https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Dxy4n0UT82o
Maybe leave out the little curious grunts of the inventor?
But that’s a minuscule point up against the charming, beautifully executed loveliness of another brilliant Honda ad.
… this interview with Rick Rubin.
It’s inspirational to see how he doesn’t get impeded by the question marks of a creative process:
I never decide if an idea is good or bad until I try it. So much of what gets in the way of things being good is thinking that we know. And the more that we can remove any baggage we’re carrying with us, and just be in the moment, use our ears, and pay attention to what’s happening, and just listen to the inner voice that directs us, the better. But it’s not the voice in your head. It’s a different voice. It’s not intellect. It’s not a brain function. It’s a body function, like running from a tiger.
But being open to using your instincts instead of going, “Oh, that’s not going to work.” Or listening to the part of your brain that goes, “Oh, that’s out of tune.” Or the part of your brain that says, “That’s too loud.” You have to shut off all of those voices and look for these special moments—these moments that you accept you have no control over. So much of my job is to not think—to be open to what’s there, and then use my intuition to see where it takes me.
All that and the man discovered Chuck D, produced Walk This Way, rediscovered Johnny Cash, produced 21, spotted Under The Bridge in a notebook, produced 99 Problems…
The list goes on and because of that, the man is a genius.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52MzBNqcnLI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpcO3WdrgsQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=w7swFGyQwGU
Last week I watched a calf being born. It was really cool circle of life-type shit, where I could envisage the little blighter becoming my spaghetti bolognese in a few years time. With me were my wife, who also found it amazing, and my kids, who were far more blasé about it. They’re seven and three and didn’t find it nearly as compelling as an episode of Adventure Time.
So it occurred to me that we often hold up children’s ability to see the wonder in everything like it’s some special super-power that we should all aspire to. They see some marmite on toast and gasp, ‘Wow!’ and we think, ‘Shit, I am such a cold, unfeeling, dead-inside bastard that I cannot see the wonder in a slice of marmite on toast. And my God, there is so much wonder in a slice of marmite on toast. How the hell do they extract that black goop from yeast? Who had that idea? And the toaster – so incredible. Works every time to heat up my bread. Fucking amazing.’
Or not.
Anyway, kids get amazed at everything and we don’t, so the cliché goes. But actually adults get amazed at waaaaaaaay more things than kids.
When I take my son to see Arsenal play I get a ton more out of it, and find it much more amazing because I have a shitload of context with which to make eleven overpaid blokes running around after a ball seem far more incredible that it first appears. All the preparation it takes to make a big game of football happen, the wages, the transport, the negotiations with huge organisations, the way a run down the channel can be a really clever way of making the most of the false nine in the hole etc.
My son has no idea about any of that, but I do, and as a consequence I find much more amazement in that situation than he does. Same with the art in an art gallery. Sure, he loves those McDonalds carvings the Chapmans did that are in Tate Britain (check them out, they’re very cool) because they’re kind of funny, but I see the Hamburglar-as-Jesus one and find it much funnier because of all the Jesus shit in my head. I like it in the way Jackson does, but I also like it in a million other ways that all fill my head at the same time.
Sure, the first experience of something is usually far more affecting than the 109th time, and in that way the kids have the upper hand, but we can find the layers that are invisible to those without sufficient context. To a kid a nice coat is a nice coat, but for a grown up it might have some great stitching or a way of working with a shirt that is just right for 2013. Hitting a ball into a small hole from far away might impress a six-year-old, but when it’s the winning shot on the final hole of the Ryder cup he’s going to be missing out on a whole lot of other stuff. Stevie Wonder’s music is the best, but until you know he wrote and performed it blind and at fifteen years old, Uptight is only 10% as impressive as it could be.
Where is this going? Not sure, but it made me realise that we can beat ourselves up for all sorts of bullshit that really isn’t there. A little more thought and you might realise that you are more incredible than you thought, and certainly much better than some snot-nosed little kid who goes ‘Ooooooh!’ just because he’s seen a pigeon.
Hooray.
Guys with photoshopped girlfriends (thanks, J).
Gotta love Shynola (thanks, M):
Great shots of WW2 ammo (thanks J).
Advertising a cafe that used be a toilet.
Jim Jarmusch’s five rules of filmmaking.
