AWARD School celebrates Melbourne graduation
Following Sydney’s recent graduation, last night Melbourne’s AWARD School students celebrated their end of studies at SmartArtz Gallery in South Melbourne
Hosted by AWARD School heads David Ponce de Leon and Jay Hynes, the evening saw some 120 of Melbourne’s creatives, tutors, guest speakers and media come together to toast the new graduates.
The award for top AWARD School student went to Jesse McCormack while Rohan Cooke and Toby Kennedy took out the second and third spot respectively.
Pictured left to right – Rita Hughes (Big Fish), Toby Kennedy, Jesse McCormack, Rohan Cooke and Kim Young (Big Fish).
Pete Collins, Andrew Malcolmson, Hannah McElhinney, Sara Oteri, Zenon Predecki, Jamie Robertson and David Schaak made up the Top 10 (pictured top).
AWARD School head Jay Hynes thanked sponsor Big Fish Creative Recruitment, and Kim Young and Rita Hughes in particular, for their support and said:” Award School 2011 was another very satisfying year, with a high calibre of work. To see students, tutors, lecturers and judges share their passion for ideas is incredibly exciting. Congratulations to all the students and as always a huge thanks to all agencies, tutors, lecturers and judges who once again gave back to the future of the industry.”
School head David Ponce de Leon added: “Our warmest congratulations go to this years’ winner Jesse McCormack, and to Rohan and Toby, who came very close. The standard of work this year was very high and proved challenging for the judges, who deliberated on the final results way past bedtime. Well done to the class of 2011, and remember this is only the beginning. No matter if you made the top ten or not, there always will be a place for energetic, motivated and passionate young creatives in the industry.”
AWARD School thanks AWARD School Melbourne heads Jay Hynes and David Ponce de Leon for their dedication to the program.
The judging panel responsible for selection of the top students and the ‘work on the wall’ included: Alex Wadelton – GPY&R, Luke Thompson – Clemenger BBDO, Bruce Williams – CUBED, Katie Britton- GPY&R, Frank Trobbiani – Marmalade, Julie Poulter – DraftFCB and Mat Garbutt – DraftFCB.
Pictured enjoying the evening are Grant Rutherford (DDB) with Nicholas Desira (Ogilvy).
AWARD School wishes to thank the following tutors, who provide the students with creative guidance on a weekly basis: Elle Bullen, James Orr, Justin Nagorcka, Andrew Woodhead – Leo burnett, Nick MacDonald, Pat Baron – The Fuel Agency, Michael Mulcahy – DDB, Harsh Kapadia, Jim Ritchie – JWT, Dom Megna, Rogan Briggs- CHE, Chris Taylor, Tod Oreilly, Lauren Doolan- SapientNitro, Phil van Bruchem, Nick Wheeler- McCann Ericcson, Kate Lightfoot, Jack Davies – Ogilvy, Richard Overall, Dan Forrestal- Freeform, Amy Hollier, Gus Johnston, – BWM, Annie Egan, Evan Roberts – GPY&R.
Pictured left are Jay Hynes (AWARD School Head with Andrew Malcolmsen (Top 10) and Pete Collins (Top 10).
AWARD also wishes to thank the following guest speakers for sharing their experience and insights with students: Guy Roberts – Droga 5 Auckland, Ben Couzens – Clemenger BBDO, Paul le Couteur – Flagstaff Studios, Frank Trobbiani – Marmalade, Tom Martin – Clemenger BBDO, Julian Schrieber – Clemenger BBDO, Ben Keenan – Clemenger BBDO, Brendon Guthrie – DDB, Tim Holmes – DDB, Mike Hyde – Clemenger BBDO, Sean Cummins – CumminsRoss.
Pictured left are Jason Deacon and Emma Park from Ogilvy with last year’s AWARD School VIC winner Tim Harding.
Pictured below are Andrew Miles (student) with Andrew Kilgour and Stephen Flewell-Smith from Trademark DM.
Google AWARD School will host its Brisbane graduation on Tuesday the 16th August, and Adelaide and Tasmania are set for Thursday the 18th of August.
For further information, including registration for the 2011 program, contact Suzy Leys on Suzy@communicationscouncil.org.au.
