The Way I See It: Daniel Bergmann

Daniel Bergmann, 48, is the Czech-born managing director of the London-based international production company Stink. He started his career as an art promoter and fundraiser in Prague and New York before moving into production with Stillking. His award-winning work includes Philips Carousel, Levi’s Ready to Work and Honda Impossible Dream. Bergmann talks to Diana Goodman

I would describe myself as a very social kind of a creature. I like people and the mystery of human thinking and perception.

I studied psychology and I am always intrigued to see how people respond to certain information, as individuals and as a mass. Because I grew up in communist times we didn’t have advertising, but we did have government propaganda. It was interesting to see how people reacted.

You could say that advertising uses similar methods – that there are links between propaganda and selling products. We were always told that the Americans were about to attack us, so there was definitely a fear strategy there. And now people are told that if they don’t use some hair shampoo they will get dandruff. It is a little frightening when you think about what we are doing.

I have very good memories of growing up in Czechoslovakia. Although it was communist it was also very European: civilised and cultured, with a strong identity. Also, communism exposed us to questions of ethics and morals. The system was imposed on us as a satellite of the Soviet Union and nobody really believed in it, yet some collaborated and made a profit, a whole lot more people were passive, and then there was a group who were actively against the communists. Those were decisions you really had to make.

My family were in the opposition part of society. My father was a philosopher of history who’d been through Auschwitz and he was a very active dissident in a group of intellectuals close to Václav Havel. My mother was a nuclear scientist and was so good at what she did that the communists couldn’t touch her. She’d survived the war by being hidden by other people.

My father didn’t speak very much about the camps. Sometimes, when we made him angry, he would tell us how spoiled we were and say, ‘You should have seen what it was like in Auschwitz’. But we didn’t understand.

He was just a kid from an old Jewish family in Prague, but he survived due to a mixture of luck and strong determination. I take after him a little bit, I think – that kind of relentless will to make things happen and make it through.

We are secular Jews and go to synagogue only on very high holidays. But I do believe in some kind of higher being. I also think there is a law about how we should live and it’s much the same for everyone; religions are just interpretations. Christianity, Islam, Judaism, even Buddhism are quite similar in terms of how to behave and having respect for living creatures.

Before the Velvet Revolution we had no clue that anything would change, although people had started to travel and I went to Berlin a few times. Then at the beginning of 1989 there were some demonstrations and the communists made the mistake of arresting people, including Havel. I was working with underground artists and you could feel that the communists were starting to disintegrate. Some of them wanted to put us all in jail or shoot us. The others were trying to think of how to change and become businessmen.

I remember the moment when the East Germans began escaping through Hungary and Czechoslovakia to West Germany: they were climbing over the embassy wall in Prague. And it was like a domino effect: Poland, Hungary, East Germany... We were just waiting. Then there was a big demo where everyone got terribly beaten up and there was a rumour that a student had been killed. There was such anger that the next day a million and half people demonstrated and the communists resigned.

The next morning I was out walking and there was such a strange atmosphere. I realised the whole place was changed: there were no police and no control. Suddenly we were totally free.

I think Britain had that experience of people behaving in a completely different way, just a tiny bit, when Princess Diana died. It’s a very good thing for society.

I was very happy as a child. My parents were wonderful people and we were a very tight family. My father exposed us to books when we were very young and was ambitious about us being knowledgeable. My mother was a scientist, very quiet and polite, and my brother was like her – rather empirical. I was more interested in liberal issues and human studies.

When I was a teenager I was into New Wave, and I had a leather jacket and blue hair. My mother was running a very complicated laboratory and she spent a lot of time in Japan helping people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So she really was not bothered by coloured hair and a leather jacket. I think my father was quite pleased. But my brother, who is very dry – never drinks, never lies – just looked at me and said, ‘What an idiot’.

As a child of five or six, when I first realised I would die I was really amazed. The idea of being mortal was pretty scary and I got frightened at night. Now, I’m more intrigued, although I don’t believe in an afterlife.

My father passed away a few years ago at the age of 74. It was the worst time of my life because I was so close to him. Because of his history he had terrible tuberculosis and in fact he met my mother in a TB sanatorium after getting out of the camp. He’d lost half of his lungs and always knew he would not live to a great age. His last words were: ‘I don’t want to die’.

I was there when he died and it’s a strange experience when you see the life go out of someone. It was an important experience for me. You realise that the body itself is not so important – that physical existence is relative and also definite. I don’t have the feeling that my father has died. Physically he has, but he’s alive in my thoughts and dreams.

When I was growing up, we always talked about relatives I’d never met because they’d been killed in the camps. My father often spoke about his father and uncles and others, and I think perhaps in that way there is an afterlife. In the memories.

My mother splits her life now between her apartment in Prague and an old country house which has been in our family for hundreds of years. We used to go there for the whole summer and my first memories are from that house. The big forest next to it, the garden and the flowers.

I would say that – besides my parents – writing, philosophy and a little bit of poetry have been my main inspiration. As a child I was intrigued by Kafka and Dostoevsky, and Edgar Allan Poe. The dark philosophers and writers.