John Lennon on The Voice (thanks, B):
Seduction tips from Vanilla Ice (thanks, R).
Brilliant story of Louis Armstrong interview:
Exploding actresses (thanks, J).
Jack introduces Bob (thanks, T):
http://vimeo.com/63888953
Another great Howard Stern interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROJFK8CB1J8
Last week the jurors of Cannes awarded Dumb Ways To Die an unprecedented 5 Grands Prix, as well as 18 Golds and some other Lions of various colours.
In case you haven’t seen it, here’s the case study thing:
It’s a nice campaign, but I must admit I got through about two of its three minutes before turning it off (no offence to the people involved).
Around the time its creators were rustling up an excess baggage payment for the flight home, one of London’s CDs was pointing out that by far the biggest ad/PR/Promotion/Innovation/Titanium thingamijig from last year won nothing, presumably because no one entered it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7f-K-XnHi9I
The Red Bull space jump was seen live by millions around the world and it was universally positively received and perfect for the brand. The organisation and promotion of said stunt beggars belief and (sorry, little cartoon characters) was a far bigger and more impressive achievement than DWTD.
So my next question is: if the very best in the world aren’t entering Cannes, why not?
I’d say it’s because they’ve just created a worldwide stunt where a man jumped to Earth from space, so they might just be finding it a little tricky to give a toss about a tin lion (though that didn’t stop the makers of London’s Millennium Wheel or the Milau Viaduct from entering them into D&AD a while back – sheesh).
Guys with photoshopped girlfriends (thanks, J).
Gotta love Shynola (thanks, M):
Great shots of WW2 ammo (thanks J).
Advertising a cafe that used be a toilet.
Jim Jarmusch’s five rules of filmmaking.
John Lennon on The Voice (thanks, B):
Seduction tips from Vanilla Ice (thanks, R).
Brilliant story of Louis Armstrong interview:
Exploding actresses (thanks, J).
Jack introduces Bob (thanks, T):
http://vimeo.com/63888953
Ten years ago there was a great big kerfuffle about the lack of copy in press ads.
For four years running the best ad at the Campaign Press Awards (by the way, is it just me or did those awards seem worth winning back in the day? Nowadays we have the strange smorgasbord of the BIG Awards and its expensive hardback annual that no one really wants, and of the ones who want it no one can really be arsed to read through it all. Not like the old Press Awards pamphlet which, like the Poster Awards and BTAAs, arrived with your Campaign the next day and told you quite clearly who all the winners were. Now no one knows and even fewer people care) was won by an ad with not a single word beyond the name of the client. This led to much prediction of the end of the written word in advertising and was capped off by Trevor Beattie christening this thing the ‘proster’.
It also inspired Robin Wight to write this article.
In those days there was a definite formula to winning at Cannes and it involved using as few words as possible to appeal to jurors from lots of countries who might not appreciate the intricacies of the English language. It also showed a reductive elegance, getting a message across with as few elements as possible to show Maximum Meaning, Minimum Means.
But if you look at the press and poster winners this year there are words all over the place. Perhaps not loads of headline-visual-body copy executions, but certainly something more complex than the old proster. Is this a trend or was the proster not so much a trend as a little blip or coincidence?
Perhaps it all goes to prove the answer to that great riddle: what four words can make a sad man happy and a happy man sad?
First one to get the right answer gets the satisfaction of doing so.
RIP James Gandolfini, and RIP Tony Soprano: an in-depth analysis of why he died at the end of the series (thanks, J).
Non-drummer drums; non-pianist plays piano (thanks, G):
Gunplay supercut:
Fighting supercut (thanks, G):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fZzxMZ9hLU
I think that was done by Richard Curtis. Here’s the flipside of him (thanks, W):
Movie locations as holiday destinations (thanks, G).
George Carlin on snitches:
Make things do stuff (thanks, V).
Peter Jackson answers Stephen Colbert’s fan question (thanks, G):
Jackie Chan fought with Bruce Lee (thanks, G):
David Cameron shouldn’t check his Twitter feed.
Troy MacLure supercut (thanks, G):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYNZ1PMdO1M
When the Harlem Shake goes wrong:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlNwyyijHF4&feature=player_embedded
How a Brazilian tribe converted a missionary to Atheism (thanks, G):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr3q6Cid1po
Cool bike shit: