“Hi, (name removed). I'm an art director at Ogilvy Johannesburg. I stumbled across your beautiful illustrations and I would love to use your artwork for a campaign we are working on. I'm working on a campaign for a new show called Terra Nova.
"Terra Nova means new earth. It's a place for humankind to start over again, a new beginning so to speak. It's a beautiful place filled with dinosaurs, waterfalls, lush forests- a perfect paradise, however things are not what they seem.
"For the campaign we are using the postcard device the whole "Wish you were here", those postcards you received on holiday from exotic locations, except ours are along the lines of 'Wish you weren't here'.
"Our postcards cards depict Utopia, where dinosaurs and children play on the beaches, rainbows fill the perfect blue skies, gorgeous sunsets. However if you look closely all is not what it appers to be, the children aren't playing with the creatures, they're actually running away from them.
"There are a few things we still have to work out that's why I would love you to work with us. I have attached a rough layout, I have combined two of your illustrations in this comp. If you have any questions give me a shout."
Hi, (name removed),
You asked me to give you a shout, so: “WHADDAYA OUTAYAMIND? SURE, I’D BE GLAD TO RIP OFF MY OWN IDEA TO HELP ADVERTISE YOUR DUMB TV SHOW!
Wait....But first I’ve got an idea for you! How about a whole new TV show? It’s called “E.T.-Zilla.” It’s about a fun, happy world where young advertising executives work away in high-rise buildings in Johannesburg, never realizing that just outside there’s a Godzilla-like alien.
This creature starts out as a cute, huggable extra-terrestrial. But it drinks some radioactive water and becomes a giant angry monster that shoots fire from its fingertips. All the ad men (and women) are running away for their lives. Then after E.T.-Zilla attacks South Africa, he goes through a time portal to the age of the dinosaurs and wipes out Terra Nova. That would be pretty fun to watch.
I’ve attached a rough layout of my concept art. Give me a shout if you have any questions. And please send my idea along to some TV executives. Do you think Steven might like to direct?
71 comments:
Bravo James, spot on.
Hilarious! They had that coming.
Heck, what were they thinking??
On a personal note, I find it funny because I've gotten to know Dinotopia through a colleague and ex-coworker at Ogilvy. Though not from its Johannesburg branch.
Well said. Your work would only be degraded by being associated with that show. And such an unprofessional email too... yikes!
I would totally watch that!
(...not)
Well, I had the impression that they are interested in new artwork (something with dinosaurs, not necessarily Dinotopia), and that they just used some Dinotopia-paintings to show you what they're looking for...
So, when is this coming out?
Oh my....that's unbelievable. Also unbelievable was that she 'just stumbled upon your pictures'.....I don't think I know a single person who doesn't know about Dinotopia....maybe I just know really awesome people.
Amazing... ADmen really are the scum of the earth.
That rainbow is inspired!
Okay, I guess I'm not getting this. Obviously, having one of the biggest ad agencies in the world asking me to help them promote a Steven Spielberg-produced TV show would definitely get my attention. I would be honored and excited. I feel very sure that you've been watching the show; your response to Ogilvy tells me that you really dislike it, like a lot of critics and much of the public. It may not be back next season. The "things are not what they seem" angle has been Spielberg's entire concept from the beginning, and very closely echoes the premise to the Jurassic Park books and movies, intending to feed off that.
But what I think you are saying is that you have built a large part of your reputation depicting paradisiacal relationships between humans and dinosaurs, and in creating positive imagery. This ad campaign would run directly counter to your efforts, so your response seems aimed at maintaining your reputation. Having children running in terror from placid plant eaters brings to mind unfortunate imagery from Peter Jackson's King Kong.
Yes, the campaign sounds really cheesy, but I think the usual feedback between AD and artist might come up with a better product.
So, what am I missing? Not a criticism, it's just that your response seems confusingly out of place. Given the grittier dinosaur illustrations you've done for National Geographic, would you have accepted an opportunity to create art for the show before it had aired?
Thank for helping me understand.
