There isn't enough mentoring about how to create great comedy spots, but there's even less about how to create epic, emotional work. So I wanted to share one of my favorite techniques for making work more epic (ironically, this sometimes works for comedy as well).  

When I’m trying to create something epic, I try to "Get Biblical." Let me give you an example. Years ago Ryan O’Rourke and I were working on a Nike football brief that had to feature Troy Polamalu and Ladainian Thomlinson.  We came up with this idea of two high school football players that lived in different cities and have never met. As we cut back and forth between the two players, they are always in motion--one is going from screen left to right, the other is going screen right to left through their life, high school career, and college career until they eventually collide in a professional game. It was a spot about destiny, which is already a biblical/epic theme, and probably would have been a decent spot. But we wondered what we could do to make it even more epic. So we looked to some of the most epic stories ever told, and asked ourselves, "What are the story elements, and archetypes of the stories that have lasted for thousands of years?" Which led us to religion. Many of the most iconic stories about legendary people start when they’re babies. Buddha, Moses, Jesus. The answer was obvious. To make our story more epic, instead of starting when the players where in high school, it needed to start when they were babies. So that's what we did. Getting David Fincher to direct didn't hurt either. Check out the spot below and let me know what you think. And to learn a bunch more techniques for making your work more epic, come hang out with me for 8 weeks in my Creative Megamachine program.