Picks from Saatchi and Saatchi New Directors, Cannes 2008

Joey Garfield directs this one shot wonder featuring Bill Shannon. Born with a degenerative hip condition, he has developed a way of moving on his skateboard and crutches that's both playful and beautiful to watch. Here Bill just does his thing.

The tracks creator, RJD2, also makes a few appearances as several different extras. See whether you can spot him...



Muto:
present active mūtō, present infinitive mūtāre, perfect active mūtāvī, supine mūtātum.

1. I move, remove.
2. I alter, change, modify, transform.
3. I vary, diversify.
4. I mutate, spoil.
5. I exchange, barter, sell.
6. I forsake.

according to Wiktionary.

Mentioned in the post about Tate Modern's street art exhibition, Blu, gives his definition of the word...




An old-y but a good-y. John Kelley's, Procastination deals with something all creatives know all too well.




Santogold + technicolour gorefest = cool video. Thanks Nima Nourizadeh.



Another crazy Bjork video. Encyclopedia Pictura take it to an all new level though. For the hi res and 3D experience go here



And then there's Vincent Moon, who takes a fresh approach to the music promo. The musical documentaries and portraits collected on his site, www.vincentmoon.com/ explore the fascinating characters of the bands he shoots.



Also see previous posts Tits and giggles,
The nerd's done good,
and Stress, Justice
directed by Romain Gavras

International ad students put Britain's to shame

Last week took me to the D&AD New Blood exhibition at Earls Court. Quite frankly the standard was shocking. The graphics and illustration left more of an impression so my mission of finding a copywriter bombed. I came away feeling bitterly depressed. Which is why, when I saw there were no British finalists for the Future Lions it didn't surprise me one bit.

http://www.futurelions.com/

The ideas aren't massively mind blowing (GPS/ Google Earth tracking, nothing new there) but at least they attempt at a degree of creativity that was seriously lacking in most of the work I saw last Tuesday. Oh dear.

Happy Thought has a more in depth review of New Blood, check it

Tits and giggles

Keith Schofield directs for Brighton Port Authority (Norman Cook's new project). The track features David Byrne and Dizee Rascal. The samples are apparently from a collection of tapes found at Brighton Dockside Warehouse. Splains the name I spose.

The nerd's done good.

Who would have thought editing transitions, a computer loading bar and an Apple 'processing' colour wheel could spawn such an awesome video.
















zZz is playing: Grip
Dir. Roel Wouters

link for more work

Flickr Rediscovery

After Martin DeThurah, I thought I'd post some Cole Rise shots.

He's pretty well known within the Flickr community. I remember first seeing a photo of his in the Creative Review article they had on the site. I lost the article but the images below stuck with me. Well pleased I stumbled upon him earlier, immediately bookmarked his page. Enjoy. link

Musical musts for me at the mo

Last October, the gig-ometer was blown apart by an electric Kings of Leon at The Shepherds Bush Empire. The latest contenders stepped up with fine audio fidelity but both lacked on the atmos fronts. The Kings fail to be threatened on the top spot. I can, however, recommend their albums. Give em a whirl.

So I've shown you mine... you show me yours. What's your Ipod saying?

Man I wish I was going Glasto this weekend.

Dir. Martin DeThurah Short Films

One of my fave promo directors seems to be trying to break into the world of narrative film. Although the reports aren't great, he's set the bar high for himself with his music vids. But who cares when they look like this though....


Click the posters for links to trailers. The second one is on Academy's Films website. Go 'Commercials', 'Martin DeThurah', 'We Who Stayed Behind'. But Check out the rest of his reel. Check out the site too - hardcore director fest.

Tag the web

A totally sweet digital idea - listen to the album as you tag the web.

Simpilicity rules.

I love ads that make you reach for the rewind. It's all about the double take.

''Andy has a Woody..."

Discovered this on the writers reel yesterday via Scamp's blog. His name's Graeme Hall an ex Watty student, so there's hope for me yet. It's from a really strong campaign from 2007. Don't know how it got past me. Great writing. I'm jealous. They repeated the campaign this year but it's not as good.

Hey Wait...

... is a graphic novel by Jason (just the one name - he's not Brazilian though, he's from Norway) that I borrowed from Watford Library. I didn't know anything about it apart from I really dug the illustrations. What a treat though. Beautiful, simple, and sad. Definitely gonna check some more of his stuff.

