Managing the Team by Nikki Dy

I never imagined this semester would go the way it did. I sat in that metal garden chair by the AB building a regular student and didn’t expect to leave a managing director for Ideas That Matter. I remember seeing last semester’s Jansport event and was practically green with envy at how much fun it looked to be part of the team responsible. It must have been meant to be because entering this semester, I found out we would not be under our professor last semester but under Sir Gil Velez, a popular name among the halls of Beato. He is the professor in charge of Ideas That Matter.

Looking back on everything that happened these past few months, I don’t think any of it would have been possible if it wasn’t for the amazing team. I have been blessed with responsible, creative, and wonderfully kind people. Together we have pulled off an incredible semester’s worth of events not only well known in CFAD but also in other colleges. I recall seeing the satisfied faces of Thomasians as they left the Beato Gallery last February 28 and could only think that all the hardships we went through was definitely worth it. In the back of my mind, I never thought I had the leadership skills to pull off something this big but with the help and guidance of my co MD Rio, I can see that I was wrong. You really can do anything if you put your mind to it!
We started just conceptualizing and deciding on what this sem’s theme was gonna be, bouncing around fashion, singing, etc. but we ended up choosing OPM. Something relevant to all and yet is being somewhat neglected in this day and age. We began writing letters, making studies for posters, teasers, invites, looking for sponsors, etc. All sorts of campaign materials and now, here we are. The events are done and all that’s left are the post event reports. All I can say is thank you. Thank you to everyone who supported us this sem, thank you to Sir Velez for believing in my abilities, thank you to my partner in crime Rio for always being there for me, thank you to the team for always pushing me forward and helping me stand when I fall, and thank you to Ideas That Matter for the best experience ever and for giving me the opportunity to meet amazing people and experience unforgettable things.

Processing Papers by Henri Baes

Processing papers is no easy task! I mean, it's like you're all over the place yet, at the same time, you have to be organized or else you might lose a paper. You should keep a notebook with you so that you don't lose track of the papers. Also, every letter or paper that has to be signed or given out should always have a receiving copy for proof that the person you given the letter really received it.

The good thing for me though, is that I have been doing this for the past 2 years or so, because of the papers I've processed for my school organization. So more or less, I am familiar with the people I need to talk to and with the actual process that we have to go through.
There was one time when I had to deliver some letters to the Dean's office of AB, Commerce and Music. Unlike Beato, in these buildings, they don't usually allow students to use the elevator. I found it challenging because aside from rushing (I had a tight schedule that day), I had to run up the stairs: 2nd to 3rd floor of St. Raymond's and 4th floor of Albertus Magnus. It was really tiring.
But at the end of the day, when all the papers have been signed and delivered, it kind of feels like an achievement. After all, it is one of the important components of a successful event. :)

Being a Project Head by Dannah Gorospe

I never thought I will be a project head for Ideas That Matter. In fact, I don’t one to be one because I don’t know what will I do, I am not confident of myself, what if the event fails? What if everything goes wrong because of me? These thoughts were on my head the moment I was chosen to be the project head for Sir Jonas’ event. The thing is, I don’t know why I accepted the project. From all the negativities that eats me in that moment, I just thought that I will learn something from this.

Truly, being a project head is tiring. You are in charge of everything in the event, from posters to tarps, sound system, venue, even the chairs. But one thing is for sure, I am glad that my fellow org team members helped me through this event. They were very supportive. The event went through I will say that it’s successful even though there were some loopholes some problems that occurred the day itself but seeing the people who attended, and they learned something, seeing our guest, Mr. Jonas Delos Reyes happy, I am really sure the event was a success. And as for me, it was a really fun learning experience :D

TEAM BEAT

#1

When we heard about this year’s ideas that matter competition we were ecstatic. But as soon as we got the brief we felt kind of unsure. Doing an integrated marketing campaign is definitely not an easy job and doing one for classes A,B,C  promoting Original Pinoy Music is tragic.

            For our first meeting we talked about research. Xyla designated works for each of us. The paperworks were dreadful. It was so hard to do the team was still doing it hours before the presentation pass the actual executions.

            We were off to a very slow start and the other teams already had a head start. We started to doubt if we could pull it off with the competition date closing in on us. But alas, with team work, dedication and hours of bugging people to answer our surveys, we somehow did it.

#2

                I still remember the group talking over facebook up until around 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning.  Everyone was doing something and passing it over to Xyla. . Enzo did the posters, Cathy and Alexis tallied the survey and so on and so forth. Every hour there’s a notification in Team Beat’s private group. Facebook literally bled. Call time was around 7:00 and we’re still working on it around 5. We chased time.