"I would love to use your artwork for a campaign we are working on" usually means give it to us for free.
She would've been better off asking to contract your services.
Please tell me you actually sent that!
Hollywood and the entertainment industry appears morally and artistically bankrupt from my perspective. Everything seems to be a blatant rip-off or a remake.
Good for you Jim. If they want to pay you for new work, they know what quality costs and they can fork it over. As for ripping off your idea, that stinks and you'd be hard pressed to fight Spielberg.
I'm missing something. No matter what, doesn't a professional respond as a professional? Isn't that the point of being a professional? I don't get the ridicule going on with the reply. Is this a joke?
ROTFLMAO
This really hits a nerve. I've been doing CD/Album covers for the last 5 years or so. I get at least one nibble a week from young bands. The best one so far was some idiot who wrote saying "I just wanted to let yopu know we"re going to use one of your paintings for our first album cover, and I was just writing to make sure it was OK."
I wrote back saying "It's NOT OK for you to RIP ME OFF." And he comes back with "I didn't know I was ripping you off. Is it OK if I use one of your paintings for Wallpaper?"
There are an increasing number of clueless individuals out there. Blame it on the Internet.
That's so great! And I thought only small time artists like myself had to deal with that kind of nonsense.
Shockingly not in tune with your work. I'm not even sure this is the same "Terra Nova" show (new this season) that I've been watching - it's actually quite good, but....
So you didn't name your price . . .
Haha nice!
YES! I love your response! Thank you so much for not being dazzled by their Holly Wood nonsense, and standing up for your vision. I'm so tired of visual artists being treated like second class citizens.
Did the creators of the FLINTSTONES ever bust you for ripping off their idea?
I had to come back and re-read your post since I missed the important detail about using your artwork to do the mock-up postcard when reading it the first time. Not polite. When are they going to add ethics to the High School curriculum? Just because one can use the computer to create something like this from pre-existing images doesn't mean it's right. Justine Whaley Hennessy
I would have to agree with others who were a bit confused as to why you responded the way you did; it was not what I would expect from a professional of your stature and contributions to art. I can understand your concern about using your work in the context they were looking for but unless there is more background to this than was provided in the article (such as the background of the AD - junior AD?) this is a bit perplexing. Given all that you've done for art education, I believe that a more appropriate and positive response would have been to politely educate them rather than to just degrade them.
Is this really the way such issues are/should be handled in the commercial art world?
Dear James
Enough people have said it better than I can already but I am kind of shocked from this post. Seemed way out of character for you. My statements agree 100% with SteveRB511.
Working in a NYC Illustration Rep firm for a number of years we saw our odd, even silly pitches but there should be a line one does not cross publicly in response to uneducated requests. I hope you add a post script or an edit to explain why you posted and reacted this way. I think it would help educate both the young illustrators and art directors/buyers out there.
Kind regards
Matt Dicke
To explain to those who didn’t get the post: I’m not knocking the Terra Nova TV program necessarily. The concept is different enough from Dinotopia and probably more like Jurassic Park in its conception of dinosaurs as monsters.
But I do object to the premise of advertising the program by making a mockery of images from Dinotopia. Whether the visual that the ad agency developed was just a comp or a proposed finish, and whether I illustrated it or not, the people who came up with the campaign needed to think harder. The visual that they developed directly used images that I painted from the Dinotopia universe, and the image could easily have been confused for something from Dinotopia, which is an infringement.
If I politely and privately passed on this job offer, they would have given it to someone else and done the same thing. We’re dealing with ideas and ad campaigns, which take place in the public arena.
I had a little fun imagining the tables reversed: what would happen if someone asked the producers of E.T. to help them promote a program where they turned those cute little creatures into monsters. Someone might want to make such a movie, but it’s pretty amazing to ask the E.T. creators to help out with it.
James-
While the request IS professionally ridiculous, there was no need to reply in kind and share the retort with the universe.
Reach for the higher ground because both creatively and personally that's where you normally stand in my POV.
I'm not sure I entirely agree with James' response, but the woman contacting hm sure seems like she didn't do her research before communicating with him.
