If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas?

For those of you who would like to know what the Cannes Outdoor jury’s liked best, check here.

There’s a lot of very nice work there, but I’m sure you can make your own mind up about it.

In the meantime, here’s one of the Grands Prix:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv7DFKG53Lk

Pretty cool. New, different, arresting. Nothing wrong there.

The other Grand Prix was for a Chinese Coke ad (check back to the link above).

Is it a Grand Prix? Well, yes, because it won a Grand Prix. Beyond that I think it’s worth taking our hats of to Graham Fink who CDed it. He gave a up a job at M&C Saatchi that was going very well and went to take on the challenge of working for an unfashionable agency (Ogilvy) in an emerging market (as far as award-winning advertising goes). Then he won a bloody Cannes Grand Prix. That’s quite an achievement.

My hat is now located somewhere other than on my head.

In 1998 (I think) I went to the London Film Festival screening of Boogie Nights. At the end of the movie Paul Thomas Anderson came to the stage for a Q and A session. I only remember one question/answer: a pretentious-sounding man in his twenties stood up and drawled, ‘In depicting the 1970s, what were you trying to convey?’ There was a pause, then Paul responded (in a way that somewhat mimicked the voice of the questioner), ‘In depicting the 1970s I was trying to convey… the 1970s’. We all laughed. He’s funny, piss-takey and far less cerebral than you might expect.

A few years later I attended the London Film Festival screening of Punch Drunk Love, the only Adam Sandler Film I’ve seen that is not utter, utter, utter shit (although the first half of Funny People is pretty good). Again, Paul came to the stage for a Q and A. Again, I only remember one question/answer: a middle-aged woman got up and said that she thought the film was really good but asked why it had to be so loud (if you haven’t seen it in a good cinema you might not know that the scenes where trucks speed by are supposed to be very loud). Paul then explained that those trucks are supposed to be metaphors for the experience of falling in love, and that is an experience that is often quite loud (metaphorically speaking). The woman then refused to sit down. She kept on asking the same question even when people asked her to sit down. She seemed to want another answer. It was interesting to watch her defiance.

Anyway, PTA has another movie coming out this year. It’s called The Master and I expect it will be as good as Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love and There Will Be Blood:

And I think I’ve put this up before, but here’s an interview:

Have a read.

Pixar’s rules of storytelling (thanks, P).

Leica on Ed Templeton:

Funny (thanks, W/G):

The most powerful photos ever taken.

Hours of fun (thanks, K).

Why smart people are actually stupid (thanks, P).

LA in the 50s (thanks, P):

For all the 90s kids out there, Ren and Stimpy’s animator advertises Stüssy (thanks, P):

I have no idea what will win the Grand Prix

I think in this year, more than any other in recent memory, there is no runaway winner. Also, there is nothing I can think of that’s truly of Grand Prix standard.

This is the best ad that springs to mind in recent memory:

And these are some picks for the GP that seem fairly Silvery/Bronzey:

Like a bad 90s ad:

Nice, but feels awfully familiar:

Silver in any other year:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJtk4akaEME

Good but not great:

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

Top of the UK class:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSLOnR1s74o

Any other suggestions?

As regular readers (hi mum!) will know, I have trouble putting pictures up on this blog. Problem number one is WordPress won’t let me do it; problem number two is I’ve exhausted my enthusiasm for solving problem number one.

So if you want to see these great Harvey Nix press ads, check ’em out here.

Why are they so good?

1. They’re brave. Come on, models who have pissed themselves? When did you last (or ever) see an ad that explicitly featured urine? And in a funny way. Incorporating piss that makes you laugh into an ad for a major brand is quite some achievement.

2. They’re beautifully art directed. I know HN ads are always beautifully art directed, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to do. I confess that I’ve never heard of the team, but the AD has done a really excellent job.

3. Great ads on brands that have a history of great ads is much tougher than it looks. The bar is higher, expectations are higher and the it’s-not-as-good-as-the-last-one-ometer is immediately set to the red zone. And now I’m trying to remember the last time HN did a press ad that really stood out like these do. It probably wasn’t very long ago, but I’m often too drunk to recall such things.

4. All the advice people get about disruption, asking forgiveness instead of permission, shaking things up etc. is so often talked but not walked. Here it is loud and clear in ads that will definitely get noticed, talked about, liked and remembered.

Hooray!

(I love it when ads are good.)

Sorry. Been busy in LA this week, hence the lack of posts. And this weekend ain’t the best, but thanks to P&J for making it much better than it would have been (i.e. non existent) without you.

Retrofy your Mac (thanks, J).

Blek Le Rat stencil artist doc (thanks, P):

http://vimeo.com/41423944

The Wire the musical (thanks, J).

Django Unchained trailer (thanks, P):

The history of US advertising on one easy site (thanks, P).

Malcolm Gladwell book generator (thanks, P).

This is a fascinating documentary made by Tom Shadyac, the director of Ace Ventura, Liar Liar and Bruce Almighty. He went looking for the answer to why we’re here, interviewing many interesting people along the way.

The answer he found is that we’re all connected in ways we may not even be aware of, so if you don’t give much thought to the way you live your life, here’s an opportunity to spend 80 minutes doing just that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMj9N5Io0ts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QVd7ULdh4w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rg72DjcvlyE&feature=fvwrel

I’ll ask again: why do people do things like this?

And thanks to L for reminding me of this:

The Surrender Monkeys have owned the interweb this week with this little gem:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC1CLnmtQFo&feature=g-logo

Sean Bean dies in every movie (thanks, L & E):

This’ll tee you right up for the morning (thanks, J):

What’s the fucking job number? (Thanks, J)

Five seconds of every US Number One since 1993 (thanks, P).

A photographer recreates Banksy’s stencils (thanks, P).

Fantastic vid for Kanye and Jay Z’s No Church In The Wild (thanks, P):

http://vimeo.com/43051867

Samuel L Darth:

Advertising moment gifs (thanks, A).