            Fast forward to 7:00 am. We agreed to meet at Starbucks to finalize everything. Everyone was dressed up with heavy eyes and blank stares. Bangag as they call it. We we’re so worked up we forgot to buy even a single bread or a small cup of coffee. Pinagtambayan lang naming ‘yung Starbucks. There we read the script and assigned reading parts. Everything was okay, not what we expected.

            All teams were put inside a holding area. 2 was our number. When Team Melody went to present we felt the nerves. As they left the room to present our team started reviewing everything. As in last minute we we’re still figuring out a lot of important things (advertising statement to name one). It turns out we still had some air to clear. The minute the host called us our anxiousness intensified.

            With wobbly legs and shaky hands we presented. It is almost impossible not to look at the judges while presenting. Their faces were very hard to read. Q and A came and we we’re actually surprised with the jury’s modest questions. We were expecting to be humiliated but the jury was actually satisfied with what we did. We even got a ‘congratulations’ in the end.

            After all presentations, results were announced. We came second out of three teams. Team Rhythm definitely deserves the win. As for us we are grateful for the experience and for our prize, a pen and a pencil. J

#3

            Video production can be both heaven and hell – Heaven; when your shoot goes according to plan – the actors arrive on time – props are complete, equipment is ready and the location is set and the weather – nice and peachy. Hell when the actors are nowhere to be found, when props are missing and malfunctioning, equipment is faulty and the location and weather just don’t seem to be cooperating.
           

            Our video shoot started out a bit rough, to be honest, as only part of the cast had arrived. We managed to find a location, we set up and started shooting the parts that we could and I decided that we could just go back to the same locations when the cast was complete. A few hours later, the cast was complete and we could begin shooting properly – admittedly, we were off to a slow start but we picked up the pace when everyone was very enthusiastic about the shoot. We kept on shooting, enjoying every moment of it that we could spend with our newly made friends and team members. Appreciating each other’s company.

            At the end of the day’s shoot, we felt tired – but we had a sense of accomplishment not only because we were done shooting, but because we have made new friends and that we worked together to produce the video. But after all the waiting, the awkward moments and ugh.. the walking… (SO MUCH WALKING!! D:) we realized that it was all worth it in the end.

My ITM Experience

            Being an apprentice at Ideas That Matter Organizing Team is one of the many blessings that I want to thank God for. It really helps students prepare for professional carreer. Each meeting and event, a new lesson is being taught. I learned how to lead, to serve, to obey, to be a professional, and most of all, I discovered the artist within me.

            To our dearest adviser, Mr. Virgilio Velez, and to the rest of the ITM family, thank you for letting us join this team. It was a life-changing experience.

            To wrap this all up, I would like to share these words:

In omnibus, amare et srvire Domino.

“In everything, love and serve the Lord.” –be a good servant of God and you’ll be a good leader.

Quick Turnaround 101 BY Inna Macaspac

As a video editor of the Ideas That Matter organizing team, I get to work on a lot of videos to be played on the events we are having. In last semester’s ITM, I got 7 videos (one and a half minute each) to make, all to be played in a single day. My assignments are assigned 2-3 weeks before the event day, so I have a lot of time to work on them. Sir Velez checks them a week before the event to see if revisions are necessary. That’s my time frame for making videos for ITM.

Then there came the videos I have to accomplish in a shorter span of time. WAY SHORTER! And it is less than 24 hours!

I first encountered this situation during this year’s On-the-spot Painting Competition, in which some of the ITM org team members volunteered to be part of the media group. I was assigned to make a video documentary of the said event using videos and photos taken by the rest of the group.

That video to be produced will be played in the closing part of the event, so that means I have to make use of my remaining time wisely to finish it before the deadline. From the time I acquired the first source files, I had about 5 hours left to do the video.

I spent those 5 hours focused on working (and raging over my Adobe Premiere that keeps crashing). Towards the end of my working time, the feeling of pressure increases. But fortunately I managed to finish the video on time. Well, not really, the video was meant to be played before the announcement of the winners, and that time the video was still rendering, so it was played after the announcement.

My second time was after the day we had three events, and Sir Velez told me beforehand that I have to make a flashback video showing the events ITM had for this semester, from Jonas De Los Reyes’ talk to Elvin Villar’s talk. And the video is supposed to be shown to the audience in the IMC Competition the following day. Of course, in order to get started, I have to wait until the end of the day to get the files to be used.

After I got back to my dorm with the hard drive containing all the photos and videos taken that day, I quickly opened my laptop and started editing. That video was the last I have to do for the last event. Pressure still bugs me, plus the drowsiness due to the previous sleepless nights. But I still managed to get it done and it was played nicely in front of the audience.

Quick turnaround means to complete a work within a short span of time. Pressure is inevitable. Those two pieces of experience served as signs for me to prepare for a lot of works like these in the future, because in the people in the advertising industry often work under pressure.

