Chapter 184
Chapter 184
“Your presentation just now confirmed the thought that I had when I was reading your proposal. This
storyboard seems well put together and I know without a doubt that it was hard work for you both;
however, there’s something very lacking about it,” Ace said before his eyes rested on both of us.
There’s something very lacking…?
“Can you please explain?” Jeremy quickly requested clarification.
“Of course. I feel like the storyboard is very dry although all the components that we agreed upon are in
there. This is just my guess but if we hand in the storyboard as is to the production team, we will end
up getting a commercial that doesn’t have any emotional appeal to the audience. In other words, it
won’t be emotionally engaging and that is the key to success for a commercial with the purpose of
motivating social changes,” Ace started to explain sternly.
“But I’m sure that we’ve incorporated all the scenes that should be relatable to the audiences…” I
mumbled.
“Producing a commercial is more than just putting scenes in a sequence. You should know that already,
right?” Ace asked in return.
I didn’t know what to say in response to that, so I just nodded. This was the worst possible scenario
that Jeremy had mentioned. Ace didn’t like our work and so we had to fix it. The question was how do
we do that? How do we transform what we have to make it more emotionally engaging?
“Thank you. Well noted. We’ll figure something out and set up another meeting with you again soon,”
Jeremy said.
“Thank you…” I thanked Ace as well.
Unlike Jeremy who seemed as motivated as ever, I felt slightly uncertain about how to push the work
forward. Frankly, this was the first time that I didn’t quite know how to go about my work. I’ve always
worked with clear and direct instructions on what needed to be fixed. This time, however, the
instructions were vague, and we had to think of our next steps on our own.
Well, this is surely challenging.
Ace didn’t say much after that, but it was crystal clear that he was dissatisfied with the quality of our
work and its lack of appeal. I should have known that Ace would have a super standard when it came
to calling for emotional appeal and connection from how his past successful commercials essentially
had that as one of its main selling points. What we had to change in order to make our commercial as
appealing as he was something that I have yet to figure out.
If I could figure it out so easily, then I might as well be Ace Hills.
“Don’t look so down and frustrated. I told you; this is normal…” Jeremy said while trying to keep his
tone light.
“I don’t know about you, but I have absolutely no idea how we should even start fixing this,” I admitted
bluntly.
Of course, I was frustrated. Who wouldn’t be?
It felt like I had just rammed into a brick wall headfirst and was forced to acknowledge that my head
wasn’t hard enough to crash through it.
“Honestly, I have no idea where to start either. However, that doesn’t mean that I don’t know where to
start looking,” Jeremy said before he flashed me a smile that bordered on looking cocky.
“Where should we start looking?” I asked with widened eyes.
“That’s a secret…” he mumbled before his smile widened.
“Not this thing about your secret place again…” I started complaining right away.
“Well, since we’re in this together and buried all the way to our necks, I’ll show you something
extremely cool,” Jeremy proposed excitedly.
“Your secret place?” I inquired just as excitedly.
If this place was the source of Jeremy’s inspiration, then it might solve the problem that we had on
hand. Plus, I really wanted to see where this genius got his creative juices from.
“Have you ever been to the company’s archive before?” Jeremy asked.
“There’s an archive?” I asked blankly.
I have never heard of such a thing existing in this company before. No one has ever mentioned it to
me.
“Yup. You don’t know anything about it? I would have thought that the design team would take a look
down there often,” Jeremy asked with clear surprise.
“Umm, I haven’t heard about it at all. What is kept there? I thought all the files are in the server and we
can already access them to pull up old files and data on past projects,” I said.
“Not really. Not all files are there, that’s for sure. The older files from many years back were never really
digitized and are still stored as paper in the archives. I guess many years ago, there were people who
still worked on paper mostly first before transferring it to computer files,” Jeremy explained. Content © NôvelDrama.Org 2024.
“I still do that sometimes, actually,” I admitted a little shyly when I thought of all my hand-drawn
storyboard drafts.
“I do too. Anyways, I think if we check out some older commercials, we might find some inspiration on
what we’re looking for,” he suggested with a smile.
“Good idea. Let’s go down there. I’ll leave it to you to lead the way,” I quickly agreed.
“Sure…” Jeremy replied before he smiled broadly at me.
I followed Jeremy to an elevator that seemed to be hidden way at the back of the building. Needless to
say, I had never been here before. The elevator that opened on the ground floor didn’t lead upwards
but downwards to the floors that were underground. I knew that there were floors underground, but I
never knew that anything down there could serve as inspiration to us designers.
“Your first time down here?” Jeremy took a guess.
“Yes…” I replied truthfully.
I didn’t quite know what to expect but the neat and clean hallway that greeted me wasn’t quite like what
I had pictured. The company must have very high standards to maintain even the floors underground
that are barely used. Jeremy led the way and after many turns along the hallway, we finally arrived at
what Jeremy referred to as his ‘secret place’: the company’s archive.
--To be continued…