So I'm sitting here on Virgin America, 35,000 feet up in the sky, posting to my blog.
The experience can only be described as... groovy.
If you've flown Virgin, you'll know what I mean. This is my first flight on Virgin (insert Virgin "virgin" joke here). The service is impeccable, the amenities top-notch, even in coach (or the "main cabin" as the airlines like to call it).
And yet, spoiled little shit that I am, 15 minutes ago I was sitting here getting all tweaky because the interactive screen that plays the movies and music and games and TV, and lets me order food and drinks and chat with other passengers was frozen, and the wi-fi wasn't working.
Can you imagine? The wi-fi wasn't working.
Boo hoo.
How self important I am, what an sense of entitlement I feel to actually get bent out of shape because technology that wasn't even available a couple of years ago is now a little sluggish when I've got my ass in the seat.
It is amazing, it should be amazing and never stop being amazing that any of this works at all.
So for my next act, from 35,000 feet up and without a net, I am going to download a couple of spots that I thought it might be fun to share with you.
I love the Geico ad, and I'm not ashamed to say that I love the cavemen.
Geico, (well the Martin Agency, really), has developed a brilliant strategy of running completely different campaigns, concurrently, for the same product.
Yes, yes, I know that each campaign focuses on a different feature of the brand. The googly eyes are about saving money, the cavemen about ease of use, the gecko about name recognition.
But while almost every other advertiser would attempt to cram all of these messages into the same :30 second bag, Geico and Martin don't. They create singular spots about a single idea. How refreshing.
Stories unfold. Characters are developed. Laughs ensue.
They have got that soooooo right.
Then this little gem of a Metro PCS spot, which I also love. The only thing that could make this spot better would be a talking unicorn. It's so "what the fuck-y" it can't help but break through, and it does.
But it's the location for both spots that makes them really good, I think. Why does it feel so right for the quirky freaks in these spots to inhabit bowling alleys?
Because no matter how you tart it up, no matter how top shelf the booze you serve, or how fancy the menu, a bowling alley is still a bowling alley.
A bowling alley is the ultimate "come as you are" venue. A place where you can be yourself. Have a few beers with a few buddies. Whoop a little bit and throw some high fives. There is no preponderance of etiquette in a bowling alley. No golf whispers. No one puts on airs.
You can accept each other, and be accepted by others, for who and what you are.
Like an alien can accept a giant. Like a neanderthal can let his inner caveman come out for a little while.
And don't forget the beer.
Ice. Cold. Beer.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Friday, October 30, 2009
My Early Alzheimers
I can sometimes be absent-minded.
My wife keeps mentioning early Alzheimer's. Maybe that's so, because much like someone with Alzheimer's, I can't remember what I ate for dinner yesterday, but I have no problem at all remembering small details from nine or ten years ago.
Which is why, when I saw this spot, I thought "RockyMortonFoxSportsNet". (I really thought it like that... one long word with no spaces.)
But the spot was not directed by Rocky Morton, and it is not for Fox Sports Net. This one was...
...and so was this one.
The first spot, for the Game Show Network, is Shoot Online's "Top Spot of the Week".
By the way, is "Spot of the Week" not superlative enough that it needs to be modified with "Top"? Are there other spots of the week? I never got that.
Anyway, is it just me, or is this "Top Spot of the Week" really, really similar to the other (funnier) work?
I wrote a post in July about two spots with strikingly similar creative, wondering if it was possible that the same basic idea could be developed independently, without the second agency being aware of the work another agency had done before.
I guess it is possible.
This, however, is a blatant rip off, and it is executed in a painfully clumsy way. The tag line is exactly the same. I mean come on, at least change the words around a little.
What makes this even worse is that in an effort to make the plagiarism less obvious, the very thing that makes the joke work has been changed so that now there is no joke at all. In the Fox work, the protagonist is saved from a compromising situation by a sports question, hence the line, "If only every question was a sports question".
If only indeed. The sports question just saved a hapless slacker from explaining why Fluffy is licking his nipple and there's a boner in his pajamas.
In the GSN spot who would want the question to be a Newlywed Game question? The boss? Why? The employee? I don't think so... in the next scene she'll be getting written up by HR, wishing she'd never opened her mouth.
When you change the structure so that somebody doing something ordinary is asked a funny question the construct falls apart. Plus, the question isn't funny anyway.
So tell me, please, is there something about this spot that I am missing which makes it the "Top Spot of the Week" ?
No, I didn't think so.
For the love of God, if you're going to steal someone's creative, at least don't fuck it up.
My wife keeps mentioning early Alzheimer's. Maybe that's so, because much like someone with Alzheimer's, I can't remember what I ate for dinner yesterday, but I have no problem at all remembering small details from nine or ten years ago.
Which is why, when I saw this spot, I thought "RockyMortonFoxSportsNet". (I really thought it like that... one long word with no spaces.)
But the spot was not directed by Rocky Morton, and it is not for Fox Sports Net. This one was...
...and so was this one.
The first spot, for the Game Show Network, is Shoot Online's "Top Spot of the Week".
By the way, is "Spot of the Week" not superlative enough that it needs to be modified with "Top"? Are there other spots of the week? I never got that.
Anyway, is it just me, or is this "Top Spot of the Week" really, really similar to the other (funnier) work?
I wrote a post in July about two spots with strikingly similar creative, wondering if it was possible that the same basic idea could be developed independently, without the second agency being aware of the work another agency had done before.
I guess it is possible.
This, however, is a blatant rip off, and it is executed in a painfully clumsy way. The tag line is exactly the same. I mean come on, at least change the words around a little.
What makes this even worse is that in an effort to make the plagiarism less obvious, the very thing that makes the joke work has been changed so that now there is no joke at all. In the Fox work, the protagonist is saved from a compromising situation by a sports question, hence the line, "If only every question was a sports question".
If only indeed. The sports question just saved a hapless slacker from explaining why Fluffy is licking his nipple and there's a boner in his pajamas.
In the GSN spot who would want the question to be a Newlywed Game question? The boss? Why? The employee? I don't think so... in the next scene she'll be getting written up by HR, wishing she'd never opened her mouth.
When you change the structure so that somebody doing something ordinary is asked a funny question the construct falls apart. Plus, the question isn't funny anyway.
So tell me, please, is there something about this spot that I am missing which makes it the "Top Spot of the Week" ?
No, I didn't think so.
For the love of God, if you're going to steal someone's creative, at least don't fuck it up.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Updated: Creepier than creepy
Updating this post to showcase a longer version of this spot, which is even more unsettling than the one I originally posted:
This is the creepiest commercial I have seen in a long time, which is appropriate, because it's about the creepiest subject I can imagine.
I first viewed this on the company reel of Absolute Post. On DVD the detail is incredible and this posting comes nowhere near doing it justice.... the texture of the skin, the veins, the hair, even a mole or two... this disgusting cock/snake/tentacle looks absolutely real.
It's only missing a glans and a urethra, and that probably only because even in Germany the line about what is suitable for broadcast must be drawn somewhere.
Somehow that makes it even more loathsome. The way this blind meat snake appears to almost sniff its way forward. It has no eyes yet you know it sees without seeing. It has an intelligence.
It is completely and utterly malevolent and evil.
This is the creepiest commercial I have seen in a long time, which is appropriate, because it's about the creepiest subject I can imagine.
I first viewed this on the company reel of Absolute Post. On DVD the detail is incredible and this posting comes nowhere near doing it justice.... the texture of the skin, the veins, the hair, even a mole or two... this disgusting cock/snake/tentacle looks absolutely real.
It's only missing a glans and a urethra, and that probably only because even in Germany the line about what is suitable for broadcast must be drawn somewhere.
Somehow that makes it even more loathsome. The way this blind meat snake appears to almost sniff its way forward. It has no eyes yet you know it sees without seeing. It has an intelligence.
It is completely and utterly malevolent and evil.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Scent of a Hobo (or Minnie Mouse and the Astronaut)
At 4:52 this morning I sat down to watch Sunday's episode of Mad Men.
I'm not a masochist. I don't enjoy rising at 5AM.
Well that's not entirely true. I leap straight out of bed at 5AM when I'm going to catch the 6:35 American flight from JFK to LAX.
But it ain't the 6:35 to Los Angeles that gets me out of bed these days. No, I crawl out of bed between 5 and 6 every morning because that's when my daughter wakes up. And since you can't explain to a 15 month old that Daddy really needs another couple of hours of solid sack time, when she's up, I'm up.
While the rest of the house is sleeping, while there is a chill in the air because we're trying to wait as long as possible before firing the furnace up for the season, while she drinks her bottle and I make coffee, those hours between 5AM and 7AM are time we get to spend together. We spend that time talking (although I have no idea what she is saying) or playing or, like this morning, catching up on TV.
That's how I came to be watching Mad Men in the wee, small hours.
As the show opens, Don is in the kitchen talking to his kids about Halloween. Sally wants to be Minnie Mouse and Bobby wants to be an astronaut.
Sally says to Don,
"...they sell it at Woolworth's.. There's a section that says "Halloween costumes.""
To which Don replies,
"You'll wear it once. Plus, its made out of plastic and it's crap."
Thanks, Dad.
