If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas?

Ooooh! Saucy!

Nice one, Walt.

I imagine the editor is now dead from RSI.

World leaders as hipsters (thanks, B).

Paper airplane throwing at its best:

Bill Murray falls off his chair drunk (thanks, J).

Penis drawing robot (thanks, J).

7-tone fart symphony (thanks, J):

Mad Men Integrated (thanks, S).

Remaster Seinfeld episodes in HD (thanks, J).

Send a fart in a jar (thanks, J).

Delightful street art/graffiti (thanks, T).

And more of that (thanks, B).

That’s a picture I took of Lee Clow giving a talk yesterday to my Media Arts Lab chums.

He dropped so much knowledge he made KRS1 look like Flavor Flav

Here are three things you didn’t know about 1984:

1. It was based on a press ad an unsung copywriter wrote a year earlier. The headline was ‘Why 1984 won’t be like 1984‘. It didn’t sell, but when it came time to make a TV ad Steve Hayden remembered the press ad and used it as the strong inspiration for the greatest TV ad of all time.

Moral 1: there might well be some diamonds buried in your unsold work.

Moral 2: some ideas are ahead of their time.

2. When they first wrote the script it involved a woman watching the Big Brother character on a TV in a small room then smashing the TV with a normal hammer. They soon realised this wasn’t going to be big enough and rewrote it to be the size it is now famous for being.

Moral: go big or go home.

3. Then they showed the script to Ridley Scott and he suggested the downtrodden people should live in mud huts and come out of these huts into the scary room to obey Big Brother. Then they realised it was a bit too much like a concentration camp, so they didn’t go there.

Moral: don’t make ads that remind people of concentration camps.

Then we had lunch and chatted about the version of Think Different with Steve Jobs’s VO:

You probably know this already, but it was touch-and-go whether or not they were going to run this version or the one with the Richard Dreyfus VO:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmwXdGm89Tk

At the 11th hour (not literally; it was actually 8am on the day the ad was due to air) Steve called the agency up and said they should go with the Dreyfus version so that the ad would be about Apple rather than Steve.

Lee also insists DDB prevented World War Three, but that’s another story.

You must know by now that The Ad Contrarian blog is one of the best around (far better than this one). Here’s a compendium of the sharpest, sweariest, smartest opinions of the great Bob Hoffman (interest declared: Bob is a friend).

Just have a flick through the pages and you’ll learn many, many things that sit in direct opposition to the mountains of bullshit that dominate the industry today.

(And on the subject of shit, I can attest that each chapter is just long enough for a visit to the lav (two chapters if you’ve been to a dodgy Mexican/Indian restaurant).)

Americans can buy it here. Brits can buy it here.

Kubrick’s early treatment for The Shining.

Excellent song (thanks, J):

If Furious 7’s stunts were real (thanks, M):

Analogue experiments with gravity (thanks, J):

What does 2000 calories get you? (Thanks, G.)

Never give up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjejTQdK5OI

Funny wresting shiz (thanks, A):

No pressure!

How often do you hear that phrase? For me it’s about once a day, but three times wouldn’t be odd. As I understand it, this is now what we say when someone has been given a task which involves a lot of ‘pressure’ or high stakes dependent on its successful completion. But where the hell did it come from? I understand neologisms appear all the time (‘ideate’ is one that particularly makes me want to shoot puppies in the head), but this isn’t a new word; it’s an old pair of words that seems to combine within a couple of specific circumstances: first, it can only be used in situations where pressure is being applied, then you require the presence of someone who feels the need to defuse the addition of pressure in a jocular fashion (the expectation is that a laugh or smile will follow the delivery of the words). But why that phrase and why now? Is it anything to do with an increased prevalence in pressure, or is it simply a way to get a cheap and easy laugh, or a feeling of connection?

Caveat

To be fair, ‘caveat’ has been on the table for a while, but I’d argue its use has increased a great deal in the last ten years. For those of you who aren’t 100% sure, it means ‘a warning or proviso of specific stipulations, conditions, or limitations’. In that sense it’s a perfect label for client feedback that sounds so much more civilised than ‘warning’ or ‘demand’; it’s just a sweet little caveat, and that makes it sound like a tiny woodland mammal instead of the delivery of napalm to your most cherished idea that it actually is. No idea why it gained its new status but I don’t go a working week without hearing it at least thrice.

Narrative

Are we in a new era of storytelling? Of course not, but narratives (or stories) seem to be much more common these days. I often hear it not just in the context of a tale, but as a generally accepted version of what’s gone on, eg: ‘you can’t say that player broke his leg; it doesn’t fit the narrative’. So not just a story but an ongoing version of events that one doesn’t deviate from. I don’t remember hearing it much before a few years ago because it was pretty superfluous against the robust and usual story. But now that it has its different meaning it’s gained a new lease of life (still sounds a bit wanky, though).

Any that you’ve noticed?

Now you can’t move for supermen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NKvN7U5RXQ

Judging by the above evidence this trope can produce some pretty fine work, but where will it end?

The most recent example gives us a clue:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8niTv9I3eCk

The less witty and original beginning of the descent down the lav. Oh dear.

Cannes is great (thanks, D):

Prince sings Starfish and Coffee on The Muppets:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Iti4Td-2Oc&feature=youtu.be

Common household items that could kill you if you’re a fucking moron (thanks, T).

A huge amount of addictive fun (thanks, J).

Terrible ad placements (thanks, J).

Painting with Nigel Farage (thanks, J).

Amazing Star Wars scenes made from a single sheet of paper (thanks, G).

Shit my leg off, this is terrifying.

David Bowie’s dentures (thanks, T).

Here’s an interesting memo from David Ogilvy.

I’m guilty of all of those except 1, 3, 5 and 12 (and I was never Creative Head in New York).

I’m not sure why he’d say intolerance of mediocrity is a weakness. Sounds a bit like saying ‘I’m a perfectionist’ is a weakness: for lots of reasons it’s a massive strength. It becomes a weakness when you’re not prepared to see past mediocrity to the person behind it and try to turn mediocrity into excellence. After all, we all go through a period of mediocrity before we come geniuses. If no one’s there to help us on the journey then no improvements will be made.

Then again, I like to think I’m intolerant of mediocre movies, food, music etc. But I express that intolerance by avoiding a repetition of the experience (if possible). When it comes to mediocre staff… well, you hired them (usually), so it’s your responsibility to make them better. Most people have potential in them.

I never enjoyed firing anyone, but realised it was part of the job. I tend to look at my job as doing the nice bits for free and being paid to do the less nice bits.

I’m very happy to fly. Good to get some peace and quiet.

And my boredom threshold is quite high because I find the vast majority of what happens on Earth to be absolutely fascinating.

My other weaknesses include my left knee and the more-occasional-than-I’d-like Reese’s Nutrageous.

What are yours?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtyZMVhBkVk#t=82