I really thank Ideas That Matter for being my training ground as a student.

TEAM RHYTHM

: In the Making

Ideas that Matter taught us how it works in the industry, well sort of, since we made a campaign. It made us realize a team comes up with a full-on campaign together as they overcome their differences, especially in how creative people all think different.

 Our team is composed of people working together for the first time and it was mind boggling how we got to share our ideas so fast on our first thursday 9am meeting, and the thurdsdays that followed, despite being unfamiliar with each other. But as days go by, we started to create a bond.

Our team worked so fast that we were just waiting for the defense to seal the deal. Well not literally cos looking back the whole planning was a month or more. Still, it felt really fast, especially with our creatives coming up with a legit song in a week, and recording a music video that excatly portrays the youth's hipness today the next. Team Rhythm was like a campaign machine chugging out results while dealing with our academics all at the same time. Our team proved that following deadlines and working your butt off researching and squeezing your brain for the big idea pays off well. The feeling of making our minds work together while at the same time getting to know each other was overwhelming yet fulfilling.

: On the Day of Presentation according to the 2 sophomore apprentices

Being part of a Competing Team in Ideas That Matter is a worthwhile experience and of course at first it feels different working with the higher years because they have more experience in the field of advertising already, but little did we know that they have taught us 2nd years lots of things even if we didn’t ask too much questions. Basically, we listened to them while they come up with the Big Ideas, and read the papers and studied the designs required for our campaign in order to justify them for the day of defense in March 1. Our leader is very hard working, (including our fellow members, of course which leaves us in awe of their executions and other works) and it makes us think that that is the best attitude needed for our team to finish the campaign. We really didn’t regret accepting this opportunity because we have learned a lot as part of the Research Team, and now I think it is an edge towards next year. (Marjorie Fader) This opportunity to join a competing team in Ideas That Matter really gave me the chance to learn a lot of things regarding the advertising and marketing industry. It gave me the chance to work with the higher years and I can say that it was a great experience since working with them really changed my perception on different things. I have learned a lot especially that I somehow became exposed with the things that should be done in the real advertising world. I also appreciate all the efforts and hard work of the 3rd year members in our group. They are really giving their best effort to produce a very good output for the campaign. It was indeed a fun and learning experience. (Marielle Papica)

During the day of the presentation itself, we felt really nervous as we were studying the paper and our part as apprentices but we also felt more comfortable with our team, too especially during those chill and fun moments. The more that we are with Team Rhythm, the more we admire how we all took part in making a winning entry. Also, we have decided to have a team shirt which is of course about OPM. But it is not just to promote our campaign but also to show to people that we are really united and one as a team. But then, we felt even more nervous when the 2 previous teams came back from the Gallery telling us how they fared during the defense and we kept on wondering how the jury will ask the questions since it is our first time facing a panel of juries. Seeing Sir Velez is nerve wrecking too, because we didn’t know him well yet. But knowing that we practiced well before our defense, we felt a little confident that we can deliver it well especially because we worked really hard for this. During our part of the presentation we’re glad that we got to deliver it well because if we didn’t, it will be a shame because it wasn’t really that hard in the first place. Looking at how the juries observed the executions and seeing their reactions from the music video, it seems that they liked our campaign really well and that is a very good sign meaning that our team made a very idealistic design and structure for the campaign. It is such an honor winning this campaign, and we really admired how our ates and kuyas worked really well for it. We are really proud of our team, and also to their fellow batch mates. We really didn’t expect that the presence of us 2nd years will be acknowledged and we’re glad that we served as a help toward the 3rd years. We hope that for the next year, if we were given the chance to work again for Ideas That Matter, we’ll be able to pull off very brilliant concepts like the higher years have done despite working hard for academics too.

: Video Production

The creation and production of our music video started on a 7am meet up at the UP Quezon hall. It's a long way from where we're all from although it is a nice trip for some of us who have not been there yet. We practice our shots as we wait for the other element for our music video, CFAD'S One Shade Dance Troupe. We were honored for them to say yes to our invitation to be in our music video. Fortunately enough, a number of them showed up for the shoot. We then looked for different locations for the shots and then settled beneath the trees at one spot near the Quezon hall. As the shoot goes on from there, and the One Shade start to do their moves, we cannot hide the fact that we were all excited for the holi powder to be added to the shoot later in the day. The powder was actually quite expensive. It cost 250 for a pack which had 4 colors packed in small plastics, and we bought 3 in all. All the expenses were worth it though because absolutely all of us in the shoot had fun. It did not feel like we did the shoot from 7-2. From then on, we rested and ate near a fast food chain for a post meeting after the shoot. There was a general feeling that the team became more bonded after the shoot.