Quick! Someone send The Asylum Studios that promo for E.T.Zilla, we'll see that movie in a year! Hopefully with a spinoff sequel where he fights Mega Shark and Crocosaurus!
I wonder if any of you finger pointers have ever had to protect your intellectual property before.
Understanding what it is like to be exploited and expected to be quiet and polite about it I applaud James's sharp public response.
Sometimes ugly things need to be exposed. Would all of you shocked and offendeds have also preferred that the child in the Penn State case had not come forward?
James is a great guy and he is human, so he doesn't always have to take the higher ground especially when his carefully crafted utopia is in danger of being dragged through the mud.
Reading comprehension seems to be lacking in today's society.
"Frankly, James would be within his rights to send a legal cease and desist to stop the show since there are sufficient similarities to his story to bring up the question of Plagiarism. "
Sorry, what? In what way are the two even remotely similar?
There are dinosaurs in both?
Whoopty freakin' doo.
Dinotopia (if my memories or reading this wonderful book as a boy don't fail me) is about a father and son ending up on an island inhabited by a strangely anachronistic mix of people and dinosaurs.
The dinosaurs can "talk" and "write" in their own language, many of them cohabitate with the humans. The son even learns to ride a flying one. The whole thing has a beautiful steampunkishly utopian feel to it.
Terra Nova is about humans in the not so distant future discovering a rift in space-time-whatever leading to the time of dinosaurs. Where they migrate to in colonization waves.
They live in a walled colony under a military regime. The population consists mainly of fashion models pretending to be scientists and soldiers.
And they SHOOT the dinosaurs.
Frankly, beside dinosaurs being present in both, there is absolutely nothing similar about these two settings.
You claiming the opposite is quite the insult to Mr. Gurney's creation, since the TV shows is truly terribly written, acted and concepted.
So, no, there's no ripping off Dinotopia in Terra Nova. Sadly, because it might've been a better show if they actually did rip it off.
The point, is that it was a very unprofessional way to ask him if they could use his work. I am not a an accomplished artist who makes his living off of his art (although I would like to be able to say that one day). Mr. Gurney is.
I'm just a kid who like to draw...but even I am very aware that you don't mess with other people's stuff. I repeat: NEVER TOUCH AN ARTIST WORK AND THEN ASK IF IT'S OK! Trust me, it's not.
The letter that he received from the girl Chantelle would've made a pretty great April fool's joke, but as a serious request it's disrespectful.
If the girl had simply written the letter and not included the picture I honestly think she would've been met with at worst a respectful decline.
yes, really.
'And any of us that say he reacted too strongly are the same kind of people who look the other way when we see children being raped'
I am suggesting that people who feel he reacted too strongly would have preferred not to have had any knowledge of this matter at all, and would have preferred Mr. Gurney had conducted himself in a polite and dignified manner in private. That attitude enables exploitation on all scales. Of course I realize that the weight of Mr. Gurney's situation is not in any way psychologically physically or emotionally as big deal compared to the severity of child abuse, that would be absurd. But people who don't try to understand why someone would lash out 'inappropriately' in public are turning a blind eye to exploitation.
Man, that was... well, pretty harsh.
I hope that's not how you actually responded to the lady. As thoughtless as she is, I think an INFORMATIVE reply rather than a ridiculing one clearly demonstrating a lack of your usual composure would have been the best approach. You're very much a teacher, Mr. Gurney. I think your teaching approach would have been more effective at preventing these sort of blatant but often misguided infringements in the future. The lady obviously had some sort of respect for you, so why not use that to your advantage rather than present yourself as a big angry poophead?
I have the utmost respect for you and your work, really. I just think you jumped the gun a little bit.
Don't you all see... They clearly were already using his work without consent. The only reason they contacted him was because there were "a few things we still have to work out that's why I would love you to work with us".
How could he not feel disrespected by it?
The point is that by being in advertising, "chantelle" would know copyright law and respect it instead of trampling over it.
Mr. Gurney's response is tame compared to the legal cease and desist notice that chantelle's company would easily send.
