The early bird grinds its teeth
Most of us go to the store to buy Fairies or Pampers we don't even think about the fact that these things have beautiful Lithuanian names - dishwashing detergent and diapers. And if we do think about it, it's about why they're stuck in our memory, how Fairy with Pampers, we really don't think so. However, the Lithuanian film advertising shark Mantvidas Žalėnas claims that all this is done by advertising, which in one way or another penetrates our lives.
STUDIES
Mantvidas graduated from the VMU Bachelor of Arts program. However, he himself claims that he was never an artist and chose this specialty because he always liked to be interested in art. Many of his friends at the time entered such popular specialties as architecture and management, while Mantvidas took a different path, but it turns out that it was not the worst one. The guy who had difficulty entering the university put a lot of his time and effort into achieving the best result, and that is why he was able to graduate from the university with very good grades.
CAREER
Speaking about the beginning of Mantvidas' career, the young man recalls his attempts to find a suitable job for him: "My parents didn't really pass my third year and I didn't want to do it anymore, so I got a summer job at Statoil, on Karaliaus Mindaugas Avenue. At that time, the money there was unrealistic for me as a student. But I stayed exactly one day, because I realized that I couldn't work there. I came to Ina Pukelytė at the Kaunas Drama Theatre and told her that I wanted to work for them. At that time, they started to introduce a website, so I started working there, writing down what the actors write by hand. After that, I worked as a prop. It lasted 2 weeks. Later, I got a job as a project manager. And then I became a marketing manager. It was convenient for me to work there, because it became easy to write my bachelor's degree. At that time, I took a break from work to write my diploma thesis."
Gradually, with a lot of work, effort and ideas, Mantvid managed to make the theatre attractive to young people. From here, as he himself says, a revolution began, when various discounts and even parties on the stage began to be held in the theatre. The theatre became more youthful, attendance doubled, and after a while the halls became packed. There were also those who did not like Mantvid's methods of attracting young people, according to them, the stage is sacred and there are no aces can't be there. But the result was astonishing. There were few halls at the time, they were unrepaired and ugly, but they managed to make them full of people.
Currently, Mantvidas works in several institutions. One of his jobs is advertising in cinemas. "A colleague suggested showing advertisements before films and gave me this project to develop, because there was no such thing in Lithuania, only abroad. We created software that controls the cinema projector, we automated everything. Now we sell the program abroad," says the Ute native.
Another job for the guy is creating film commercials. Here, the young man has to work with such famous companies as The Walt Disney Company, Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox and others. Mantvidas' team takes care of creating commercials for films, trailer, which will be shown in Lithuania.
When asked whether he is a businessman or an artist, Mantvidas replies that nowadays the latter must be a businessman. “A nineteenth-century artist was imagined with a scarf, a beret, a pipe and a couple of venereal diseases. That was the image,” the guy says. Now it’s different. In order to earn money from your artistic abilities, you have to have the ability of a salesman.
Another area of Mantvidas' work is film distribution: "We select films that we should show here in Lithuania and create advertising campaigns for them, and cinemas show them." Incognito Films is a company of the Media Incognito group, which is dedicated to distribution. One of the most famous examples is the advertisement for the film "Buried Alive", which caused surprise, indignation and huge sales of the film among most Lithuanians.
Currently, the young man is temporarily managing the Kaunas Film Studio.
Mantvidas himself says that he is on two sides of the barricades – he sells advertising and at the same time buys films and distributes them.
WORK RHYTHMS
“My workday starts at 6 am. I work out, have breakfast, go to work around 8 am, have lunch, work until 6-7 pm, exercise, then work on clips and go to bed. To be productive, you need to balance your physical and mental workload. I swim in the pool when I’m not working,” Mantvidas says about his day. However, with such a busy schedule, it’s sometimes difficult to manage various other tasks: “I haven’t bought my mother an ionizer for two weeks, but I’ll buy one someday,” the guy smiles. “Find a job you love and you won’t have to work, of course I get tired, it happens, but I haven’t had a vacation that would last longer than a week since my third year,” says Mantvidas.
"You know, money is like a side effect of making your dream come true. I didn't have rich parents, it wasn't like they gave it to me, you do everything from scratch, you have to sweat a little, especially in a field like mine," the guy says about the money he earns. "Sometimes I even pay my people more to do better, I don't count. But if I worked at one job, it wouldn't be enough, but a little from there, a little from somewhere else, and you live normally."
FUTURE
Working intensively and striving for the best results, but not standing still and already planning future work, Mantvidas mentions that in the future he would like to make films himself. And not only would he like to, but he will do it. However, at the moment, as he himself says, he is throwing a lot of balls and in order not to lose them, you need to put them aside and only then grab a new one.
WISHES TO STUDENTS
"While you're still young, don't go on vacation or drink beer. Now is the time to make a commitment, because later it will be too late. You'll miss the chance to get hooked and do what you love."
AUTHOR: Julia Yudina
