Fast-forward in the growth curve

The past two days were like a fast-forward moment in my upward growth curve as an art director. Sorry if that doesn't make any sense but I really don't know how to put it any other way. I made a couple of mistakes that made me learn the hard way and believe me, THAT's the most effective way to learn.

So it's Wednesday now and let me talk about Monday first. It was the day that we were closing the May issue. For this issue we have a client / advertiser for the cover. What I learned during that day was, I need to scour ALL their emails and look at EVERY SINGLE attachment because clients would usually fail to notify us whenever they have an instruction sent within an attachment, and they would remind us about that when it's too late na. Because I failed in this area, I had a really stressful day, walking and talking back and forth with client and Final Art. It made last Monday one of my most stressful days EVER. Aside from all that I had to prepare for Tuesday shoot pa!

What made this really worse was, since last week pa, our area smelled like centuries-old pee- somehow there must be a leak in a pipe somewhere in one of the old bathrooms waiting to be demolished, and our space was directly affected and just smelled REALLY BAD. As in, we had to put up with that the whole day. Good thing that was gonna be the last stretch of suffering we'll ever have to go through, because it's moving day the next, we're gonna transfer to the other side of the office, which is newly renovated. THANK YOU UNIVERSE!

So yesterday, we moved our stuff in the morning, and I did that while doing final checking for the May issue and still preparing for the shoot in the afternoon. It was like everything was "habol" at the last minute until they told us that we had to leave for the location already.

I was so embarrassing because I kept losing track of how many layouts we were gonna do! That's another thing that I need to really learn. I need to be DEFINITE on how many layouts the shoot is supposed to produce, and that has to be aligned with the number of outfits and number of models and number of covers that we have. The number of layouts needs to be communicated to everybody- the model, the photographer, the fashion assistant. It's a lot of math actually and I felt really lost at some point. I also learned, I should try harder to pay more attention during meetings. It's just so embarrassing when people have to repeat the question to me. :(

I really appreciate the tutelage of my boss, Suki Salvador. He had told me that he was the one going to direct the shoot (since this is a big star and a big anniversary issue) and I was kinda supposed to just "shadow" him on this one, but it turned out he still gave me freedom to make decisions with poses and locations and setups. I still had the chance to talk to the photographer directly (I was so honored- he IS one of the best in the country). I observed his camera had a really really long lens like the one in the picture. I was delighted that it had a couple of amazing features too.

While the evening shoot was ongoing the first few hours, I realized I didn't eat much during afternoon and I felt so hungry, my legs wobbled at some point. Suki had given me clear instructions that I shouldn't eat while working because it's rude and I just followed. So I had to climb up and down a couple of times on two flights of stairs on an empty stomach! Eventually we had a break while the other model was doing makeup, so I had the chance to grab a bite. Tita Judy had given me thick fries and a crab cake from Chelsea's and they were enough for "pantawid gutom". Next time, I will really EAT A LOT before an evening shoot.

The shots were AMAZING. It's the best anniversary issue ever! I'm so happy that we are finally succeeding with Meg's new direction which is to make it more mature in order to target an older market than before.

After the shoot, I had a really relaxing conversation with Suki, Miel, and the location's external relations associate, Mark. They even gave us free drinks! E------, you're the best!

Whew! And now it's Wednesday and I ran out of work to do! So I just decided that later, I'm just going to help Miel, our fashion assistant, and her intern Bianca return to clothes to the malls. Two extra hands would be a welcome addition!