Andrew, speaking out in public about exploitation polite or impolite, draws attention to it. Attention which gets results.
Mr. Gurney obvious from his many blog posts is intelligent. By making this issue public at such an early stage he is likely stopping in it's tracks a decision by an ad agency which would likely lead to litigation if the idea went forward as it was presented.
This little bit of nastiness helps both him and Ogilvy avoid wasting any more time or expense.
You may be familiar with Tom Waits and his legal battles with ad agencies over the use of his voice and his character. In one case the agency after being turned down by him went ahead and hired an imitator to perform a similar song in a similar way to what they had originally presented to him. He sued them and won. Go back and read James's response with Tom Wait's situation in mind and see that is exactly what he is attempting to avoid by making this public now.
I hope our world hasn't reached the point where law suits and shouting are the only way to solve problems.
I hope the world will reach peace in ways other than some have espoused here. I hope that people avoid wasting time or expense through means other than using little bits of nastiness. Intelligence, negotiation, self control, and peace should rule. There are far too many people today who advocate violence or nastiness or extreme viewpoints, especially within the seductive anonymity of the Internet. Experience has shown that such behavior only breeds resentment, anger, and cycles of misunderstanding and hate. We need more people who advocate tolerance, thoughtfulness, and love, who forgive, and who pause before they respond.
James, your past examples of tolerance and reasonableness have inspired many. We know they will continue. Thank you for your good examples.
*Asterisk has it right.
As a follow-up, you all should know that I did send a polite, "professional" and forthright private email well in advance of the blog post. I told the art director that I declined the opportunity and requested that they please not use Dinotopia or Dinotopia look-alike imagery in the ad.
They did not respond in any way until the blog post aired, and only then did they apologize and promise not to use any of those elements in their campaign. I accepted their apology. I think it's a pretty mild satire, but it was certainly not my first message to Ogilvy.
By the way, Ogilvy & Mather is a giant corporation with 497 offices in 125 countries with approximately 16,000 employees. I'm one guy with a wife and a parakeet and one office in one country. And I've got a blog, thank goodness.
i love it! for so many different reasons. this is not as easy a situation as it appears. i think james could have went off the deep end, got lawyers, or sent an explicit email.
but instead he found a way to vent his frustrations with humor. sending a clear message.
and lets be honest this is no where near the first time this show has borrowed from the dinotopia series of books.
a lot of their advertising clearly stole from dinotopia concepts, i posted this back in july!
"a bit off topic, just saw the trailers for the new dinotopia tv series, i mean terra nova series coming out.
haha, i think like lucas, you have another great admirer. the photo used on wikipedia (which is now taken down) for the series looks just like waterfall city paintig with the waterfalls and terodactyls flying around, and the trailer shows a "utopia", with a heavily guarded gate around the paradise community, that keeps out attacking dinosaurs, hmm seems like i have heard about all this before somewheres?
as i watched the trailer i was literly waiting to see treetown or a dinosaur named bix?"
i support you 100% james! i thought this was hilarious but at the same time left a very clear message, STOP RIPPING ME OFF!
by the way i would watch ET-Zilla repeatedly everyday of the week if that movie came out....
Well it is refreshing to see some emotion from you! Lets get more of that into your work!!
I'm not a lawyer that but doesn't stop me from pretending I know what I am talking about:
Dinotopia is about a SOCIETY with friendly intelligent dinosaurs.
Nothing they showed crossed that line. Dinosaurs and children are fair game. Friendly and intelligent dinosaurs existed before dinotopia. Even your dinosaurs designs are based on many others work in the field - It is the friendly society and its unique trappings which are the original concepts.
Even if they had a society like planet of the apes, with dinosaurs, I don't think you could do anything about it.
Sorry dino's chasing children is fair game. If they catch them, then put them on trial in a fancy building, then sue!
Gary, I find your comments inaccurate, to say the least. To say more, I would need to use language inappropriate to the tone of Jim's excellent and popular blog.