A rabbit genetically modified and bred with a panther

Where's all the humour gone in British advertising? I think we're taking ourselves a bit too seriously at the moment (Gorilla aside). I'm gonna do some digging and see what I come up with watch this blog space...

Poster Porn Part 1, The Thigh Rubbers

As in the verb, to thigh rub...

The first in a series of collections I'll post here.

These are all recent discoveries. I've only put one in from each campaign even though, as with the Radio Nova campaign below, there is often other fantastic executions.

Expect more optical stimulation soon....

... Ooh and please feel free to send me any suggestions. Good porn should be shared.

Adidas fills losers heads with false hope

It's Euro 2008 so sports brands have gone all football on us. First we had Nike's offering via Guy Ritchie and now Adidas visits the worlds smallest football teams to inspire children across the globe.

The idea is sickly sweet but there are some really funny insights into the teams situations that make the films watchable enough. If only they had considered the England squad when picking their subjects, we may have had a shot at glory this summer.




Go here to check out the rest of the films.... link

"C'mon, connection!"

Stumbled across this recently. I love a good spoof, me.

Was difficult worth doing? Part 2

So W+K have done the new Honda ad (and so have 4 Creative - see part 1) and I feel a little let down. Not in the way that it compares badly to the classics of the past, but how it compares to the live ad. With the live ad there is a sense of involvement and event. The W+K one just feels a bit too much like... well, an ad. Watching you question the realness of the stunts, and I think I would have less if I hadn't seen the live one first. As with the Sony Balls, Paint and Honda Cog ads, until you know "they actually did that" the spectacle isn't complete. I think tactically the live ad went out first to try and convince us of the genuineness of the second. Unfortunately if that was the case, it backfired.

Maybe it's the cinematic style as well. Documentaries are often filmed on video for a reason. The stunts are not impressive enough for cinema, if they'd shot it with a PD150 (the films on the campaigns supporting website are really well put together and add considerably to the experience) I would have bought it more, hence the first ad being more of a success. But then your stuck with getting the big shiny car shots for the client, as the brief was clearly designed to show off the new car.




So was 'difficult worth doing'? For 4Creative, yes and Wiedens, yes too. I the second will serve to jog peoples memory about the first ad/event and it was necessary to sell the new car as well. So overall the two ads work in harmony to raise brand profile and specifically sell the brands new product. I just felt slightly deflated after the second... but the website and lead up films are really cool.

POV Nike Ad Full length

Like it. A lot. Including the 2D post production weirdness - echoes computer games. It's what all the kids are into now - realistic, interactive entertainment. How long will it be before the games industry kills off Hollywood?

Fears about mobile phones confirmed

A Droga5 viral, I believe.

The whole campaign's pretty neat. Check it...
http://www.no-evil.net

The Biggest Drawing in the World

Check this for the full story...

http://www.biggestdrawingintheworld.com

Local vicar's tea spiked with happy pills

Check out what came through my front door.

The best bit's the lion, it's loving the petting.

Was difficult worth doing? Part 1

Two new ads for Honda have recently been aired on Britsh telly. They both involve skydivers making intricate and risky formations after jumping out of a plane at fuck loads of feet high. After which follows the strapline "Difficult is worth doing". However each ad was done by a different agency.

$ Creative produced the first ad, which aired on a Thursday night, was 3 minutes long and live. Every national newspaper covered the subject leading up to the event. In fact, it was advertised in much the same way as a programme. It had it's own publicised time slot, and ad campaign. People set their alarms for 8.10pm and snuggled up on the sofa to tune in. Because who wouldn't want to watch adrenalin junkies dice with death live on terrestrial tv. Well... me actually.

It slipped my mind. For once I was doing something better than checking out ads. I was at a concert. So what chance have agencies got in encouraging people to watch ads if the ad students aren't even interested?

Hey, I never said I wasn't interested. As soon as I woke up the next day I got straight on Youtube. It was comparible to watching match of the day. I purposefully didn't want to know the results. I was genuinely excited.

See what you think...


Seeing the ground rush up while they calmly go through their routine is a bit hairy, but I think the whole event was really involving. The interest surrounding it was enormous. It still is. And most importantly it's not just ad land that's talking.

Great job, I agree with Scamp, 4Creative deserve a Black Pencil. What on earth could Wiedens do with the second ad to top this?

To be cont...