Start of the competition

On January 10, somewhere in the mythical city of Tashkent, well... mythical in the eyes of foreigners who had never been there that is - animatedly sat a dude before his desk. If there was some ghost presiding in a dark corner of the room, it could watch that enthusiastic young man agitatedly scratch his head, sometimes bite his nails while mumbling about something, and occasionally throw his hands up and to the sides in a fit of euphoria. Yes, that potential ghost was watching Navruz finish all there was to finish in his preparation for the upcoming tender presentation.

He already told Max about his participation, to which the latter dude kept himself tightlipped while still being glad inside. After briefing his friend, Navruz plunged into the creative process.

Apparently, Navruz had no prior experience whatsoever with this kind of serious project. The most he had ever done is to film several weddings for a quick cash, and oh boy, it was a quick cash indeed. So, he wasn't rookie when it came to the filming itself, and coupled with his photography skills passed down from his grandpa, he was barely qualified for filming an ad.

But there was a problem. The place where he would be presenting was dedicated for young, inexperienced people such as himself. So he would be competing against the other dudes and dudies, not the real experts. And only after he passes the first stage would he be able to secure a spot in the more serious round of bids. In that round, it would be guaranteed that most of the participants would be the professional ad agencies.

So the question was, why would there be a first round for younguns in the first place? Well, that was the initiative by the newly appointed Vice President of Marketing Department of that electronics company. Coincidentally, he was the youngest son of the company's chairman. What a coincidence indeed.

Battling against aspirants, only to lose to the experienced and well-equipped industry incumbents, that was probably the fate that was awaiting our Navruz. Well, he would at least come and give it a shot, a blast, a barrage, a battery.... a, emm, whatever.

.... Our Navruz, with everything in place, went to the venue where the competition was to be held. Instead of taking a taxi, he went with the usual subway instead. Compared to the Pacman, it would take twice as much to get there, but it was to his advantage as he would calm down and collect his thoughts. Walking would also be good since it positively stimulated his brain and slowly made him enter the state of flow.

Unfortunately, he couldn't keep that wonderful state because he spotted his friend who was waiting at the front of the venue entrance, "This humble one greets the oh-wise dude"

To that, Max juggled some of the options in his mind as he still wasn't able to fully master this kind of nonsensical speech style, and so he finally chose this reply, "Oh the bullshitiest, this one reciprocates the greeting"

They stared at each for as long as it took their exaggeratedly serious face to morph into normal ones, "Ok, lets get down to the business" said Max as he was the first to give in.

Navruz shrugged and added noncommittally, "Ok"

And so they got down to the business, discussing some staff related to the competition. Max never asked Navruz whether he was ready to present or not, he just had that much confidence in his buddy. Navruz, seeing that, got even more confident, though he was already brimming with confidence even before the chat. Now he felt like Johnny Bravo on steroids, minus all the braindead stuff.

Chat is chat, and cheese is cheese, so they had to enter the venue. For Max, it was to find an unoccupied seat, and for Navruz, it was to communicate with the technical personnel and arrange everything there was to arrange.

Max found a seat close to the center of auditorium, slightly left he would say. After two rows in front, there was a separate row reserved for judges, well, anyone could tell it by the fancier seats on it. So the place where Max would be sitting for the duration of this evening was more close to the scene rather than the back. The auditorium itself could accommodate 200 people. If you discount seats for the judges and reporters, then there were probably around 150-160 seats left to be filled by people who came to cheer for the participants, or just bored out of their mind dudes and dudies who caught the wind of this event.

Max slowly scanned his surroundings. He noted to himself two entrances, one which the guests could come from, and it was on the left, and the other was to be used by the participants and the staff, and it was on the right, respectively. The one that interested him the most was the entrance on the right. There he could see many of his peers nervously walking in circles while reciting something, others were either chilling on the side or checking the presentation material. There were some who constantly bothered the staff about something. Max speculated that they were trying to get reassured that nothing would go wrong mid-presentation, at least from the technical aspect.

While Max was warming his seat, Navruz was... em, doing the exact same thing. He was also warming his seat as he just relaxedly sat on an available chair in the technical area. He was doing none of the things that Max saw others do. If before, that supposed apartment ghost witnessed Navruz jump from one state of excitement to another, now he was like a Buddhist monk who got laid for the first time in his life. A truly apt description of his current self.

After the emcee announced the start of the event, he invited the first dude onto the scene. He was economics major senior at "Narxoz" (Country Wealth). Everyone could see that his presentation skills were up to the task, but what wasn't up to the task was his content, which was actually the more important of the two. But everyone was glad that it was him who was to break the ice, and well, his bid would probably flop anyway as there was nothing substantial to his ideas. That dude actually went with a safe option for the ad, but he didn't know that the professionals of the second round would offer that kind of safe option anyway, and they had expertise and all the other means that the student lacked. Some of the judges were shaking their heads.

After the first came the second, and so on. There were some presenters with relatively good ideas. One in particular suggested the ad to be filmed in the quick montage style of Edgar Wright, taking the morning routine of Shaun from "Shaun of the Dead" as the basis. So he proposed to film a salaryman returning home after boiling hot working hours and do the quick montage thing for undressing, taking a shower, brewing some tea, and finally, turning on the new air conditioner while plumping on a sofa.

All in all, it was the best proposal so far, but it had one glaring shortcoming. The presenter didn't explain how the cinematography would connect with the audience, and whether this approach would make the product successfully marketed at all. He just concentrated on the "freshness" and "coolness" of the idea, forgetting about the market analysis behind any advertisement. But it still stayed as the favorite... well, until it was the turn of our dude, and oh boy, it was his turn.

Navruz, still remaining in that monk state, went onto the stage with an unhurried pace. He first made eye contact with judges, then proceeded to check the mic, and while he was checking it, a staff member finally opened the ppt file which was then projected on the white screen. Only after wasting two minutes of everyone's time did our dude start the presentation.

"Hello everyone, before we get into the gist of my presentation, let's watch a video montage from several movies and then of standup routines from local comedians." Navruz, concluding that introductory sentence, walked off to the sidelines while everyone in the audience just sat there flummoxed at the novel entry of this contestant.

After Navruz pushed some buttons on the remote controller, the video montage finally started off. That video included clips from various disaster movies and just about any crisis scenario, be it zombie apocalypse or alien invasion, and so on and so forth. They may have varied in style, but what they did have in common was that in each clip there was a mass of people scrambling towards a particular direction, most of the time it was towards the camera. The individuals in that mass had expressions ranging from fear to even craving.

When the sequence of movie clips ended, it was the time for standup performances. There, anyone could immediately recognize familiar faces of the legendary Uzbek comedians like Obid Asomov and Hojiboy Tojiboyev. This part of the montage was shorter than the one dedicated to movies, but it was still long enough to make people even more confused as to where this was all heading to.

Finally, to break said confusion, Navruz stepped up and started his speech, "You might be wondering why you were shown this video. Well, my prospective ad would contain some elements from that video. My vision is such: the ad will start from establishing the usually unrelenting hot Uzbek summer, accompanied by overarching drums that will establish the grandioseness. The boiling heat is pervading every household, making people crave for chill, so all people will go out hearing the news of the new air conditioner." Here, Navruz paused to survey the audience and clearly see their reaction.

He must admit that he did catch the attention of the fine dudes and dudies gathered in this venue, including the reporters and judges alike. They were especially intrigued by the connection that Navruz would probably make between epic disaster movies and standup comedy. Most of them could already partially picture the ad because of the Navruz' vision, and they only had to wait a little to see whether this ambitious start had what it takes.