I studied psychology for two years and then went to the States on a Fulbright. I did two years between NYU and the New School for Social Research, but I was also dealing with artists and putting together exhibitions. Somehow in the middle of this I was asked to help
find locations to shoot a Coke ad in the Czech Republic. Then I was approached by an ABC TV producer who wanted to do a film about the children’s opera at the Terezin concentration camp. That took me back to Prague.

Living in London, for a long time, was very difficult. I grew up in central Europe, where you can go to a coffee house and hold a discussion with anyone. London is just not that sort of intellectual city; they don’t like to talk about art or politics and if you go out, people are drinking heavily. Everybody is so closed socially and it takes many years to penetrate that. But when you do, it’s very good.

Stink’s philosophy from the beginning was to create a kind of global creative company, to try to find pockets of the best creativity all around the world. We are multicultural, multidisciplined and experimental (combining traditional with digital). Also, it sounds clichéd, but we try to create trends rather than following them. That’s very important for us.

I enjoyed being a juror at Cannes this year. It was a very different way of experiencing Cannes because we were judging 24/7 and it was challenging to see all the work. Sometimes I couldn’t understand why people had bothered to enter it.

I’ve never fired anybody. Ever. Most of the people who work at Stink stay for a long time and many started as runners so they are very loyal to us.

I don’t believe that consumers differ much from one country to another. If you create something creatively intriguing and accessible to people, the reaction of humans is pretty similar. There might be slight cultural or political differences, but essentially it’s the same.

The campaigns I’m most proud of are: Carousel; Honda Impossible Dream; Diesel; and Levi’s with John Hillcoat through Skunk.

Carousel was the most difficult. A motion control shoot overnight. It was very cold.

What I dislike most in advertising is the lack of transparency which is sometimes present. We’ve had a few experiences where you work very hard and submit the work and nobody ever gets back to you. It is such a lack of respect.

My most disappointing experience was losing a job when I wasn’t experienced enough. I think it was a Radiohead video with Ivan Zacharias.

The best part is winning jobs. Working on Carousel with Stink Digital and Adam Berg was a very good experience. And working with John Hillcoat on the Levi’s commercial was very rewarding.

What makes my work distinctive is that I am quite intuitive and I’m obsessed with every last detail. I do suffer if I feel I haven’t put everything into a project and explored every angle – including the unexpected. I like that feeling of surprise – when you can keep the focus but discover something new.

People think I’m a workaholic, which may be a good thing. But I’m learning to relax.

I do think there is a stigma attached to advertising, in that it’s turning the spinning wheel of capitalism. We are part of the consumer machine and the belief that consuming is an important part of people’s lives, which of course it isn’t. We can do it in an aesthetically compelling way but the stigma remains. We all know it – the more intelligent people in the business.

Advertising is not a business [to stay in] for long. Who wants to turn around when they’re 80 years old and say they spent their whole life in advertising and marketing? The best people in advertising want to use their skills sometime to do more socially responsible work – such as for charities. Something more than just selling.

I admire people who can be very focused but keep human qualities and be ethical.

People who can be successful without being technocratic. People who don’t only live onesided lives. I really admire Stephen Hawkings. And JFK. And Buddha.

The products I would never work on are… cigarettes and some political parties.

Personally, I am left-of-centre; more Labour than Conservative in UK terms. I believe in social equality and social responsibility. And I don’t believe in the dictatorship of capitalism, where all depends on entrepreneurial talent. Some people are not born with it. The Scandinavian model of socialism is probably my ideal.

My interests are: exercise – crazy long runs; culture of any kind; and humans – anthropology, psychology. I like to travel, as well.

My favourite artwork is early Andy Warhol. I wouldn’t be able to say exactly which one.

Mostly, if I’m alone, I listen to classical music – more modern stuff like Stravinsky. Not so much pop music or bands.

I modestly care about what others think of me. It doesn’t really restrain me, but I do care. I think it’s a reflection of how you are and you can’t ignore it. You live in a society of other people so you have to take their measure of you seriously.

My greatest weakness is impatience.

What makes me really angry is when people aren’t direct. I think it’s important for a person to express the truth. It’s disrespectful when you’re talking to someone if you’re not open about what you think.

Money is not that important to me. I’m not a very consuming person and I don’t need much in my life, so I’m not very obsessed by it. But I would not want to be struggling and it’s important to have enough to stay free.

My greatest regret is my early relationship with my brother, because there was a period when we were young when it was terrible. We couldn’t stand each other. I still regret it, even though our relationship has now been repaired.

My view of marriage is that it’s an unnecessary institution. I think the relationship is more important than marriage.

I have two children – Samuel and Sara – from two different ladies. My first was born when I was very young, just 22, and I wasn’t really conscious of the responsibility involved, although it was very beautiful. My second was born when I was 31 and I was more aware. But I’m not obsessed with parenthood. I don’t believe my kids are better than any others; it’s just about bringing them up responsibly.

What children need most is parents – or someone – who loves them and takes care of them, in whatever social environment. The kids I see who are the most fucked up are those who don’t have any love in their lives.

If I could change the world, I would take away all the borders and try to create one union. I would also try to make the distribution of wealth more fair.

What gives me real pleasure? Sex.

In the end, what really matters is… love between people. Within humankind and between individuals.