I knew exactly what Sally was talking about, and immediately I was 6 years old again.
Before you could buy a Buzz Lightyear costume on the Internet that was made of fabric and padding and actually looked like Buzz Lightyear, if you wanted to purchase a costume from a store, you'd head to Woolworth's or your local five and dime.
Do you remember these costumes from the five and dime? They came in a box made out of thin cardboard, with a cellophane covered cutout in the lid where the mask was displayed. The mask itself was a piece of molded plastic painted to look like Batman or Aquaman or Mickey Mouse... whatever. Two staples fastened a thin piece of elastic to the mask, and this slender, stretchy lifeline clasped the mask to your face. The rest of the costume was a plastic jumpsuit, that tied in the back, printed with the uniform or outfit of whoever you had decided to be.
The one size fits all-ness of the mask made it impossible to get it positioned just right, and by just right I mean with your nose in the nose part of the mask so you could breathe, and the eyeholes in front of your eyes so you could see.
In the choice between breathing and seeing, I usually chose seeing. Which meant, on a cool October night the mask would quickly become moist inside, as the vapor from my exhale built up on the inside of the cool plastic. And so, clad in a plastic bag, half blind, with a cold, wet plastic shell pressed up against my face I'd run from house to house, pillowcase grasped in a candy fueled death grip. Trick or Treat!!!
God, that was fun.
We almost never got our costumes from Woolworth's. Mostly because they were made out of plastic, and they were crap. And partly because we would only wear them once. But the real reason for our family, I think, was a money thing. It's not like we were poor. We weren't. But a Halloween costume from the store must have seemed like a frivolous expense to my parents when a perfectly good one could be made at home.
So usually, we'd end up making our Halloween costumes. Sometimes my mom would sew them.
Sew them?
Who the hell knows how to sew anymore? Not put on a button or repair a hem. Shit, I can do that. I mean really sew. Cut out a pattern and pin it to some fabric. Stitch the whole thing together on a sewing machine. Who even knows how to operate a sewing machine? Who even owns a sewing machine?
But sew them she did.
At the end of the day though, Sally Draper doesn't go trick or treating as Minnie Mouse, and Bobby Draper doesn't go as an astronaut. She's a gypsy and he's a hobo.
A hobo.
I'd often thought that a hobo and a tramp were the same thing, but apparently, hobos are drifters who work, and tramps are just drifters. Both, apparently, are higher in stature than a bum, who neither drifts nor works.
When I was a kid, a hobo was a perfectly legitimate Halloween costume. Get an old shirt and pair of pants from your dad. Stuff some newspaper into a bandanna and tie it on the end of a stick. Set a cork on fire and rub the burnt end on your face for that authentic hobo five-o-clock shadow. Simple.
You don't see many hobo costumes these days. I suppose this is because it's no longer politically correct or desirable to dress your kid up as a homeless person for Halloween.
I'm just wondering how it was ever desirable or acceptable to dress your kid up as a homeless person for Halloween.
I'm not a masochist. I don't enjoy rising at 5AM.
Well that's not entirely true. I leap straight out of bed at 5AM when I'm going to catch the 6:35 American flight from JFK to LAX.
But it ain't the 6:35 to Los Angeles that gets me out of bed these days. No, I crawl out of bed between 5 and 6 every morning because that's when my daughter wakes up. And since you can't explain to a 15 month old that Daddy really needs another couple of hours of solid sack time, when she's up, I'm up.
While the rest of the house is sleeping, while there is a chill in the air because we're trying to wait as long as possible before firing the furnace up for the season, while she drinks her bottle and I make coffee, those hours between 5AM and 7AM are time we get to spend together. We spend that time talking (although I have no idea what she is saying) or playing or, like this morning, catching up on TV.
That's how I came to be watching Mad Men in the wee, small hours.
As the show opens, Don is in the kitchen talking to his kids about Halloween. Sally wants to be Minnie Mouse and Bobby wants to be an astronaut.
Sally says to Don,
"...they sell it at Woolworth's.. There's a section that says "Halloween costumes.""
To which Don replies,
"You'll wear it once. Plus, its made out of plastic and it's crap."
Thanks, Dad.
I knew exactly what Sally was talking about, and immediately I was 6 years old again.
Before you could buy a Buzz Lightyear costume on the Internet that was made of fabric and padding and actually looked like Buzz Lightyear, if you wanted to purchase a costume from a store, you'd head to Woolworth's or your local five and dime.
Do you remember these costumes from the five and dime? They came in a box made out of thin cardboard, with a cellophane covered cutout in the lid where the mask was displayed. The mask itself was a piece of molded plastic painted to look like Batman or Aquaman or Mickey Mouse... whatever. Two staples fastened a thin piece of elastic to the mask, and this slender, stretchy lifeline clasped the mask to your face. The rest of the costume was a plastic jumpsuit, that tied in the back, printed with the uniform or outfit of whoever you had decided to be.
The one size fits all-ness of the mask made it impossible to get it positioned just right, and by just right I mean with your nose in the nose part of the mask so you could breathe, and the eyeholes in front of your eyes so you could see.In the choice between breathing and seeing, I usually chose seeing. Which meant, on a cool October night the mask would quickly become moist inside, as the vapor from my exhale built up on the inside of the cool plastic. And so, clad in a plastic bag, half blind, with a cold, wet plastic shell pressed up against my face I'd run from house to house, pillowcase grasped in a candy fueled death grip. Trick or Treat!!!
God, that was fun.
We almost never got our costumes from Woolworth's. Mostly because they were made out of plastic, and they were crap. And partly because we would only wear them once. But the real reason for our family, I think, was a money thing. It's not like we were poor. We weren't. But a Halloween costume from the store must have seemed like a frivolous expense to my parents when a perfectly good one could be made at home.
So usually, we'd end up making our Halloween costumes. Sometimes my mom would sew them.
Sew them?
Who the hell knows how to sew anymore? Not put on a button or repair a hem. Shit, I can do that. I mean really sew. Cut out a pattern and pin it to some fabric. Stitch the whole thing together on a sewing machine. Who even knows how to operate a sewing machine? Who even owns a sewing machine?
But sew them she did.
At the end of the day though, Sally Draper doesn't go trick or treating as Minnie Mouse, and Bobby Draper doesn't go as an astronaut. She's a gypsy and he's a hobo.
A hobo.
I'd often thought that a hobo and a tramp were the same thing, but apparently, hobos are drifters who work, and tramps are just drifters. Both, apparently, are higher in stature than a bum, who neither drifts nor works.
When I was a kid, a hobo was a perfectly legitimate Halloween costume. Get an old shirt and pair of pants from your dad. Stuff some newspaper into a bandanna and tie it on the end of a stick. Set a cork on fire and rub the burnt end on your face for that authentic hobo five-o-clock shadow. Simple.
You don't see many hobo costumes these days. I suppose this is because it's no longer politically correct or desirable to dress your kid up as a homeless person for Halloween.
I'm just wondering how it was ever desirable or acceptable to dress your kid up as a homeless person for Halloween.
Friday, October 16, 2009
You Can Make Movies!
Here's a charming little video about the vendor/client relationship.
I came across this gem while perusing the Denver Egotist. If you're not familiar with the Denver Egotist, you should check it out. It's a great blog about advertising in general, and the Denver ad joint specifically.
Anyway, at the end of the video it says "if you can type, you can make movies. Xtranormal.com"
I can type, so I went to Xtranormal.com to check it out. Here's a little something I rustled up first time out of the box.
It was fun to create and the site is super-easy to use. Just pick a scenario, then type in your script. If you select "MagicCam", the site will even pick the camera angles for you.
But we're not going to let the site pick our camera angles, are we?
Because deep down inside, the director in us knows that we could do a better job than the website. After all, we're artists, right? And here's our chance to make our commercial the way we want it, without account people and clients and directors who just don't get it sticking their noses in and fucking everything up.
Uh, did I say commercial? I meant to say video.
Heh. Yeah.
Video.
So, um, as I was saying, there are animations, expressions, sound effects and camera angles you can choose to make your film everything you want it to be. Just pick what you like and then drag and drop it in the script where you want it to be.
Then hit "preview" and viola! Your own little creation.
But wait a second, wouldn't it be better if you cut to a close up for that line? Ooh, a fart sound effect. That would be funny.
Ok, hit preview again.
Just want to make that expression happen a word or two later.
Hit preview again.
I came across this gem while perusing the Denver Egotist. If you're not familiar with the Denver Egotist, you should check it out. It's a great blog about advertising in general, and the Denver ad joint specifically.
Anyway, at the end of the video it says "if you can type, you can make movies. Xtranormal.com"
I can type, so I went to Xtranormal.com to check it out. Here's a little something I rustled up first time out of the box.
It was fun to create and the site is super-easy to use. Just pick a scenario, then type in your script. If you select "MagicCam", the site will even pick the camera angles for you.
But we're not going to let the site pick our camera angles, are we?
Because deep down inside, the director in us knows that we could do a better job than the website. After all, we're artists, right? And here's our chance to make our commercial the way we want it, without account people and clients and directors who just don't get it sticking their noses in and fucking everything up.
Uh, did I say commercial? I meant to say video.