Jim's artworks, two classic images from his best selling Dinotopia books, were used without permission or compensation to create internal comps for an ad campaign. Comps are commercial artworks for which people are paid in the ordinary course of the ad biz.
If I were Jim, I'd gently submit a bill to the ad agency. And state that paying the bill would excuse the agency from further legal action for their abrogation of his intellectual property rights.
Oh yikes, don't give anyone ideas about E.T.Zilla!
Thank you, James, for striking a blow for the rights of all creative people to control their work.
Agencies like Ogilvy and Mather will simply rip people off unless they are stopped. It's a simple cost/benefit analysis for them. I would be willing to bet that this is the first and last time Chantelle will contact an artist about the use of their work, however.
Wow! talk about a can of worms!
This one sure illustrates how many follow you and your every word.
I agree with many points (comments) about their unprofessional behavior, they should know better.
I read them all.
Also, I too was surprised by your response (post) James until I saw your comment at 4:26 PM. So I can't add much more except ...
For the benefit of your devoted readers and followers, a mention of your initial professional response would have been a good idea and prevented some misunderstanding by your readers (myself included).
It gives proper context to your post. Now it can be enjoyed for what it is.
I especially agree with the last part of your 4:26PM comment...
"By the way, Ogilvy & Mather is a giant corporation with 497 offices in 125 countries with approximately 16,000 employees. I'm one guy with a wife and a parakeet and one office in one country. And I've got a blog, thank goodness."
It helps even the playing field, and (hopefully) prevents needless litigation.
Thank goodness for that!
http://www.drip.de/?p=1866
My whole-hearted support, James.
Best laugh I've had in a long while!
To all who are going on about how unprofessional Jame's reply was...
I completely follow his frustration and public mockery of this reply, because frankly the email is borderline insulting to James and his accomplishments.
The email makes no hint that this marketer did any background research into who James is, or what this artwork she was taking actually was from. She talks to him like he is a complete unknown talent who just happens to have put out some artwork that matches her needs.
No where does she acknowledge Dinotopia, the fact it is a best seller series, nor that it spawned a TV franchise of its OWN!!!
Being married to marketer myself this comes across as a rookie who has no idea what she is doing or how to conduct herself professionally, and frankly had this mockery coming. My wife spends at least a week researching anyone she is contacting on behalf of a project.
Let's also be straight about "being honoured" due to Speilberg involvement, this is clearly a South Africa only campaign. This is not going to make it back to Mr. Steven in any way. Otherwise it would be have been someone from the States doing the asking...
Hi Kev
What I said was accurate. Perhaps I misunderstand, but they were giving an example of what they were HOPING James could provide for payment. It was James that published his work being used for their benefit - not them. Yes, they were taking a long shot, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. They gained publicity from James blog they would never have gotten otherwise - and for free, I might add. Not to mention they are probably getting offers from artists right now, because of the posting. Very few artists can afford to ignore opportunities to work.
I have no doubt James is a great guy and would be a fantastic person to call a friend. However, I think we all need to be challenged to do better and to see our work in a different light.
James has fantastic technical skill and I would love to see him push that skill into driving far more emotion into his work. For example, shouldn't a person riding a dinosaur be really, really excited or frightened?!!!! What if he was falling off? What about a child looking in fear, or wonder as a gentle giant passes by? There are so many opportunities to make a powerful emotional piece for a person with James skills.
James I offer you a challenge. Write a book on human emotion and how to portray that in art. I would be curious if you can do that as easily as you did your other technical books.
Your blog is ,by far, the best art blog on the net. Kudos, and thanks for giving so much to us all.
Mr. Gurney, I had to stop reading the comments left before mine around the 'whoopty freekin doo'comment.
I think you handled this situation with a great deal of generosity and grace.
This individual definitely (hopefully) learned something from this experience.
How would a young professional know they made a mistake unless someone with experience was to point it out to them.
This generation (Im 27, Im referring to my age group and younger), needs to get smacked around a little more to get a point across than some that are only just a few years older.
You seem to have taken more preparatory time and put more thought into E.T. Zilla and its graphics then she did about contacting you with this proposal.
