You don’t need me to explain why it’s so good, but it continues the great job of the last one, albeit in a joyously different way.
You remember the last one, don’t you? Still sends shivers down the spine…
How Taxi Driver ruined acting (thanks, A).
Cool sculptures made of discarded doll parts (thanks, T).
Fantastic men’s fashion ads from the 1970s (thanks, A2).
People from old movies dance to Uptown Funk (thanks, J):
Every goal from Euro 2016 animated:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvDsE2MDW5Y
Charlie Kaufman speaks about his career.
Andrei Tarkovsky’s polaroids (thanks, R).
Samuel L. Jackson’s beginners guide to Game of Thrones (thanks, P):
A ton of stuff about Pet Sounds (thanks, T).
Anton Chekhov stated that there should be nothing significant in a story that is either unnecessary or replaceable:
Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.
You know the kind of thing…
Daniel’s crane move in Karate Kid.
The glasses in Chinatown.
Buzz Lightyear’s ‘falling with style’ in Toy Story.
But this kind of foreshadowing can go in good and bad directions.
Great movies set up elements you’re generally unaware of because they exist in nuance and character:
In There Will Be Blood Daniel Plainview accepts the story of the man who pretends to be his brother because he invests great importance in the connections of blood that have thus far eluded him.
In Schindler’s List Oskar Schindler saves 1300 Jews from the Holocaust by using the deceit and subterfuge that made his fortune in the early years of the war.
In Citizen Kane Kane’s ultimate unhappiness comes as he searches fruitlessly for the father he was taken from at the beginning of the movie. (Rosebud is another gun in the first act, but as it is mentioned all the way through we can hardly forget its existence or watch it make an unexpected reappearance.)
But bad movies… Shit… They chuck them in there like monkeys flinging turds:
My least favourite is in the film Signs. Just watch this clip and see how little trust the director has in the audience; how many shots telegraph the bat, and the line ‘Swing away’, which is another first-act gun in a collection that looks like the woodshed of an NRA fanatic:
Just as poor is Jurassic World: the moment in the beginning where Owen calms the raptors is repeated towards the end. Then again, the whole thing is a dismal remake of the 1993 original.
Finally, in Pixels Brenner has to win an ‘important’ Donkey Kong game because he lost an ‘important’ Donkey Kong game as a kid. Yawn.
All films use the start of the movie to create the end, but if that use is artless and crass the whole movie can feel like a lazy mess.
So there you go: make your guns as subtle as possible and they won’t go off in your face.
Auctioneer beats (thanks, S).
Japanese Trump commercial (thanks, S):
25 gifs explaining how everyday things work (thanks, K).
What happens when you light 10,000 sparklers at once (thanks, T):
The stupidest thing John Hegarty has ever seen (thanks, R).
Hi Ben,
Hope all is well. I’m a long time reader of your blog and a creative in London, but right now I’m plugging a scholarship competition I am looking after for my old course.
We have just launched our 2016 competion for a place at School of Communication Arts 2.0, worth 12k in tuition. The competition was launched in 2014 in memory of a former student, and it is organised and judged by course alumni.
The URL is http://www.
Here’s an article about Cannes that makes quite a few points about why it’s losing its way, but the main one is that no one seems to know or care about the actual awards.
And here’s another that says Marin Sorrell is ‘maybe…maybe… maybe…’ thinking about considering contemplating entertaining the idea of perhaps quitting Cannes.
Golly!
Apparently it’s turned into a big networking exercise that’s full of talks and celebrities and costs a lot of money.
Also: bears defecate in wooded areas and the Pope is a big fan of Catholicism.
So I’m not sure why this year has led to more of these articles. Cannes has always been a colossal booze-up masquerading as an expensive networking exercise masquerading as some sort of celebration of the best advertising has to offer. I believe different people get different things out of it and those things are clearly valuable enough for the attendees to take the time and expense to fly in from LA or Sydney or Tokyo.
Has it lost its ‘relevancy’ (and more to the point, when did the word ‘relevance’ transform into ‘relevancy’?)? Is the data side of the business being sufficiently represented? Is it worth listening to Richard Littlejohn and/or Katie Hopkins talking about anything other than their imminent plans for suicide? Is Cannes a topical allegory for the bloated EU?