Heh. Yeah.
Video.
So, um, as I was saying, there are animations, expressions, sound effects and camera angles you can choose to make your film everything you want it to be. Just pick what you like and then drag and drop it in the script where you want it to be.
Then hit "preview" and viola! Your own little creation.
But wait a second, wouldn't it be better if you cut to a close up for that line? Ooh, a fart sound effect. That would be funny.
Ok, hit preview again.
Just want to make that expression happen a word or two later.
Hit preview again.
Maybe a different music track.
Preview again.
What? How could I possibly have been tweaking this thing for 3 hours already?
Didn't I have some work to do today?
I hate you Xtranormal.
I love you Xtranormal.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Worth $1
I think there's probably a guy like this in every city in every country in the world. You know, the oddball you see strolling down the street with a snake draped around his neck?
I came across this pet lover a few weeks ago outside the Coffee Shop in Union Square.
Aaaah, the Coffee Shop, where tourists go to eat Cuban sandwiches, and models go to become waitresses.
Anyway, I snapped a couple of photos of this guy before he noticed me and hit me up for a dollar. Hey, if that's how this dude makes a living, that's cool with me. I was happy to give him the buck. At least he's providing some entertainment for it, more than the garden variety NYC panhandler. And it looked like he could use the single more than me.
For the most part though, I find the panhandlers in NY to be pretty low key. They understand the nature of the transaction. They ask you for some dough, and you either give it or you don't. The business ends there and they understand that the transaction is over.
There are some gambits that I hate, though. Like the guys who hit you up on the subway between stations. Look if I'm walking down the sidewalk and you ask me for a handout, it's easy to just keep walking if I choose to. There's a whole lot of room on the sidewalk. But the subway is different. I'm already making some sizable concessions to my personal space to begin with, locked in that tiny metal box with a couple hundred close, personal friends.
So the doors close and then, the pitch. Someone at the head of the car begins, in a loud voice, to make his case. Sometimes it's entertaining, like the guy who used to ask if anyone could spare $100. His reasoning being that he could do a lot more with $100 than $1, and why not aim high, anyway? I had some respect for that guy because he wasn't gaming anyone. He knew he was begging, I knew he was begging, there were no secrets, no made up sob stories. I used to drop him a buck or two.
After the pitch, the speaker will walk the length of the car, cup in hand. On most lines in midtown, it doesn't take very long to get from one station to the next. Usually it's under a minute. And I'm always sure that this is the time he'll time it wrong, that there's no way he'll finish talking and walk the whole car before the doors open again. Like I'll be able to escape at the next station before he makes it to me. But as always, he's timed it perfectly and reaches me before the doors have opened to vomit out the current human cargo, and swallow up the next batch of meat.
Come to think of it though, these guys would make great ad men. Consider it. They have perfected the art of the elevator speech. I know some highly paid people who could take a lesson or two from their subway brethren.
The other scheme that really irks me is the "I just need $xx.xx to get home" game.
There used to be a girl who sat outside of Grand Central station with a neatly lettered sign that read, "Please help. I need $12 for a train ticket home". The sign was very nice. She'd obviously put a lot of time into making it. Like she was going to be using it for a while.
She was there every day. Could it be taking her this long to collect the twelve dollars? If she didn't yet have the money to get home, where did she go every night? She was always neat and clean, sporting a different outfit every day.
After about a week, I felt like just giving her $12 and ripping up her sign. I mean, after she got the money she wouldn't need the sign anymore, right?
Elsewhere in the city...
I thought this little bit of street art was pretty cool. The paper on the floor says something about Twitter... I didn't get a great look at it.
This reminded me just a little bit of the Black Cherokee. If you've ever driven south on the Harlem River Drive, just before it turns into the FDR Drive, right by where the traffic slows up for the Triboro or RFK or whatever the fuck that bridge is called now, there is a triangular bit of pavement off to the right.
And here, on this little Isosceles island, maybe you've noticed something something unusual. Perhaps a shopping cart turned upside down with a watermelon perched on top. Maybe the detritus of the highway, discarded tires and mufflers and side view mirrors, collected and piled haphazardly yet carefully into a sculpture that defies logic, and sometimes gravity.
If you have noticed these unusual assemblies, you have viewed the art of Otis Houston, the man who calls himself Black Cherokee. Sometimes you will even see Otis himself, sitting or standing, motionless, a part of his own art.
Check out Otis next time you're in the neighborhood.
I don't know what half his art means.
But I know it must mean something.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Buy a Dictionary, please.
I've had more than one boss, be it a Head of Production or an ECD, tell me that they don't like their staff to get "too comfortable."
Really? Don't like your people to be too comfortable?
Managers who want their staff uncomfortable believe, in some fucked up logic flow, that a person who is constantly worried about losing his job is motivated to try harder. That he or she will spend more time working, and somehow produce more or better product.
There is a term for an employee who is anxious, perpetually worried that his boss will come down on him, and always afraid of losing his job.
That term is "job seeker."
A person who spends so much time worried about losing his job doesn't spend his time doing his job. He spends his time looking for a different job. Which is too bad. I'll bet agencies lose a lot of good people that way.
Maybe you don't want your staff to become self-satisfied, unconcerned and lazy. That makes sense.
But self-satisfied, unconcerned and lazy is not "comfortable." It's "complacent."
There's a difference.
Look it up.
I've managed groups, and I've always found this to work pretty well:
1. Create an atmosphere of trust
2. Take all that other shit off the table
3. Let people become comfortable.
When people are comfortably un-worried about losing their job, they become free to concentrate on actually doing that job. They relax, view problems in a more holistic manner, and find solutions they might never have lit upon with a foot wedged up their ass and a monkey on their back.
If you've hired the right people they will be grateful of this, and not take advantage of your good nature.
Managing people is a lot like training dogs. Both species are basically good natured and loyal, with varying degrees of intellect. And both species possess many of the same motivational triggers. To wit...
Reward
Obey command, get treat. Dogs like treats. Simple.
This works pretty much the same with humans. Do job, get compensated. Do excellent job, get excellent compensation. This is good in theory, although I'm willing to bet that many of us do an excellent job and are not excellently compensated.
However, money talks, and most people will put up with quite a bit if they're getting paid enough for it.
Fear
The dog is terrified and will do whatever is asked because the alternative is worse... the scolding, yelling, and in some cases beating, is more horrible to endure than simply obeying the command.
Fear mongers try to keep you terrified in the belief that it will scare you into doing a better job. There is scolding, yelling, and in some cases beating. Of the mental kind, anyway. Although I'm sure the physical kind happens too.
I used to work for a guy like this. With him, everything sucked. All the vendors sucked. They were too expensive and too slow, and their work was terrible. The talent sucked, the director sucked. The editor sucked. The rough cut sucked. You sucked.
He used to send e-mails about this. Mean ones. We called them "you suck" e-mails. The more he sent, the less effective they became, until finally I just ignored them. I didn't like him, and I didn't like the way he tried to intimidate me.
I did my job, but he didn't get an extra ounce of anything from me... which sucked for him because I've got plenty extra to give.
I've always thought that guys like this lose big, because they don't get anywhere near the best that their people can give. When people loathe and despise you, they don't particularly want to please you. How often do you hear someone say, "I hated that asshole, and I did some of my best work for him."
Love
The dog loves his master and will do whatever is asked because it makes his master happy... the praise and satisfaction mean more to his little doggie heart than anything else he could possibly imagine.
Sometimes you like and respect your boss so much that you want to do good work for him. For the agency and the client too, but also for your boss.
These are the guys who are not afraid to hire smart people, the smartest ones they can find. They don't fear that these hires will have newer and better ideas than they do, they bank on it. When someone trusts you and respects your opinion as a professional it is empowering, and extremely motivating.
I've worked for guys like this, and it doesn't suck.
So, love or fear... which works better? (Let's just forget about "reward" for now, agencies don't work like that)
In 1993's A Bronx Tale, Sonny, the local mafioso, waxes philosophical to his young protege...
Sonny: Is it better to be loved or feared? That's a good question. It's nice to be both, but it's difficult. But if I had my choice, I would rather be feared. Fear lasts longer than love.
Machiavelli posed this question in The Prince. In 1532 he came to the same conclusion that Sonny would come to 477 years later. It's nice to be both, but forced to pick one, he chose "feared".
Maybe this is the right answer if you're running a country, or the Mafia.
When you're running an agency, not so much.
Really? Don't like your people to be too comfortable?
Managers who want their staff uncomfortable believe, in some fucked up logic flow, that a person who is constantly worried about losing his job is motivated to try harder. That he or she will spend more time working, and somehow produce more or better product.
There is a term for an employee who is anxious, perpetually worried that his boss will come down on him, and always afraid of losing his job.
That term is "job seeker."
A person who spends so much time worried about losing his job doesn't spend his time doing his job. He spends his time looking for a different job. Which is too bad. I'll bet agencies lose a lot of good people that way.
Maybe you don't want your staff to become self-satisfied, unconcerned and lazy. That makes sense.
But self-satisfied, unconcerned and lazy is not "comfortable." It's "complacent."
There's a difference.
Look it up.