Gary,
You are misunderstanding.
They have already used Jim's work in the course of their business... the creation of a comprehensive (comp) is a work of commercial art done during business hours as part of the business of making money. Somebody is paid to create a comp. They used Jim's art without his permission to build a comp.
It does not matter that they were using the comp to pitch Jim the idea to illustrate. They had already stolen his work for their own business purposes.
Now, your other issue, your "challenge" to Jim, I can't even bear to discuss, it is so self-regarding.
While I can understand why James isn't happy, I'm not sure if his response will have the right effect.
If this person is as naive about fair use of artwork and how to approach artists I suspect the might have benefited from something that spelled that out rather than going straight to PlanB (Plan ET?).
Quite possibly they'll simply come away with a 'WTF' and 'Geez, artists are prickly' rather than 'Next time we'll approach the artist first'.
The other thing that comes to mind is that the work may have been a proof of concept to sell to management before being able to approach James at all. Anyone who's worked in this business knows how much difficulty clients/management have visualising *anything*.
By the way, Mr Spielberg says he's a huge fan of illustration, from which he claims to have learned story telling and styled some of his illustrative movies after.
Together with George Lucas, the two movie moguls have compiled a vast collection of Norman Rockwell's that were on display at the Smithsonian the year.
Well, the business of Illustration has always been a cottage industry, like Mr Gurney describes it, "I'm one guy with a wife and a parakeet and one office in one country." James, like Norman Rockwell and anyone daring enough to plot a course in the field of making pictures, make up a history replete with stories of artists being taken advantage of by big corporations.
Yes, thank GOODNESS Mr Gurney has a blog!
Maybe they did not respond in any way to your e-mail at first because there is a 7 hour time difference between you and South Africa and the apology that came through was in response to your e-mail and had nothing to do with your blog post at all.
I doubt that you have any idea or knowledge of any of the ad campaigns that take place in South Africa and if she had wanted to use your work without checking it with you first she wouldn't have contacted you at all.
The point is, corporations don't pay attention to the little guy (independent artists), even if they have a lawyer. What really scares them is negative publicity, and I think James used his blog to that effect to prevent his being ripped off. I for one, appreciate this show of strength as it could possibly discourage the agency from doing it to another artist in the future.
In case anyone wasn't entirely clear on, or missed, the first paragraph in Mr. Gurney's second comment on this post: this satirical (and amusing) blog post was not his original response to them. His initial response was private and professional and looked, I'm sure, nothing like the blog post while still getting the idea across that he didn't want his work used nor imitated for the ad campaign. It was only when they failed to respond to that professional decorum that he created the blog post. He had, in fact, done the very thing that some of you have been decrying him for not doing, when he never explicitly said anywhere on the blog post "yes, this is what I sent as a reply to the offer". Let's hear no more of this petty and erroneous chastising of a man who has worked as a successful professional illustrator for decades and knows far more about how to communicate maturely with a potential client than some of you are giving him credit for.
@SurfinSquid.
It really came across in the blog post that this was Mr. Gurney's response!(so yes many of us missed the info that there had been communication before ET made an appearance)
Eh, in any case, I hope his private response to them was as effective as ET has been here!
I have no idea what Dinotopia is? Obviously neither did the lady in the mail. I think they just wanted to work with you?
I think your response is harsh and that you jumped to conclusions. Not everyone in the world knows Dinotopia and how successful you are. It was a simple request illustrated with a scamp of your work.
Speaking up for Jim here. It is completely unprofessional for ad company to troll the internet for dinosaurs with human images and then ask the artist if it OK to just use that image. To insult the artist and creator of Dinotopia they go on to explain the TV show... that sounds very much like Dinotopia. Putting myself in Jim's place I would be boiling mad. If the company had gone this far along with the idea you would suspect they had some clue about the Dinotopia works. Telling them they are out of their minds is very much what most of us would love to do and I happy to see Jim doing it to someone who needed it.
I suppose everything that needs to be discussed already has, so I'll just say:
Team James!
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