After coming in from Toronto on Monday night, we went straight to an overnight commercial shoot Cossette was filming downtown. It was a 30 second spot for one of their clients, Molson Ex. We arrived into town at about 2am, and the shoot was scheduled to go until 5am.
It was a really cool set up, though I can’t give details at this point, because the commercial doesn’t come out until tonight during the Montreal Canadians pre-season game. I am glad that we went to the shoot because we were able to see the whole process from shooting the raw footage right through to the final 30 second production. We spent the rest of the week visiting the editing studio, sound studio, and meeting with the client to make sure they were happy with what was being produced.
On my first day, I got a tour of the office. It is pretty much what I expected an ad agency would be like, a cool relaxed atmosphere with each department having a different personality – on the floor of the creative department, there are comfortable couches and a foosball table.
Marie-Claude, the director of the Molson account, spent the week with me and was awesome in providing some great insights into the advertising world.
It was really interesting to see how much work goes into making a 30 second ad segment, a lot of discussing, tweaking sounds, colours, images, one person likes it, another doesn’t – keeping the client and target audience in mind. I could definitely see myself in an ad agency, it seems that each department is so different though plays an equal amount in the process of getting an ad from conception to production.
Of course, we had to finish off the week enjoying a “Une Vraie Biere De Serge!â€Â
My interviews in French went pretty well this week. I didn’t understand one question on the morning tv show, Salut, Bonjour, and I also said yes when he asked me if I studied law in school, but I was able to recover okay. I was pretty tired though; according to Ian, it looked like someone punched me in the face because of the bags under my eyes.
We left Montreal on Saturday morning and made our way to Halifax, Nova Scotia. The job I had lined up for this week has appeared to have fallen through, so not too sure what I am going to be up to. I will let you know as soon as I know and if you have any ideas or contacts, pass on the word!
If you are in Halifax, give us a shout, 416-735-9335.
Cheers,
-Sean