I've managed groups, and I've always found this to work pretty well:
1. Create an atmosphere of trust
2. Take all that other shit off the table
3. Let people become comfortable.
When people are comfortably un-worried about losing their job, they become free to concentrate on actually doing that job. They relax, view problems in a more holistic manner, and find solutions they might never have lit upon with a foot wedged up their ass and a monkey on their back.
If you've hired the right people they will be grateful of this, and not take advantage of your good nature.
Managing people is a lot like training dogs. Both species are basically good natured and loyal, with varying degrees of intellect. And both species possess many of the same motivational triggers. To wit...
Reward
Obey command, get treat. Dogs like treats. Simple.
This works pretty much the same with humans. Do job, get compensated. Do excellent job, get excellent compensation. This is good in theory, although I'm willing to bet that many of us do an excellent job and are not excellently compensated.
However, money talks, and most people will put up with quite a bit if they're getting paid enough for it.
Fear
The dog is terrified and will do whatever is asked because the alternative is worse... the scolding, yelling, and in some cases beating, is more horrible to endure than simply obeying the command.
Fear mongers try to keep you terrified in the belief that it will scare you into doing a better job. There is scolding, yelling, and in some cases beating. Of the mental kind, anyway. Although I'm sure the physical kind happens too.
I used to work for a guy like this. With him, everything sucked. All the vendors sucked. They were too expensive and too slow, and their work was terrible. The talent sucked, the director sucked. The editor sucked. The rough cut sucked. You sucked.
He used to send e-mails about this. Mean ones. We called them "you suck" e-mails. The more he sent, the less effective they became, until finally I just ignored them. I didn't like him, and I didn't like the way he tried to intimidate me.
I did my job, but he didn't get an extra ounce of anything from me... which sucked for him because I've got plenty extra to give.
I've always thought that guys like this lose big, because they don't get anywhere near the best that their people can give. When people loathe and despise you, they don't particularly want to please you. How often do you hear someone say, "I hated that asshole, and I did some of my best work for him."
Love
The dog loves his master and will do whatever is asked because it makes his master happy... the praise and satisfaction mean more to his little doggie heart than anything else he could possibly imagine.
Sometimes you like and respect your boss so much that you want to do good work for him. For the agency and the client too, but also for your boss.
These are the guys who are not afraid to hire smart people, the smartest ones they can find. They don't fear that these hires will have newer and better ideas than they do, they bank on it. When someone trusts you and respects your opinion as a professional it is empowering, and extremely motivating.
I've worked for guys like this, and it doesn't suck.
So, love or fear... which works better? (Let's just forget about "reward" for now, agencies don't work like that)
In 1993's A Bronx Tale, Sonny, the local mafioso, waxes philosophical to his young protege...
Sonny: Is it better to be loved or feared? That's a good question. It's nice to be both, but it's difficult. But if I had my choice, I would rather be feared. Fear lasts longer than love.
Machiavelli posed this question in The Prince. In 1532 he came to the same conclusion that Sonny would come to 477 years later. It's nice to be both, but forced to pick one, he chose "feared".
Maybe this is the right answer if you're running a country, or the Mafia.
When you're running an agency, not so much.
Friday, September 18, 2009
James Dean Lives
THANK GOD!
For a while I was beginning to worry that resurrecting dead celebrities for use in whoring goods and services was a dead art. Thank you Allan Gray for reminding us that this particular brand of creepiness still thrives in the ad game.
Actually, this is not so creepy. There are excellent production values, and it's easy to see the team has really tried to be true to the construct of "if James Dean had lived, what might he have accomplished?"
I know we love to romanticize James Dean, but I just find it hard to believe that had Dean lived to be an older man, he would have looked exactly the same as he looked as a 24 year old, except with white hair. A skinny dude with an unlined face and a big shock of white hair.
Who's to say that an aging James Dean wouldn't have been paunchy and balding? Maybe he would have taken a page from the Sean Connery book...
Sean's thickened a bit and the hair is gone, but I think the consensus is that he's still an attractive man. No reason Dean might not have aged the same way, right?
In Giant, Dean ages about 40 years or so, from a youthful ranch hand to an alcoholic playboy who's done his share of hard living
No Stan Winston or Rick Baker prosthetic miracles here. He looks like a kid made up for Halloween, but then so do Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor in the same film. I guess back in the day you didn't want to make the star talent look too aged. The studios deified these stars, and the public came to worship at that altar. And who wants to worship a broken down old god?
But at least he looks somewhat older, there are some years on his face, some bags under the eyes. Then again that may simply be Dean, the actor, living the part.
Regardless, it's 2009, a different era. We're savvy enough to understand the commercial , even if they'd chosen to put some mileage on Mr. Dean. Perhaps given us a little more to think about.
By the way, if you're going to flat out steal a shot from a film, I guess you might as well steal it from a good film, like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, right?
But, at the end of the day, the Allan Gray spot is still pretty good. I think that's because the team chose to cast an actor rather than create a digital Frankenstein of movie outtakes and bits of newsreel footage, held together by hours of digital manipulation.
And they resisted the urge to go for the big music. Instead, a lone piano picks out a melody, sweet and sad at the same time.
This, however, is frickin' creepy.
For a while I was beginning to worry that resurrecting dead celebrities for use in whoring goods and services was a dead art. Thank you Allan Gray for reminding us that this particular brand of creepiness still thrives in the ad game.
Actually, this is not so creepy. There are excellent production values, and it's easy to see the team has really tried to be true to the construct of "if James Dean had lived, what might he have accomplished?"
I know we love to romanticize James Dean, but I just find it hard to believe that had Dean lived to be an older man, he would have looked exactly the same as he looked as a 24 year old, except with white hair. A skinny dude with an unlined face and a big shock of white hair.
Who's to say that an aging James Dean wouldn't have been paunchy and balding? Maybe he would have taken a page from the Sean Connery book...
Sean's thickened a bit and the hair is gone, but I think the consensus is that he's still an attractive man. No reason Dean might not have aged the same way, right?
In Giant, Dean ages about 40 years or so, from a youthful ranch hand to an alcoholic playboy who's done his share of hard living
No Stan Winston or Rick Baker prosthetic miracles here. He looks like a kid made up for Halloween, but then so do Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor in the same film. I guess back in the day you didn't want to make the star talent look too aged. The studios deified these stars, and the public came to worship at that altar. And who wants to worship a broken down old god?
But at least he looks somewhat older, there are some years on his face, some bags under the eyes. Then again that may simply be Dean, the actor, living the part.
Regardless, it's 2009, a different era. We're savvy enough to understand the commercial , even if they'd chosen to put some mileage on Mr. Dean. Perhaps given us a little more to think about.
By the way, if you're going to flat out steal a shot from a film, I guess you might as well steal it from a good film, like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, right?
But, at the end of the day, the Allan Gray spot is still pretty good. I think that's because the team chose to cast an actor rather than create a digital Frankenstein of movie outtakes and bits of newsreel footage, held together by hours of digital manipulation.
And they resisted the urge to go for the big music. Instead, a lone piano picks out a melody, sweet and sad at the same time.
This, however, is frickin' creepy.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
The Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency... Anti-Semites in Very Nice Suits
What is up with the Sterling Cooper Agency?
They've been dissing Grey Advertising for three seasons now, and I just don't get it. Did Matt Weiner work at Grey at one time? That might explain it!
I worked at Grey for thirty-eight percent of my life. Not thirty-eight percent of my career. Thirty-eight percent of my life. Not counting sleeping, most weekends and some vacations, from the moment I exited the womb till just now, thirty-eight percent of those years were spent at Grey.
And most of those years were pretty good ones.
So when I started to hear the word "Grey" pop up on Mad Men, it got my attention. The first time was a quickie, one character mentions to one another that a colleague is "at Grey now." I shouted to my wife, "Isn't that cool... they just mentioned Grey on Mad Men!"
Don Draper runs into Rachel Menken while he's catting around with Bobbie Barrett. Remember Rachel Menken, the Jewish department store client who briefly sized up Sterling Cooper as an agency before Draper's dick got in the way?
Don says something like, "How's things at Grey? Those guys still taking credit for our work?"
Hmmm, Grey again. What does Draper mean by that? Is he implying that Grey stole the work from Sterling Cooper? Would he have said the same if the Menken account went to a Wasp shop like BBDO or JWT?
Grey used to be known as a Jewish agency. I know this to be true because of a story told by a family friend. She relates how, in the early 60's she sought a job at an agency. Since she is Jewish, someone suggested she apply at Grey because it was a "Jewish agency." Aghast at the thought that she would use her religion to gain a position, she declined to apply.
Which I found interesting, because if someone told me there was an "Italian agency," I'd have my reel over there quicker than you can say "Chef Boyardee."
Now Duck Phillips, newly at Grey, has invited Pete Campbell to lunch. Campbell, who perpetually looks as if he is aware of a ghastly odor that only he can smell, arrives to find Peggy Olson there as well. Which causes Pete's already pained visage to pinch up by such a degree that one would think Duck had presented him with a turd on a silver platter.
In an effort to calm him, Duck tells him to sit down and "...have a nosh."
To which Campbell replies, "Two months at Grey and you're already having a nosh?"