32 Comments
Congrats Jesse and to everyone involved, especially Jay and DPdL who again did a brilliant job of organising.
Great work on the walls for every brief, but I will never ever ever forget the radio ad that started with “We open on the sound of a new dimension opening”
Mind blown.
o_O
Brilliant work Jesse. You’re a great talent.
Hells yeah! Go Tobes…….rocking it out in 3rd. Oh yeah and congrats to the other fellas too.
Whilst I congratulate everyone who has done well this year, I have to say that it absolutely disgraceful that a friend of mine, a recent graduate of the night, who is a very ambitious, keen and one of the hardest working students in the industry I’ve seen, was told during the AWARD’s night graduation itself that he was disqualified.
Apparently, it was an “unwritten rule” that you cannot submit more than one concept per brief. That is ridiculous! Especially since, in the real world of advertising, it is expected of a creative to submit at least 3 concepts per brief.
Looking at his book, he had many of the tell-tale AWARD judging stickers on his work.
To be fair, AWARD should have, at the very least, informed him prior to the evening – before he invited all his friends and family to the night to celebrate and witness the culmination of all his hard work – given him the opportunity to rectify his unknown mistake and cull down his plethora of ideas to ones he thought may have been the very best.
As a previous AWARD school student (who has submitted more than one idea for an AWARD brief), I believe it was unfair of AWARD to not at least inform the student prior to AWARD grad night of his mistake. And offering him another chance before the big night.
AWARD claims that their aim is to nurture young creatives and help them find their way in meeting their aspirations within the industry. How does disqualifying them, at the last moment, help on their big night help?
If “your friend” (lol) was disqualified, how is he a graduate?
Jokes aside, a little harsh but I’ve never heard of people putting in multiple ads per brief. Never. It’s part of the book process everyone goes through in the last few weeks. Asking various tutors their opinions and ultimately making a decision yourself of what you think is best.
I didn’t write the course or the rules and who gives a shit anyway. If the student is that dedicated and has talent, he’ll do well anyway.
Congrats to Jesse! What a champion. And also to Toby (awesome) and the rest of the top ten. To the disqualified student and friends: Stop stealing the thunder from the people that did well and played by the rules. That’s truly disgusting. Stiff shit when you cheat.
Wow. My mentrs encouraged me to put in two pieces for some. Good thing I didn’t
Pretty sure it was allowed two years ago. Worked for me.
9:24 and 11:33 Commitment is choosing ONE idea and standing by it – not putting forward 3 or 4. Is that fair on everyone else who submitted their folios for judging?
Look, don’t sweat it Mr. DQ.
In the real world of agency life, you’ll only be rewarded for that kind of thing. The best people fuck the rules right off, and find every possible way to get their hands on briefs, nail ideas, sell them, and get them made. As long as you’re not trying to fuck over your colleagues, all is fair.
This kind of thing also goes right up to the top. I’ve lost count of the number of pitches I’ve been in when the client has been very explicit on NOT wanting x-level of effort or finish or detail, only for the agency that’s smart enough to disregard that crap and go all out, win it over the agencies dumb enough to stick to the request.
And day-to-day, when the client says they only want print, you give them an idea that works really well on TV and promo and online and on radio guess what… they sometimes find more money and run it all.
I’ve seen brochure briefs turned into a TV campaign more than once.
So if you got DQ’d for not playing by the rules, be pissed off for a day, then laugh at them, and don’t change a thing about your attitude. This business doesn’t reward the passive.
Your friends should post your name and contact details up here. I’d certainly get you in to look at your book.
There was a bit of talk on the night about an agency opening a place in their Creative department for lots students to do work experience. A rotation type of thing. Anyone heard anything about that?
To comment on the issue of the person who submitted more than one piece per brief:
I’d like to say that although it’s no doubt harsh to disqualify someone from AWARD School, I would have to agree with the decisions made by the committee in this case.
It is an unfair advantage to allow someone to submit more than one piece for the same brief, it’s as simple as that! The hardest part about AWARD School is learning to choose what you want in your folio. After being a student this year I can tell you that I still have the pain fresh in my mind of having to try and choose between 2 or 3 ideas I am confident in, and my tutors have different opinions on. Plus the pain of also making the wrong decision and seeing my idea on the wall with another persons name under it.
