So I rang my dad up (he lives there) and asked him to ferry me around some production companies, giving me the opportunity to leave my novel with some people who might like to adapt it into a ma-hoo-sive blockbuster.

I know this technique is rarely employed by Stephen King, but this allowed me to see some bits of LA that I wanted to see and have a couple of hours in the company of my dad (who usually lives 6000 miles away from me).

The reason why this technique is rarely employed became abundantly clear in Production Company Number One: they can’t take unsolicited stuff in case they accidentally make a film exactly like your story and you sue them, even though they just chucked your book in a corner and occasionally used its page edges to pick their teeth.

But we carried on driving around because it was kind of fun seeing where the ‘magic’ happens.

The interesting ones were Jerry Bruckheimer’s JB productions and Michael Bay’s Bay Films (you do know what kind of book I wrote, don’t you? It wasn’t Ali: Fear Eats The Soul. Having said that, I hadn’t intended to visit Bay films; I just bumped into it on the way to James Cameron’s place).

JB films is at the end of a dull-looking cul-de-sac off on 10th Street. It’s all a bit disappointing, but then you go inside and your eyes are treated to the temple of wealth that National Treasure 2: Book Of Secrets provided. It’s all incredibly tasteful with plenty of wood and plenty of space. I asked the English guy on reception if he liked working there. ‘It’s amazing,’ he replied as if he were talking about his first kiss that just happened to be with Grace Kelly in her prime.

Then on the way to 3rd Street I came upon the office of Bay Films. It’s surprisingly understated and tasteful with signage that’s been deliberately distressed just so.

So I went inside, and do you know what I found?

Hookers, robots and pounds of cocaine artfully placed on the naked body of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley to spell ‘I am Michael fucking Bay and I fucking rule!’…

Or was it a man gently preparing a wheelchair-bound person with cerebral palsy for a trip outside?

Dear reader, it was the more shocking of the two.

Hello.

I am in LA, but, as usual, happily prepared to provide some Monday timewasting fodder for you.

On the plane over I watched several bits of movies that were so shit I had to switch them off, along with two that were pretty good.

The shit ones (Battle Los Angeles, something with the guy from The Hangover in a mental home, something with Ashton Kutcher) differed from the good ones (The Lincoln Lawyer, Win Win) in many ways, and yet, two of them contained EXACTLY the same scene.

In the beginning of Battle LA and Win Win our protagonist is shown going for a jog. A few moments later, he is overtaken by other joggers, causing him (in a BRILLIANT microcosm of their characters) to stop, realise that he is getting to old for this shit, and give up.

One is a mindless $100m blockbuster; the other a gentle little indie that looks like it cost about the same as Battle LA’s catering budget – and yet they used the same scene to make the same point.

Just goes to show that you can have the best idea in the world, but if the execution saves it/ruins it, none of that matters.

Anyway, I’m here until Tuesday night, and have quite a full schedule, but if you fancy breakfast tomorrow, let me know. x

I think I put somethng like this up before, but this is neater and still awesome.

http://www.hasrebekahbrooksbeensackedyet.com/

UPDATE: well, she’s resigned instead, so now we have this site.

Elliot auditioning for ET:

An Argentinian footie fan swearing like no one has ever sworn before (thanks, D):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFm2JB9z-_g

The beauty of what sand really looks like (sorry it’s on the Mail’s site, and thanks, J).

BA Baracus words of wisdom:

Worst rap video of all time (thanks, G):

Email from an asshole (thanks, T – look, I finally got something back from you. Note the thanks).

What is going on in the world today (thanks, S).

Finally, a lovely bit of Masterchef editing (thanks, J):

Here is an ad for American Airlines from the 1999 D&AD annual:

And now look at this preview poster for next year’s Batman film:

It’s a flagrant rip.

I hope someone sues.

(Thanks to Elliot, Cam and Wrongpoint for pointing out and finding the American Airlines image.)

*Joke.

I had a chat with Mark Denton yesterday.

For some reason I thought his early-nineties uberagency, Simons Palmer Denton Clemmow and Johnson, was a massive hit from the second it opened its doors.

Mark soon disabused me of this notion, explaining that they were fuelled by the not very massive budgets of Greenpeace and Luncheon Vouchers (do they still make those?) for ages until Nike arrived in the middle of year four.

Then they started making ads like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3a35Sz2z2pQ

And went on to win awards for (I quote Mark) 87% of their clients, creating my impression of SPDC&J as an agency of great success.

This led me to ponder agencies and how their most famous image dominates any other time in their history.

For example, VCCP has been producing a fair amount of award-winning work for the last few years. However, most still think of it as the dull O2 place of the mid 2000s whose first boast on its website was that its work would always be produced on time.

Equally, when I freelanced at Lowe a couple of years ago I simply could not get it out of my head that this was the great home of Stella, Reebok, Tesco and the like. It had changed somewhat (for a start, none of those accounts were there), but for me it was still Lowe.