This retort, and the expression of utter disdain which accompanies it, leaves no question about how Pete Campbell feels about a nosh, people who nosh in general, and people who nosh at Grey specifically.
Make no mistake, it's a Jewish thing... imagine the scenario like this:
Duck: "...have some lunch"
Pete: "Two months at Grey and you're already having some lunch?
Not quite the same.
As I watched this, it occurred to me that Duck Phillips is now working with some of the same people at Grey that I would work with, albeit some years later. Which is a little trippy, like some Back To The Future parallax of reality and entertainment.
To be fair to Mad Men, I think the show is simply (and honestly) portraying the realities of the New York ad business in the early '60s. Like most big agencies of the day, Sterling Cooper is the Wasp-iest place on the planet. The only black person there is Hollis, and he's the elevator operator. Look around the creative department of any big agency today. Not exactly a hotbed of racial diversity, and the more senior you get, the more the color bleeds away.
The only other person at Sterling Cooper with even a trace of ethnicity is Sal Romano and poor Sal has bigger issues to deal with. (I loved the look on Kitty's face when Sal, in full flounce, acts out the Patio commercial and the light slowly goes on for her that, oh my god, my husband is a homosexual).
There's one other very funny thing which occurs in this episode. As Duck attempts to woo Pete and Peggy he says, "At Grey an account man is expected to have ideas, and creatives are expected to be geniuses. You'll be sitting on velvet pillows, showered with riches, rewards."
I believe this is the exact same recruiting verbiage used by Grey today.
They've been dissing Grey Advertising for three seasons now, and I just don't get it. Did Matt Weiner work at Grey at one time? That might explain it!
I worked at Grey for thirty-eight percent of my life. Not thirty-eight percent of my career. Thirty-eight percent of my life. Not counting sleeping, most weekends and some vacations, from the moment I exited the womb till just now, thirty-eight percent of those years were spent at Grey.
And most of those years were pretty good ones.
So when I started to hear the word "Grey" pop up on Mad Men, it got my attention. The first time was a quickie, one character mentions to one another that a colleague is "at Grey now." I shouted to my wife, "Isn't that cool... they just mentioned Grey on Mad Men!"
Don Draper runs into Rachel Menken while he's catting around with Bobbie Barrett. Remember Rachel Menken, the Jewish department store client who briefly sized up Sterling Cooper as an agency before Draper's dick got in the way?
Don says something like, "How's things at Grey? Those guys still taking credit for our work?"
Hmmm, Grey again. What does Draper mean by that? Is he implying that Grey stole the work from Sterling Cooper? Would he have said the same if the Menken account went to a Wasp shop like BBDO or JWT?
Grey used to be known as a Jewish agency. I know this to be true because of a story told by a family friend. She relates how, in the early 60's she sought a job at an agency. Since she is Jewish, someone suggested she apply at Grey because it was a "Jewish agency." Aghast at the thought that she would use her religion to gain a position, she declined to apply.
Which I found interesting, because if someone told me there was an "Italian agency," I'd have my reel over there quicker than you can say "Chef Boyardee."
Now Duck Phillips, newly at Grey, has invited Pete Campbell to lunch. Campbell, who perpetually looks as if he is aware of a ghastly odor that only he can smell, arrives to find Peggy Olson there as well. Which causes Pete's already pained visage to pinch up by such a degree that one would think Duck had presented him with a turd on a silver platter.
In an effort to calm him, Duck tells him to sit down and "...have a nosh."
To which Campbell replies, "Two months at Grey and you're already having a nosh?"
This retort, and the expression of utter disdain which accompanies it, leaves no question about how Pete Campbell feels about a nosh, people who nosh in general, and people who nosh at Grey specifically.
Make no mistake, it's a Jewish thing... imagine the scenario like this:
Duck: "...have some lunch"
Pete: "Two months at Grey and you're already having some lunch?
Not quite the same.
As I watched this, it occurred to me that Duck Phillips is now working with some of the same people at Grey that I would work with, albeit some years later. Which is a little trippy, like some Back To The Future parallax of reality and entertainment.
To be fair to Mad Men, I think the show is simply (and honestly) portraying the realities of the New York ad business in the early '60s. Like most big agencies of the day, Sterling Cooper is the Wasp-iest place on the planet. The only black person there is Hollis, and he's the elevator operator. Look around the creative department of any big agency today. Not exactly a hotbed of racial diversity, and the more senior you get, the more the color bleeds away.
The only other person at Sterling Cooper with even a trace of ethnicity is Sal Romano and poor Sal has bigger issues to deal with. (I loved the look on Kitty's face when Sal, in full flounce, acts out the Patio commercial and the light slowly goes on for her that, oh my god, my husband is a homosexual).
There's one other very funny thing which occurs in this episode. As Duck attempts to woo Pete and Peggy he says, "At Grey an account man is expected to have ideas, and creatives are expected to be geniuses. You'll be sitting on velvet pillows, showered with riches, rewards."
I believe this is the exact same recruiting verbiage used by Grey today.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Back to School
It's now mid September, and for the last 2 or 3 weeks American families have been going through the familiar, time honored traditions and rituals of going back to school.
I remember the feeling of summer drawing to a close... the 8 or 9 weeks that had stretched endlessly before me on the last day of school dwindling down to the last few weeks, then days, hours, and precious minutes till freedom was over and prison began again.
I remember the feeling of new school supplies... marbled composition books, fresh, clean binders, a ream of loose leaf paper, yellow unsharpened #2 Ticonderoga pencils, all laid out and ready to go, like ammunition before a battle that would last for the next 10 months.
I never quite understood the marbled composition book, though. If you tore out a page, a page somewhere in the back of the book fell out. For every action an equal and opposite reaction... the yin and yang of education, I suppose.
This year my daughter has started a new school. It was a big decision, taking her from the tiny, private school womb into the larger, more feral world of public education. But the local elementary school is a pretty good one, and lord knows we can save the monthly tuition for college, or something else.
But anyway, there we were in the schoolyard on the first day of 2nd grade, small knots of parents chatting each other up, kids milling about in the frenzy that is the first day of school, and my daughter.
A little girl with a big backpack.
I was prepared for tears from my daughter... maybe my wife. My little girl surprised me.
My wife, not so much.
I was so proud of my daughter... a huge building, hundreds of kids, new people and faces and routines. And scariest of all, no friends. No classmates from last year, no kids from the neighborhood in her class. I could see how nervous she was, but she sucked it up and marched in like a trouper.
And that was it.
Where was the drama? Where was the run up of tears and anxiety before the first day at a new school? Where was the acting out, the irrational and unexplainable behavior that we as parents were supposed to sagely interpret as the inner feelings of turmoil that she, as a 7 year old, would be unable to express in words?
Could it really be that easy?
No, of course it's not that fucking easy.
Only 4 days into the school year, some kid is picking on my daughter. Tugging at her backpack, talking shit to her on line each morning in the schoolyard. And this morning, finally, the tears came. They came in the schoolyard... probably the worst place of all, in front of her teacher, her class, everyone. My wife called to tell me about it.
I'm a rational dad, not prone to violence or flying off the handle. So naturally my first instinct was to go down to the school and smack this kid. I don't care that it happens to be a 7 year old girl. She made my daughter cry. Only I am allowed to make my daughter cry.
You don't think it's appropriate to talk about smacking the brat who's picking on your daughter? Then you don't have kids. Anyone who is reading this, who is a parent,
knows
exactly
what
I
am
talking
about.
According to my wife, smacking this kid is not an option. So she told the teacher, who promised to nip this in the bud. Great. Sometimes that works. Sometimes it makes the little shit try even harder because she is obviously achieving the desired effect.
I'm working from home tomorrow, so I'm gonna drop my daughter off at school, and pick her up at 3:00. I'd like to get a look at this kid and her parent(s) before I meet them in the Principal's office.
If she comes from the right kind of family, her parents will do the smacking for me.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Mow the Lawn
I was first made aware of this spot by a friend of mine. I'll call him Steve.
This is convenient, because his name is Steve.
Steve was asked to review this spot for a monthly trade publication; I won't spoil the surprise by saying which one. But I read the review and I thought it was witty and funny and spot on.
OK, so you've watched the spot, and you get it. It's for a special razor women can use to groom their most special of special places.
Each lady's grooming style is represented by a bit of shrubbery, and there are several different coifs portrayed... the Landing Strip, the Patch, the Trimmed Natural. There's one glaring omission, though (no, not Brazilian, although that is noticeably absent).
When at least one woman passes by one of these shrubs, shouldn't all the leaves just fall off?
I mean, that's not an uncommon 'do, and it certainly is achievable with this product. So what gives? We know that plenty of women will be baring it all with this razor. Why be bold enough to construct this innuendo but too timid to follow it all the way through?
Same product, different country. Here's the commercial that airs in the UK...
Wow. Different vibe for sure. But what did you expect from the country that gave us Benny Hill?
There are some great lyrics in this song. A couple of my favorites...
"...all that's left for me to see are tulips on the mound..."
and of course...
"never feel untidy, just spruce up your Aphrodite..."
I also love how the furry cat in her lap at the beginning (get it... the cat in her lap) is hairless by the end of the spot.
It would appear that in the UK, they are not afraid to let the leaves fall off the bush.
