If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas?

Mar 28 2012 March 28, 2012 March 28, 2012 11 Comments by ben

Know your outcome

Posted in Uncategorized

I don’t know much about the motivational speaker Tony Robbins, but I do know this is a great story.

(Thanks, coach.)

Mar 27 2012 March 27, 2012 March 27, 2012 9 Comments by ben

Saatchis nude erectors showcase ad

Posted in Uncategorized

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkpK_dZY-bc

Lovely touches (fnarr fnarr!).

Last year I was freelancing at Saatchis in the office opposite the lovely chaps who made this. How many times did we hear a somewhat slutty voice say the words ‘slam in the lamb’, Adam? Lots and lots and lots.

Mar 26 2012 March 26, 2012 March 26, 2012 4 Comments by ben

Plan B TED Talk

Posted in Uncategorized

Just finished watching Plan B’s TED Talk:

It’s slow to get going but there’s a really good track at the halfway mark then Mr. Drew starts getting to his point.

Mar 22 2012 March 22, 2012 March 23, 2012 1 Comment by ben

weekend

Posted in Uncategorized

The man behind the Nicolas Cage mask (thanks, J):

Numbers in films (thanks, P):

Draw the Shitler (thanks, J).

Movie: The Movie:

All the broken glass in Total Recall (thanks, J):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpRVW63mCww&feature=youtu.be

Will the real Mitt Romney please stand up? (Thanks, P):

Bad missed Craigslist Connections (thanks, J).

Celebrities who look like mattresses (thanks, K).

Would anyone care if you tried to steal a bike in NY? (Thanks, P):

Celebrities read Tweets about themselves (thanks, J):

WTF:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3tG1X5ewAg&feature=BFa&list=PL795B7876304AC9D4&lf=mh_lolz

A scene of utter crapitude to inspire us all (thanks, J):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=q7Q6DGOfp6k

Funny ending.

Mar 22 2012 March 22, 2012 March 22, 2012 4 Comments by ben

De Niro on Acting/Life

Posted in Uncategorized

On “Inside the Actors Studio” you were asked to give young actors advice, and you said, “You have nothing to lose, so make it as personal as you can.” What did you mean by that?

What I meant was if you’re going for a reading and you got nothing to lose because so many things are stacked against you — there’s a lot of competition out there — so when you read, the only thing you have is your own uniqueness. So, you don’t need to be afraid to follow your instincts about what you think the character is doing. Just go with it, because if nothing else, the people watching you, the director, the casting people, whatever, will be impressed by what you’ve done and they’ll take notice. You have to try and be courageous. Don’t hold back … Just go with it. And sometimes it’s easier because you know where to go with the character, and sometimes it’s harder. But in general, just follow your instincts — even if you know you’re going to fail. If you don’t take that risk, you’re probably not going to make an impression.

That was a quote from this fascinating interview.

Mar 21 2012 March 21, 2012 March 21, 2012 6 Comments by ben

Peter Carey

Posted in Uncategorized

In case you missed it, Saturday’s Guardian had an interesting interview with the double Booker-winning author Peter Carey.

Here are his thoughts on his time as a board member of Grey Sydney:

Instead, he moved to Sydney and joined a small advertising firm, where his real education began. It was the era of Mad Men, but the series makes him laugh in derision; Sydney in those days was a long way from Madison Avenue and he and his colleagues were not exactly Don Draper types. The alcohol consumption was insane, he says; they had that in common. But, “[The Americans] were so straight. We were not straight. When someone comes into the office and is walking around and the floor is absolutely sticky, and says, ‘What’s wrong with the floor?’ ‘Dunno,’ and it was because we’d been smoking dope and spraying the air with adhesive spray to kill the smell! It was a different world. I liked that.”

Even when he was on the board of Grey’s Advertising in Sydney, there was still no real pressure to conform. Carey was living in a hippy community at the time, and came in for a meeting with some American executives dressed in flip-flops, pyjama trousers and a secondhand Hawaiian shirt. “And I was a board member!” he says. “And my friend said to me once, ‘You don’t know how you look. You have no idea.'”

Carey wasn’t exactly playing at hippydom – the lifestyle suited him, he says, and he assumed, as he does in most situations, that it would go on for ever. On the other hand, “It was a very privileged position. You know, you’re pretending to be radical, with a credit card.” The main thing was, the advertising work was relatively undemanding and paid well enough to free him up to write most days a week. He is grateful for those years, but is still half embarrassed at having been a hack copywriter. He primly refuses to repeat any of the slogans he wrote, won’t allow for the possibility that copywriting influenced his style as a fiction writer, and is still smarting from the reaction he got in some quarters when he first won the Booker, in 1988, for Oscar And Lucinda: Ad-Man Wins Booker Prize. “You know? Fuck you, too.”

And yet, “Advertising really was like a huge arts council grant.”

Mixed feelings then – like a bloke who’s gone out with a girl who let him do some rather questionable things to her, but now he’s moved on to Polly Prissy Pants he feels he must disown the lady of easy virtue.

Or something.

Mar 19 2012 March 19, 2012 March 19, 2012 38 Comments by ben

Rather Good new lynx campaign

Posted in Uncategorized

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4OxGn0HSN2Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5_XdPFxULzM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fLzsKm7sEG0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eTPu3TkDUh4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=X7qRw3wo_G4

Very well directed, nicely written, and a bright spot in a campaign that has become a bit hit-and-miss in the last few years.

Well done.

Mar 17 2012 March 17, 2012 March 19, 2012 19 Comments by ben

Poor branding will kill us all

Posted in Uncategorized

Have you ever wondered why most of the planet doesn’t give quite a big enough shit about global warming?

I mean, we can all see this huge disaster coming, we know what we’re supposed to do to prevent it, and yet we just kind of shrug and feel we can’t really do any more than a bit of recycling (which doesn’t really make any difference anyway).

But why is this the case?

Well, I’ve given it a bit of thought and come to the completely unscientific conclusion that it’s down to branding.

The main name given to the environmental problem is Global Warming, that’s where the whole thing has gone wrong.

‘Global’ just means it happens all over the world, but ‘warming’ is the real problem. Warm is good, we all like warm weather and when we see those maps that show what temperatures will be like in 2035 it seems like much of the world will be a few degrees hotter.

Nice.

Most of the people who are ruining the planet are lucky enough to live in a temperate climate, so making London as warm as St Tropez is something most of us would actually like to contribute to, just as long as it doesn’t come wrapped up with the extinction of the human race.

So here we are sitting in a bath with the hot tap running ever so slowly and few of us are feeling the need to turn it off. Well, that’s us screwed then.

I think we should have gone straight to the American Military on this one. They know that naming things properly makes a huge difference: ‘The War On Terror’ gets you right in the thick of what has to happen… we’re in a motherfucking war, fighting motherfucking terror. That sounds really serious, despite the fact that it’s about as much of an immediate threat as global warming. ‘Operation Desert Storm’? Shit… A storm in a desert! That sums it all up brilliantly, bringing the whole stupid, one-sided farting contest to vivid life in just three words. ‘Norman Schwarzkopf’ is the name of a somewhat nebbish dentist until you add ‘Stormin” to the start of it.

Anyway, we’re stuck with cute, cuddly, not-quite-worth-giving-a-shit-about Global Warming, and that’s the way it’s going to be until we all fry to death in a desert just north of Edinburgh.

(By the way, if any of you wanted to come to the introduction to the Landmark Forum I mentioned a few weeks ago but were unable to make it, there’s another one tonight at 7:30, 203 Eversholt St. Let me know if you want to come (bwmkay@gmail.com) and I’ll see you there.)