Actually, such straightforward go-ahead is rare but this article will never end if we touch on all the possible scenarios, perhaps another piece of approval process soon.
And piled on desks in every department of the agency are 37 big, fat, colourful ex-treatments that are less than useless. Time to recycle. Only you can’t put plastic in with the paper, and you have to tear the binding and it’s really late now and there are drinks downstairs so sod it just put it in the bin.
The following Tuesday the whole agency gets a hectoring all staffer about what you can and can’t throw away.
Is advertising’s carbon footprint not shameful enough?
Is there a solution? The only one I can think of is to build in a draft treatment stage, where the director comes and shares his upcoming vision with all the key players at the agency, who then share it with the key clients, who sell it up the line. Once all feedback is in then we can set about cutting and pasting and packaging and then sharing with the key players at the agency, who then share
it with key clients, who sell it up the line. Then do this all again with the storyboard…
Or we could just miss out on the juicy, shiny stage and sell an idea and then make an ad. It should certainly save on pre-production costs, but then how would the interns/treatment writers/picture researchers/runners/YouTube watchers fill their time. And what would we put in our lovely canvas totes and stolen art bags?
We could all agree that on this one we will just talk it through, but the truth is, like the pitch early in Mad Men when they were specifically told not to shoot a test commercial, someone will cheat and find an opportunity to impress with a pertinent clip and an example of style. And so it begins again.
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