This is convenient, because his name is Steve.
Steve was asked to review this spot for a monthly trade publication; I won't spoil the surprise by saying which one. But I read the review and I thought it was witty and funny and spot on.
OK, so you've watched the spot, and you get it. It's for a special razor women can use to groom their most special of special places.
Each lady's grooming style is represented by a bit of shrubbery, and there are several different coifs portrayed... the Landing Strip, the Patch, the Trimmed Natural. There's one glaring omission, though (no, not Brazilian, although that is noticeably absent).
When at least one woman passes by one of these shrubs, shouldn't all the leaves just fall off?
I mean, that's not an uncommon 'do, and it certainly is achievable with this product. So what gives? We know that plenty of women will be baring it all with this razor. Why be bold enough to construct this innuendo but too timid to follow it all the way through?
Same product, different country. Here's the commercial that airs in the UK...
Wow. Different vibe for sure. But what did you expect from the country that gave us Benny Hill?
There are some great lyrics in this song. A couple of my favorites...
"...all that's left for me to see are tulips on the mound..."
and of course...
"never feel untidy, just spruce up your Aphrodite..."
I also love how the furry cat in her lap at the beginning (get it... the cat in her lap) is hairless by the end of the spot.
It would appear that in the UK, they are not afraid to let the leaves fall off the bush.
Same War, Different Sand.
In 1953, this was pretty hot.
Hell, 56 years later it's still pretty hot.
Love during wartime, Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster, swelling violins, crashing waves. It's got to be one of the most dramatic scenes ever captured in the sand.
Until now.
Take 8 minutes and 33 seconds out of your life to watch a drama of an entirely different kind unfold in the sand.
I'd never heard of sand animation, and I'd never seen anything like this, at least not created live as a performance.
The artist, Kseniya Simonova, performs this piece on the finale of "Ukraine's Got Talent". Yes, there really is a "Ukraine's Got Talent", and Kseniya Simonova is 2009's winner. The piece depicts the loss and devastation of the Ukraine during World War II, where almost one out of every four Ukrainians lost their lives. It is clearly a deeply emotional topic for this nation, as many in the audience who would not be born until twenty, thirty or even forty years after this conflict are moved to tears by the love and loss depicted in Simonova's work.
Simonova herself proves a dramatic performer. Her "brushstrokes" are swift, sure, and precise. This 24 year old tosses handfuls of her medium with gusto and bravado, an Itshak Perlman of beach sand.
Oh yeah, it also doesn't hurt that she is smoking hot.
Here's another performance she gave during an earlier round of the show. I've since viewed other sand animators on You Tube and the Internet but to be honest, they seem like amateurs compared to Simonova.
This is unique. It is true performance art on every level... the performance itself is artistic, invoking an uncommon talent that creates and re-create a canvas every moment, one scene morphing to another before our eyes. The routine is painstakingly choreographed and rehearsed, images and actions timed precisely to the music. And of course the images themselves are art, the same but different every time.
The constraints of the choreography make this all the more artistic, to me anyway. Simonova is a soloist playing in a different medium. She's not making it up as she goes. She can no more change the pictures in her routine than Perlman or Yo-Yo Ma can change the notes in a Mendelssohn concerto. Lots of people can play a Mendelssohn concerto, very few can play it like Perlman or Yo-Yo Ma.
Lots of people can draw pictures in the sand. Very few can draw them like Kseniya Simonova.
Hell, 56 years later it's still pretty hot.
Love during wartime, Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster, swelling violins, crashing waves. It's got to be one of the most dramatic scenes ever captured in the sand.
Until now.
Take 8 minutes and 33 seconds out of your life to watch a drama of an entirely different kind unfold in the sand.
I'd never heard of sand animation, and I'd never seen anything like this, at least not created live as a performance.
The artist, Kseniya Simonova, performs this piece on the finale of "Ukraine's Got Talent". Yes, there really is a "Ukraine's Got Talent", and Kseniya Simonova is 2009's winner. The piece depicts the loss and devastation of the Ukraine during World War II, where almost one out of every four Ukrainians lost their lives. It is clearly a deeply emotional topic for this nation, as many in the audience who would not be born until twenty, thirty or even forty years after this conflict are moved to tears by the love and loss depicted in Simonova's work.
Simonova herself proves a dramatic performer. Her "brushstrokes" are swift, sure, and precise. This 24 year old tosses handfuls of her medium with gusto and bravado, an Itshak Perlman of beach sand.
Oh yeah, it also doesn't hurt that she is smoking hot.
Here's another performance she gave during an earlier round of the show. I've since viewed other sand animators on You Tube and the Internet but to be honest, they seem like amateurs compared to Simonova.
This is unique. It is true performance art on every level... the performance itself is artistic, invoking an uncommon talent that creates and re-create a canvas every moment, one scene morphing to another before our eyes. The routine is painstakingly choreographed and rehearsed, images and actions timed precisely to the music. And of course the images themselves are art, the same but different every time.
The constraints of the choreography make this all the more artistic, to me anyway. Simonova is a soloist playing in a different medium. She's not making it up as she goes. She can no more change the pictures in her routine than Perlman or Yo-Yo Ma can change the notes in a Mendelssohn concerto. Lots of people can play a Mendelssohn concerto, very few can play it like Perlman or Yo-Yo Ma.
Lots of people can draw pictures in the sand. Very few can draw them like Kseniya Simonova.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
The Dumbest Kid in Advertising
How many times does this kid need to be told?
They don't expire... they're rollover minutes.
I mean after half a dozen commercials doesn't this kid get it yet? I think his Mom has had enough. Look at her face... she can barely contain herself. She is practically quivering with rage.
If another one of these spots gets produced and this kid still can't understand that one AT&T minute is just as good as another, I think the Mom is actually going to beat him senseless.
It's funny to watch how she becomes more and more unhinged from spot to spot... a couple of years ago she's mildly annoyed, then begins to get more frustrated, starts becoming unhinged, then positively paranoid.
Beat it kid.
I like these spots. They're well written and the casting is great. The Mom is a real quirk, the Dad is like an actual person, not the doofus dad we're used to, and the kids are close enough to real teens to be convincing.
Only one problem, though.
See, your AT&T rollover minutes actually do expire.
They do get old, and after a year they expire. Says it right there on the bill... "Unused Package Minutes Expire After 12 Billing Periods."
So cool it Mom.
Turns out your kid is the smartest kid in advertising.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Dead Baby Alert
Yep, that's a spoiler alright.
At least it is if you're the type of person who is disappointed to know in advance that this video contains, among other things, images of a dead child.
For the rest of us, it's more like forewarned is forearmed.
This video is an excerpt from a 30 minute film co-produced by the Tredegar Comprehensive School and the Gwent Police. It is a graphic and disturbing illustration of the consequences of distracted driving.
There are a million potential distractions in your car that you can't do much about. Crying babies, barking dogs, arguing siblings. Those things are part of life. But no matter how cacophonous screaming kids can be, they do not usually compel you to take your eyes off the road.
The car stereo does. Back in the day, everybody knew someone, or knew someone who knew someone who was in a wreck because they were fiddling around with the radio and took their eyes off the road for too long. Or maybe the driver of the other car did. Either way, there was a wreck and you heard about it.
But that was just the car stereo. And 20 years ago, that's all there was. Today we bring other, more insidious distractions into the car.
Blackberrys and cellphones.
No matter how brilliant of a texter you are, even if you can text without looking, there is one thing you cannot do. You cannot read texts and e-mails without looking at something which is not the road in front of you. You cannot keep one eye on the road while reading with the other. Sorry, not possible. We are just not designed that way.
So what do we do instead? What is our workaround for this problem?
Simple. We get into our cars and get up to speed. Maybe 65, 75 miles an hour. Seriously, no one drives 55, not you, not anyone. Then we take a teeny, tiny device out of our pocket or purse. This teeny, tiny device has a teeny, tiny screen, and teensy, weensy keys which are about 1/4 of the size of your pinkie fingernail. Isn't that the cutest thing! And now, every few seconds, we will switch our focus back and forth from the road and cars all around us, to the 3 inch screen in front of us.
This sounds like an excellent idea so far.
There are two basic techniques one can use going forward from this point. If you're a Blackberry kid, you're accustomed to typing with both thumbs. So you'll press the Berry up against the top of the steering wheel, at the 12:00 position, support the back with your index and middle fingers, type with your thumbs, and grasp the wheel with your ring and pinkie fingers.
Out of 10 fingers you've got a full 4 of them on the wheel. Atta boy, sport!
Now this sounds like a good idea, because the Berry is right up near the windshield so it'll be easy to glance back and forth between the road and the screen, right? Your eyes barely have to move at all, right? You can even use your peripheral vision to sense the cars in front of you, right?
So when your Spidey-sense detects a car cutting in front of you, the 4 weakest fingers that you possess are going to be able to quickly and securely steer you out of harms way, in a split second.
Right?
The other technique is the "one hander". Used mostly by veteran texters, you will cradle the phone in the palm of one hand and manipulate the keys with your thumb, while grasping the wheel firmly in the other.
