#BehindtheSelfie with... Dani Hynes
1. Where do you live, work and play?
Hynes: Linden, Egg Films and wherever there is someone to laugh with.
2. What’s your claim to fame?
Hynes: I direct commercials for Egg, make a mean gin and tonic, and in toddler circles I am best known as “Cooper’s mom.”
3. Describe your career so far.
Hynes: Fun. Rewarding. Tough. Cool. Confusing to my bank manager at times.
4. Tell us a few of your favourite things.
Hynes: My son takes up 85% of this list. Then the other 15% mostly involves books, films, great conversations with good friends and a weird selection of music that makes my playlist the least likely to be loved on a road trip.
5. What do you love about your industry?
Hynes: The people. I get to work with incredible, funny, smart, amazing people, every day. I also work in the top 0.00008% of the world’s population that’s immune to Sunday night blues. I love what I do, so I am oblivious to the opening bars of the Carte Blanche theme tune. That and sarcasm are my super powers. What’s not to love?
6. What are a few pain points your industry can improve on?
Hynes: We could push for more time. More time to craft the ideas throughout the process gets you better results. It just does. We all stand by and admire Il Duomo di Firenze, but we forget that it took 200 years to be completed and was begun by a man who knew he would never live to see the construction completed. I am an instant-gratification junkie, but time is what really shows in every frame.
7. Describe your average workday, if such a thing exists.
Hynes: It’s like the love child of the Loch Ness and the Abominable Snowman; it doesn’t exist. There are a lot of early mornings and nights so late they basically are mornings.
8. What are the tools of your trade?
Hynes: My laptop. My phone. My brain. My over-developed people-watching skills. Good coffee. A sense of humour.
9. Who is getting it right in your industry?
Hynes: Anyone who finds the courage to trust the process, whether it is the director trusting the creatives’ instincts, the client trusting the director to deliver, or everyone trusting in the strength of the idea. Where there is trust, there can be magic.
10. What are you working on right now?
Hynes: My producer calls me Vegas because, for me, the first rule of making ads is to make them, and then to talk about them when people have seen them. I will say this: it’s a road-trip job for a very cool client.
11. Tell us some of the buzzwords floating around in the industry the moment, and some of the catchphrases you utter yourself.
Hynes: I have a personal aversion to buzzwords. I feel like they detract from the real stuff (Pokemon Go, obvs) that's going on. Phrases like "running things up flagpoles" and "sense checking" have never created better work; they can only create meetings. Every time there's a meeting that could have been an email an award-winning idea dies.
12. Where and when do you have your best ideas?
Hynes: Usually before 11am and wherever I am. I seldom have a pen.
13. What’s your secret talent/party trick?
Hynes: I can wear a spoon on my nose. I know: it’s tricky not to feel intimidated when you hear that.
14. Are you a technophobe or a technophile?
Hynes: Option C.
15. What would we find if we scrolled through your phone?
Hynes: Recce [work scouting trip] pics. Pictures of my son. Recordings of my son singing me songs or telling me jokes. Memes. Weird songs for pitches searched on Shazam (hence the weird playlists). Lots of game apps that aren’t mine.
16. What advice would you give to newbies hoping to crack into the industry?
Hynes: If you can imagine doing anything else, do it. If you can’t, then get into it any way you can. Find the best people. Work with them. Learn from them. Stay humble. Be nice. No matter what happens, remember how lucky you are to do what you love. Be generous with your ideas and stingy with the phrase "it's never going to work."
Simple as that. Visit the Egg Films press office for more, watch Hynes’ show reel by clicking here, and follow her on Twitter.
*Interviewed by Leigh Andrews.
About Leigh Andrews
Leigh Andrews AKA the #MilkshakeQueen, is former Editor-in-Chief: Marketing & Media at Bizcommunity.com, with a passion for issues of diversity, inclusion and equality, and of course, gourmet food and drinks! She can be reached on Twitter at @Leigh_Andrews.