While I’m sure this person worked extremely hard (as we all did) I don’t think it’s fair to say they worked harder and reward them just because they submitted more pieces in their final folio. Anyone who works hard can have good ideas but it’s the people who can put it all together on the night and submit the right pieces for each brief that should be rewarded not the people who submit the most work for the judges to look at.
As far as the “unwritten rule” thing, everybody knows you are working to submit your best piece, that’s what we have the tutes for and it is openly discussed in lectures. So to suggest that (one person) did this and had no idea this was not allowed would be a bit naive.
Above 2 comments – while I agree that submitting more than one piece of work without doubt shows hard work and commitment, let’s not forget that AWARD school is a competition. He was the only one to submit multiple pieces of work out of the entire course, therefore making him ineligible to be awarded in the top 10 (the competitive part). I’m assuming he still graduates?
To have anonymous people write nasty and inaccurate comments on your behalf just shows why you did not deserve to win in the first place. The fact that you believe anyone owes you anything, that you deserve preferential treatment and that the rules that everybody knew about (except, of course for you) didn’t apply in your case demonstrates immaturity, an over inflated ego and a warped sense of entitlement.
Go Toby
This could get interesting
I was an AWARD school student last year, it was made very clear a number of times leading up to the final presentation, one brief, one idea. I query whether he showed up to lectures to not know this.
Dear Bravo Mr. Disqualified, why don’t you put your name to your comment so I can come and see you? And you’re right. “As long as you’re not trying to fuck over your colleagues, all is fair.”
I was an AWARD school student this year. We did receive an email on the week before the final submission. There was a word document on it with AWARD School end of course info. It stated clearly:
“How much work? Each portfolio must contain a solution for all 11 briefs. A single execution for each brief is sufficient, except of course if the brief has demanded a campaign. If you have delivered a campaign where the brief has asked for a single execution, that’s great. Each brief has a simple proposition and the creative must answer the brief.”
It doesn’t say multiple solutions. It says solution. It says a single execution for each brief. So it was not an ‘unwritten rule’. Besides, it was repeated to us at every lecture by the school heads.
AWARD School winners should get rewarded for having the best ideas, not for having the most ideas.
To me, sufficient says you don’t have to supply more than one if you don’t want to.
And thanks Sarah, who tutored us at Leos. Her name wasn’t on the list above and she was a huge help.
Where can we get to see the work done by these students? no link on the AWARD website.
Good to see the next generation of young creatives have taken to anonymous posting like ducks to water.
So you got DQ’ed; no one died, you’ll live. And sorry but doesn’t sound like your book was a chance to win it anyway
Good see that Dave Grohl made the grade.
Shit Dave Grohl! awesome sowse.
On behalf of AWARD school I’d like to clarify a few points:
Part of the AWARD School course is for the student to learn to choose what they think is their best work to submit for judging by the Creative Directors. Students are advised in the lead up to the end of the course what is expected of their portfolio. Like any programme guidelines are set for the benefit of the students and in this case it’s important that each student is on a level playing field. AWARD school makes it clear that each student is responsible for their own books and if they choose to submit something out of the programme guidelines only they can take responsibility.
It is inappropriate to discuss individual cases in a public forum like this, but suffices to say the above account about an award graduate getting disqualified is incorrect, and we’d like to rectify that.
Odd, I was there and the gent you refer to definitely said he was disqualified?! Maybe he presented himself as two attendees to be consistent.
“It is inappropriate to discuss individual cases in a public forum like this, but suffices to say the above account about an award graduate getting disqualified is incorrect, and we’d like to rectify that. ”
– So you’re going to UN-disqualify him now?
Unlucky mate. I went to the Adelaide graduation and there were more than one execution for some briefs, when only one was called for.
I’ve applied for Award School 2012… waiting for the results. I’ve heard that many big agencies already nab spots for their staff. Is this true? So that means it’s even MORE difficult to get into as it’s rigged?
Hi, I applied and got accepted for the 2012 class WOOHOO!
……..
just needed to share my excitement 🙂
Congrats Jesse, you are hard working and humble. You deserve to be recognised for your amazing work 🙂