This also sounds like a good idea. If you held the phone out at arms length in front of you, right up by the windshield. But you're not gonna do that. You're gonna hold the phone down near your lap, the back of your hand supported by your thigh. So now you look through the windshield for a while, then eyes completely away from the road down to your lap for more seconds than you realize, then CRASH! YOU'RE DEAD!
I think we all would agree that texting or e-mailing while driving is not a great idea. I admit I've done it, usually in the morning when I'm running late for work. Which is usually always. But it is a terrible, awful, dangerous behavior. I won't be doing it again after today.
So why do we do it? What is so compelling about our messages, or the thought that we might miss something that can't wait till we get there? Tell me, please. Is any of it worth dying for?
Screw that. You can die for it. You can kill yourself if you want to. But killing your family, or friends? Stealing children from parents, or mothers and fathers from babies? That's fucked up, and so supremely selfish that if you do it, you deserve to die. Hope you do.
Have a nice day.
At least it is if you're the type of person who is disappointed to know in advance that this video contains, among other things, images of a dead child.
For the rest of us, it's more like forewarned is forearmed.
This video is an excerpt from a 30 minute film co-produced by the Tredegar Comprehensive School and the Gwent Police. It is a graphic and disturbing illustration of the consequences of distracted driving.
There are a million potential distractions in your car that you can't do much about. Crying babies, barking dogs, arguing siblings. Those things are part of life. But no matter how cacophonous screaming kids can be, they do not usually compel you to take your eyes off the road.
The car stereo does. Back in the day, everybody knew someone, or knew someone who knew someone who was in a wreck because they were fiddling around with the radio and took their eyes off the road for too long. Or maybe the driver of the other car did. Either way, there was a wreck and you heard about it.
But that was just the car stereo. And 20 years ago, that's all there was. Today we bring other, more insidious distractions into the car.
Blackberrys and cellphones.
No matter how brilliant of a texter you are, even if you can text without looking, there is one thing you cannot do. You cannot read texts and e-mails without looking at something which is not the road in front of you. You cannot keep one eye on the road while reading with the other. Sorry, not possible. We are just not designed that way.
So what do we do instead? What is our workaround for this problem?
Simple. We get into our cars and get up to speed. Maybe 65, 75 miles an hour. Seriously, no one drives 55, not you, not anyone. Then we take a teeny, tiny device out of our pocket or purse. This teeny, tiny device has a teeny, tiny screen, and teensy, weensy keys which are about 1/4 of the size of your pinkie fingernail. Isn't that the cutest thing! And now, every few seconds, we will switch our focus back and forth from the road and cars all around us, to the 3 inch screen in front of us.
This sounds like an excellent idea so far.
There are two basic techniques one can use going forward from this point. If you're a Blackberry kid, you're accustomed to typing with both thumbs. So you'll press the Berry up against the top of the steering wheel, at the 12:00 position, support the back with your index and middle fingers, type with your thumbs, and grasp the wheel with your ring and pinkie fingers.
Out of 10 fingers you've got a full 4 of them on the wheel. Atta boy, sport!
Now this sounds like a good idea, because the Berry is right up near the windshield so it'll be easy to glance back and forth between the road and the screen, right? Your eyes barely have to move at all, right? You can even use your peripheral vision to sense the cars in front of you, right?
So when your Spidey-sense detects a car cutting in front of you, the 4 weakest fingers that you possess are going to be able to quickly and securely steer you out of harms way, in a split second.
Right?
The other technique is the "one hander". Used mostly by veteran texters, you will cradle the phone in the palm of one hand and manipulate the keys with your thumb, while grasping the wheel firmly in the other.
This also sounds like a good idea. If you held the phone out at arms length in front of you, right up by the windshield. But you're not gonna do that. You're gonna hold the phone down near your lap, the back of your hand supported by your thigh. So now you look through the windshield for a while, then eyes completely away from the road down to your lap for more seconds than you realize, then CRASH! YOU'RE DEAD!
I think we all would agree that texting or e-mailing while driving is not a great idea. I admit I've done it, usually in the morning when I'm running late for work. Which is usually always. But it is a terrible, awful, dangerous behavior. I won't be doing it again after today.
So why do we do it? What is so compelling about our messages, or the thought that we might miss something that can't wait till we get there? Tell me, please. Is any of it worth dying for?
Screw that. You can die for it. You can kill yourself if you want to. But killing your family, or friends? Stealing children from parents, or mothers and fathers from babies? That's fucked up, and so supremely selfish that if you do it, you deserve to die. Hope you do.
Have a nice day.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
A long walk spoiled.
I've produced so many commercials over the years that I've become accustomed to all dialogue being delivered in one or two line bits. It's difficult to remember that actors sometimes are called upon to do more difficult things, like walk and talk at the same time.
You think it's easy to walk and talk at the same time? Try this.
Could you do that? I know I couldn't.
I've watched this half a dozen times and I keep getting nervous for Robert Carlyle, like he's somehow going to screw it up halfway through and have to start over. And each time he delivers the last line and walks away from camera, I feel like he must be heaving a sigh of relief thinking, "Thank God I got through it that time!"
I know Carlyle is a trained professional, and I know the amount of choreography and rehearsal that must have gone into this. But still, one take? I think that's brilliant. And the Red camera is gorgeous here.
How far was the walk, do you think, from beginning to end?
I'm not above being manipulated. Christ, I've spent my career trying to do it to other people. So even though I know I'm watching a commercial, and a 6 1/2 minute commercial at that, I don't mind it in the least. It is so well executed that I've got to appreciate and respect the craft that has gone into it.
Except for one minor thing. One teensy weensy little thing.
WTF with the 60 second credit roll at the end???
See, now this is where everyone gets a little off track and begins to confuse art with commerce.
"Look at this beautiful piece of art we've created. It's like a little movie, isn't it? By God it is a little movie. Oh, look at us lads, we've made a little movie. Why, we must attach our names to this because everyone who sees it will want to know who we are. They will want to know the name of the Props Buyer, and the Caterer, and the Brand Manager. Because we are important. We are the important people who create these beautiful little films and bring them to you."
Does anyone care who the Johnnie Walker Brand Home Manager is? I don't think so. It's a commercial for chrissakes. Get over it.
This unfortunate lapse in judgement does not negate the fact that Johnnie Walker has a history of really smart, beautifully directed and produced spots. Here's another one of my favorites.
You think it's easy to walk and talk at the same time? Try this.
Could you do that? I know I couldn't.
I've watched this half a dozen times and I keep getting nervous for Robert Carlyle, like he's somehow going to screw it up halfway through and have to start over. And each time he delivers the last line and walks away from camera, I feel like he must be heaving a sigh of relief thinking, "Thank God I got through it that time!"
I know Carlyle is a trained professional, and I know the amount of choreography and rehearsal that must have gone into this. But still, one take? I think that's brilliant. And the Red camera is gorgeous here.
How far was the walk, do you think, from beginning to end?
I'm not above being manipulated. Christ, I've spent my career trying to do it to other people. So even though I know I'm watching a commercial, and a 6 1/2 minute commercial at that, I don't mind it in the least. It is so well executed that I've got to appreciate and respect the craft that has gone into it.
Except for one minor thing. One teensy weensy little thing.
WTF with the 60 second credit roll at the end???
See, now this is where everyone gets a little off track and begins to confuse art with commerce.
"Look at this beautiful piece of art we've created. It's like a little movie, isn't it? By God it is a little movie. Oh, look at us lads, we've made a little movie. Why, we must attach our names to this because everyone who sees it will want to know who we are. They will want to know the name of the Props Buyer, and the Caterer, and the Brand Manager. Because we are important. We are the important people who create these beautiful little films and bring them to you."
Does anyone care who the Johnnie Walker Brand Home Manager is? I don't think so. It's a commercial for chrissakes. Get over it.
This unfortunate lapse in judgement does not negate the fact that Johnnie Walker has a history of really smart, beautifully directed and produced spots. Here's another one of my favorites.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
A Collection of Things I Like
Been looking for something to write about but it's been a pretty dry week. Nothing's jumping out at me, and I really need to feeeeeeeeeeel it, you know? Otherwise what's the point? Gotta have passion in everything we do, right?
But the header of the blog does say "a collection of things I like"... it's not solely devoted to spots and production. So here's three items I've come across in the past few weeks that I find generally wicked cool.
*********************************************************************************************
iPhone: I don't know about you, but I'm just not as fast messaging on the iPhone as I am on a Blackberry. Not having actual keys to press still fucks me up sometimes, there's simply no tactile feedback to let me know that I did indeed press a key, or the space bar, or whatever. But the real pain in the ass is switching between keyboards to add numbers and punctuation.
So here's how to make that go faster. When you want to add a number or other mark to your text, press and hold the ".?123" key, then drag your finger to the mark or number you want. When you lift your finger it should insert the mark and switch back automatically to the alphabet keyboard.
Just think what you can do with all the time you'll save.
*********************************************************************************************
Drop.io: As a freelance producer, I never cease to be amazed at the minuscule attachment sizes allowed by most agency and client e-mail servers. I understand that nobody wants to clog up their e-mail server with a lot of huge files, and no one deletes anything anyway until their mailbox is full. But sometimes you just need to e-mail a rough cut, you know?