Grey are better than they used to be, but for many they are still Grey in name and nature. McCann’s produced some great work a few years back, but they were still thought to be crappy old McCann’s (and seem to have returned to that state). Despite wonderful work for Citroen and Dulux Euros remains in my mind as a place that is large, boring and poor.

I remember David Abbott once saying that you can live for three years off a good piece of work. When the 1000 days are up you’d better have produced another cracker, or people will start to think it’s a fluke.

I think that rule holds for many other impressions, particularly our first ones.

We compartmentalise brands, people, agencies etc. because it makes life easier, but that also means it’s hard to shunt any of these from one compartment to another.

An interesting lesson for any start-ups out there.

(Thanks, M.)

A marine has asked Mila Kunis out via YouTube:

And she said yes.

Of course the odds were long, but that soldier remembered the old maxim: you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

The vast majority of us live somewhat contracted lives because we don’t want to take little chances that might make us look a bit silly.

Well, Sergeant Scott Moore couldn’t give a shit about any of that, and now he’s going to the ball with Mila Kunis.

I bet you’ve got your own ‘Mila Kunis’ (maybe it’s Mila Kunis) and your own ‘ball’.

So what are you waiting for?

I’m sure you’ve read enough about the current goings-on at the NOTW to choke a hippo, but can I arrogantly suggest this angle may differ from the others?

What interests me is the defence of the current NOTW as a well-intended bastion of investigative reporting.

Leaving aside the question of whether or not Shane Warne + Liz Hurley is actually worth investigating, the whole stance is comepletely disingenuous.

The News Of The World exists for one reason alone: to sell copies of the News Of The World (and, by extension, make money for News International/Rupert Murdoch). They can’t claim to have had a mission of seeking out and exposing corruption (eg: Jeffrey Archer paying a hooker) because they ignored their own; they can’t claim to speak for the disadvantaged (eg: campaigning for compensation for 7/7 victims) because they hounded at least two to suicide:

And if there is no consistent thread of motivational behaviour for this newspaper, other than the making of money, then their campaign to expose paedophiles rings rather hollow. If their readers didn’t really care about that issue then the NOTW would not have pursued the matter. It’s just another attempt at providing something that they think people want to read about. It’s as deeply ingrained in their raison d’etre as Rebecca Loos wanking off a pig, a picture of Michael Jackson’s deathbed or whatever they learned from the voicemail of a murdered schoolgirl.

And that’s a dangerous path to go down: you ask the question, ‘Will this sell us lots of copies?’, and if the answer is ‘Yes’, you do it, no matter if it’s illegal, immoral or indefensible.

Many companies have a mission statement for how they go about their business. But is it the truth, or is it what they want their customers to think is the truth?

I think that we’d find, depressingly often, that the latter is more often the case than the former.

Things I did last night.

And here’s a handy way to make everything OK (thanks, W).

The excellent blog of advertising’s Gerry Graf (thanks, P).

And Wheel of Concept from Tribal.

The AIDS diet plan:

Put a twang of salt on a sweet melon and it brings out accent:

Great Taxi Driver article (thanks, J).

Kevin Smith on Prince:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy_cLJ19HMg

(Continues here and here.)

I went round to see my friend Stephen Gash the other day (interest declared: he’s a friend. Also, he runs an excellent production company called QI Commercials that is related to the QI that seems always to be on Dave and Dave + 1) and he drew me this diagram:

On the x axis we have creativity, ranging from Turkey of the Year to Cannes Grand Prix (or whatever measure you want to use).

On the Y axis we have what is now described as effectiveness: how much product is the ad shifting (I know it’s not always about shifting products, but you know what I mean).

So point A is where we all want to be: massive success for both agency and client. I guess the stories often get muddied, but I would suggest ads like Swimblack, Cog and Gorilla belong up there.

Then there’s point B: the exact opposite. A shitty ad that gets no one buying anything. I’d cite examples, but the thing is, we probably have no idea of the real failures because they just pass us by without making any kind of an impact. The actively awful ones tend to get talked about, and that can then equate to big sales, bringing us to…

Point C: the shit ads that shift product. Cillit Bang, Esure, Go Compare etc.

And then there’s point D: the award winner that doesn’t work. Bill Bernbach said, ‘A great ad campaign will make a bad product fail faster. It will get more people to know it’s bad.’ So that happens at point D, as does the rarer phenomenon of highly awarded ads that leave the public cold.

Stephen went on to explain that at points B and D the agency, and possibly the client, will get fired. At point C the agency might resign the account or, more likely, try to pretend they didn’t do it whilst continuing to trouser the cash of a happy client. And at point A it’s all Champagne and crack binges a-go-go.

So really, the only thing that matters in keeping an account is a happy client, which is why so much agency effort these days goes into achieving that result.

After all, you can’t play football without a ball (or something).