If people care less and less about actually seeing the awarded work then there’s a very simple reason for that: unlike 10-15 years ago much of the work can be seen on several global websites that collect the best work throughout the year. The work that is enjoying a surprising debut on the Croisette is almost certainly the kind of depressing scam that feeds into the tedious circle-jerk that leaves many of us cold.
Have a watch of Rory Sutherland for some fine wisdom on the subject:
So it’s the same as it always is: plenty to complain about if you’re that way inclined, but I kind of see it as a version of Chelsea FC or the films of Michael Bay: many people see the appeal, many do not, but neither are going away anytime soon, so what’s the point in getting your knickers in a twist?
I’m not here to make friends:
If you liked The Force Awakens at the time but not in retrospect, this is why.
Gift of Gab:
Let’s enhance:
OMG… 30 minutes of Jerry Lewis’s infamous holocaust movie have surfaced!
The New York Subway in the 80s (thanks, T).
Curbed outtakes (thanks, T):
2016 Tarantino commencement speech:
Today the wider media shook its head at another dismal example of the ad industry’s most pathetic behaviour…
The headlines:
ADVERTISING INDUSTRY SHAMELESS IN ITS MORAL BANKRUPTCY
SENIOR AD INDUSTRY FIGURES DEPRESSINGLY CORRUPT.
JUST AS WE THOUGHT: ADLAND POPULATED BY CRAVEN, SCHEMING FUCKWITS
LYING, DECEIT AND FAKERY ALIVE AND WELL IN AD INDUSTRY
“WE’RE SO SHIT AT THIS, WE HAVE TO MAKE THINGS UP” ADMITS PACK OF TITS
Seriously, can everyone involved in this just fuck right off?
It’s hard enough trying to maintain credibility in the face of the jargonistas who can’t use one word if 35,000 will do.
And all the online ads that are so annoying that adblockers are the only way of maintaining your sanity.
And the sophomoric race to the next shiny new thing, like kittens chasing the light from a laser pen…
When we have to deal with another Lifepaint cackwipe it really doesn’t do us any favours.
For a communications industry whose entire reason for existence is to present things in their best light we are pretty fucking AMAZING at doing the opposite when it comes to ourselves.
I’m currently driving from New York to LA and back (family holiday).
Somewhere between Columbus, Ohio and Triadelphia, West Virginia, I saw an Oreo truck, which made me think: who invented Oreos? And isn’t it fucking amazing how popular they’ve become and remained, across many countries?
Isn’t it funny how much we venerate music, movies and art, yet barely spare a thought for Etch-a-Sketches, Prets and biros, all of which often impact our lives in much more fundamental ways.
Look how creative Arctic Monkeys and 12 Years A Slave are! Watch as they sell a million albums or win a bunch of Oscars! Compared to the genius who discovered the Mars Bar combination of caramel, nougat and chocolate they are both gnats farts.
And no, I’m not saying that creativity is a popularity contest, but to have made such a consistent, positive and lasting impact on so many millions with an invention is surely a far greater act of creativity than an album whose shelf life is a couple of years at best.
You could even compare these other things to classics like Casablanca or St Pepper: they’ve lasted decades and still give the same enjoyment to subsequent generations that weren’t even born when they were invented.
Monopoly, Coke, Robertson’s Golden Shred, your favourite magazine, Clarins make up (or whatever brand you like), Levi’s, Tetris, cats eyes (the ones in the middle of roads), Post-Its, Le Creuset saucepans, the X-Box, Ray-Ban Wayfarers, your favourite blogs and podcasts, Pedigree Chum, a great pillow that holds its shape, the Rubik’s Cube, those Saucony trainers that take five seconds off your mile time, a Zippo lighter…
They may not have award shows at Cannes for all of the above (the product design section of D&AD has been eclectic enough to include the iPhone and a JCB, but very few of the kind of things you buy every day), but they ought to be as celebrated as any integrated, 360, mobile wankathon that might win a few Grands Prix.
As an example, here’s a massively-awarded spot from a while ago that might as well never have happened:
What’s a greater act of creativity, that or Cadbury’s Creme Eggs?
And what great creations do you think are more deserving of recognition?