Enter drop.io. This is a great tool for freelancers, agency producers, anyone who needs to move large files around and doesn't want to deal with managing those files when the job is over.
There's plenty of drop box services, but drop.io has a couple of features that make it particularly user friendly. First of all, it's free. Your drop box is 100MB, which is a decent size, but you can have as many drop boxes as you want. So it's really unlimited. The most excellent bit, though, is that you can set the length of time that the files stay active. Default time is one year, but you can set the expiration for different lengths. So your vacation photos or client materials won't be floating around the Internet forever, and you don't have to remember to delete the files or the site when the job is over. To me, that's huge.
There are some other great features that you won't find on other drop box services. You can fax to the drop, and it creates a pdf of the file. You can e-mail directly to the drop. You get a phone number; people can call the drop and leave you a voice-mail. And you get a conference bridge to boot. It is a pretty useful tool.
I'm gonna go drop something in there right now.
*********************************************************************************************
This is kind of trippy and creepy at the same time. Open up this picture and take a good look at it. Actually it works a lot better if you download it and make it bigger. Like fill up your whole screen with it, or print it out. Now get up from your computer and walk across the room and look at it again.
Aaaaaaaah!
Is that crazy or what? Apparently it's got something do with how our eyes pick out different resolutions (sharp lines vs. blurry ones) and process that information over distance and time. It's part of some work being done at the Computational Visual Cognition Laboratory at MIT.
There's some more of these creepy pictures here. If you are so lazy that you cannot get up from your desk, or if your office is really small, these movie files will simulate the experience for you.
But the header of the blog does say "a collection of things I like"... it's not solely devoted to spots and production. So here's three items I've come across in the past few weeks that I find generally wicked cool.
*********************************************************************************************
iPhone: I don't know about you, but I'm just not as fast messaging on the iPhone as I am on a Blackberry. Not having actual keys to press still fucks me up sometimes, there's simply no tactile feedback to let me know that I did indeed press a key, or the space bar, or whatever. But the real pain in the ass is switching between keyboards to add numbers and punctuation.
So here's how to make that go faster. When you want to add a number or other mark to your text, press and hold the ".?123" key, then drag your finger to the mark or number you want. When you lift your finger it should insert the mark and switch back automatically to the alphabet keyboard.
Just think what you can do with all the time you'll save.
*********************************************************************************************
Drop.io: As a freelance producer, I never cease to be amazed at the minuscule attachment sizes allowed by most agency and client e-mail servers. I understand that nobody wants to clog up their e-mail server with a lot of huge files, and no one deletes anything anyway until their mailbox is full. But sometimes you just need to e-mail a rough cut, you know?
Enter drop.io. This is a great tool for freelancers, agency producers, anyone who needs to move large files around and doesn't want to deal with managing those files when the job is over.
There's plenty of drop box services, but drop.io has a couple of features that make it particularly user friendly. First of all, it's free. Your drop box is 100MB, which is a decent size, but you can have as many drop boxes as you want. So it's really unlimited. The most excellent bit, though, is that you can set the length of time that the files stay active. Default time is one year, but you can set the expiration for different lengths. So your vacation photos or client materials won't be floating around the Internet forever, and you don't have to remember to delete the files or the site when the job is over. To me, that's huge.
There are some other great features that you won't find on other drop box services. You can fax to the drop, and it creates a pdf of the file. You can e-mail directly to the drop. You get a phone number; people can call the drop and leave you a voice-mail. And you get a conference bridge to boot. It is a pretty useful tool.
I'm gonna go drop something in there right now.
*********************************************************************************************
This is kind of trippy and creepy at the same time. Open up this picture and take a good look at it. Actually it works a lot better if you download it and make it bigger. Like fill up your whole screen with it, or print it out. Now get up from your computer and walk across the room and look at it again.
Aaaaaaaah!
Is that crazy or what? Apparently it's got something do with how our eyes pick out different resolutions (sharp lines vs. blurry ones) and process that information over distance and time. It's part of some work being done at the Computational Visual Cognition Laboratory at MIT.
There's some more of these creepy pictures here. If you are so lazy that you cannot get up from your desk, or if your office is really small, these movie files will simulate the experience for you.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Where's the joke?
Have you see this spot?
I get this. The guy hears his wife talking on the phone about all the delicious goodies in the house. Apple Turnovers, Boston Creme Pie, Key Lime Pie. But where are they? He can't find them. Where could they be?
Ahhh they're the yogurts!
Duh-oh! What a dumb ass!
Another commercial where the man/dad is a dope. I don't particularly care for it but I get the joke.
But the next one makes no sense to me at all.
Is this sequel supposed to take place on the same day as the first spot? The guy is wearing the same shirt but different pants. The woman is wearing a very similar sweatsuit, but with a different T-shirt, and her hair is now in a ponytail.
If it is supposed to be a different day, the wardrobe would be obviously different, not sort of the same, right? Is it later that same day? Later that month? Next week?
And the relationship between these two? She doesn't respect him; every look she gives him pretty much says "what a idiot I married". He is obviously scared to death of her... he's afraid to talk on the phone when she's in the room. Is he in trouble now for talking on the phone, or eating the yogurt, or both? Was he supposed to ask permission? Did he eat her favorite flavor?
I don't get the joke.
The first spot follows the familiar, unfunny formula where the woman/mom is smart and the man/dad is a hopeless doofus. It's a terrible construct, but we're inured to it, so it goes by largely unnoticed. It's usually executed in a good natured manner, no one gets hurt.
I guess the second spot follows the formula too, but there is nothing good natured about it. It's just uncomfortable to watch. And not funny, either.
Did the first spot sell so much yogurt that a second one had to be produced? Maybe the demographic for this is "women who think their husbands are idiots."
Hmmm, that's probably a pretty big segment of the population. Maybe they've got something after all.
I get this. The guy hears his wife talking on the phone about all the delicious goodies in the house. Apple Turnovers, Boston Creme Pie, Key Lime Pie. But where are they? He can't find them. Where could they be?
Ahhh they're the yogurts!
Duh-oh! What a dumb ass!
Another commercial where the man/dad is a dope. I don't particularly care for it but I get the joke.
But the next one makes no sense to me at all.
Is this sequel supposed to take place on the same day as the first spot? The guy is wearing the same shirt but different pants. The woman is wearing a very similar sweatsuit, but with a different T-shirt, and her hair is now in a ponytail.
If it is supposed to be a different day, the wardrobe would be obviously different, not sort of the same, right? Is it later that same day? Later that month? Next week?
And the relationship between these two? She doesn't respect him; every look she gives him pretty much says "what a idiot I married". He is obviously scared to death of her... he's afraid to talk on the phone when she's in the room. Is he in trouble now for talking on the phone, or eating the yogurt, or both? Was he supposed to ask permission? Did he eat her favorite flavor?
I don't get the joke.
The first spot follows the familiar, unfunny formula where the woman/mom is smart and the man/dad is a hopeless doofus. It's a terrible construct, but we're inured to it, so it goes by largely unnoticed. It's usually executed in a good natured manner, no one gets hurt.
I guess the second spot follows the formula too, but there is nothing good natured about it. It's just uncomfortable to watch. And not funny, either.
Did the first spot sell so much yogurt that a second one had to be produced? Maybe the demographic for this is "women who think their husbands are idiots."
Hmmm, that's probably a pretty big segment of the population. Maybe they've got something after all.
Monday, August 3, 2009
The beginning of the end
My morning routine goes something like this:
-Wake up to the sound of our daughter over the baby monitor.
-Roll over and groan… can it really be 5:30 already?
-Pick up baby, smile, give many kisses.
-Put baby in high chair, make a pot of coffee, make baby bottle.
-Sit down on couch, put on morning news, administer bottle.
This Saturday morning was a little different, though, because after I made the bottle I uncapped it, put it in front of her, and watched.
She knows how to drink from a sippy cup. But a bottle is a little different. She needs to hold it at a specific angle so that the nipple fills with milk and she gets liquid, not a bunch of air.
So on this particular morning she picks up the bottle, puts the nipple in her mouth, then throws her head back and begins to drink. And I am delighted. “Yay! What a big girl!”
And then it hits me.
This is the beginning of the end.
This is the beginning of a process that ends with my baby girl not needing me anymore.
I've got 2 kids, so I've given hundreds of bottles in my lifetime. Maybe a thousand, even. And every time I had to drag myself out of bed at 3 AM it was a colossal pain in the ass. But by the time I’d settled into the chair, and got that little baby nestled in my arms just right, that was always gone. There is a closeness, a bond between you and that half sleeping baby. She needs you. She needs you to care for her and look out for her and wake up in the darkness and feed her. She needs her Daddy.
Now she can drink it on her own. She doesn't need me for that anymore. And while the advantages to this are huge, I am happy and sad at the same time. It is a milestone marking a dependence that has begun to slip away.
We want our kids to grow up and become strong, independent individuals. We want them to sleep through the night and get potty trained and dress themselves.
But on some level, we want them to stay little forever. To depend on us, to need us in this most fundamental way. To know that when they are frightened, we will be there to hold them, when they are sad we will make them laugh, and when they are hungry in the nighttime, the bottle, and the Daddy, will always be there.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
