If This Is A Blog Then What's Christmas?

Or at least booked a last minute break…?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOn45wNdoXw

Here’s a little primer on his life and work. It’s really just the tip of a quite colossal iceberg, but I hope it gives you a small idea of what he left behind.

One Club Hall of Fame.

Mike Dempsey blog.

David’s guide to good copywriting.

David on what it takes to attract talent.

Dave Dye’s blog.

Lurzer’s Archive interview.

And a tribute from down under (thanks, D&D):

As you know, I love a good side project.

I also love Kickstarter, so imagine my delight when Glenn Paton wrote to me about the short film he’s trying to get off the ground with the help of the aforementioned kick-based commencement organisation.

The film – written by Paton – is called H Positive and follows the progress of Mark, a wealthy man used to being in control of his life who is forced to face up to terminal illness. Determined to go out on his own terms, he plans to construct a rollercoaster that will bring about his demise at a time of his choosing and in an entirely euphoric fashion.

I wish Glenn all the best.

Please bung him a few grand.

For six wonderful months David Abbott was my boss.

He was just coming up to his retirement and had already handed the day-to-day reins of AMV’s creative department to Peter Souter. But there he still was, sitting in his beautifully tasteful office (the one at the back of the agency, by the way; not one of the big ones overlooking Marylebone Road), sifting through our so-so attempts at continuing his classic Economist campaign.

Although he was never anything but lovely, it was hard not to be intimidated by the reputation, the body of work and the Godlike crown of white hair. I sometimes found myself in the lift with him, or queueing behind him at breakfast, or plucking up the courage to approach him at the Summer Party. On those occasions I was always tongue-tied, feeling some kind of pressure to speak only brilliant words to this legendary genius. Twice I started conversations with him only to have someone else pop over and briefly interrupt us. I would then lose my nerve and dash off, thinking that David would much prefer to spend his time with this other person. However, watching hidden from across the room, I would then see David finish his conversation then look around for me, puzzled at my disappearance.

I can’t adequately convey the contribution David made to the industry (but I’ll quickly mention his refusal to take on tobacco or toy advertising), so instead I’ll point out that he also wrote a brilliant novel. I enjoyed it very much, and wrote to David to tell him. A couple of days later my phone rang; it was David inviting me round to his Chelsea office for a chat, novelist to novelist. Twelve years after leaving AMV he was just as kind and warm, if a little less intimidating. We talked about how we went about our writing then he asked to read my book and wrote soon afterwards to tell me how much he liked it (although I’m fairly certain it wasn’t exactly his cup of tea).

Bye-bye, David, and thanks for making me, and the rest of the world, a little better than we would have been without you.

(Older posts including a David interview here, and his remarkable leaving speech here.)

Stupid Mail Online headlines made normal (thanks, G).

Gene Wilder on the truth (thanks, N):

Screenwriting tips from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.

25 pubs you ought to visit (or not bother visiting) before you die (thanks, W).

West Wing roundtable.

Stock shots no one will ever use (thanks, A).

Social media bullshit 101 (thanks, D).

Guy who photographs the testicles of Greek statues (thanks, J).

Fun ad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJW5_iZNdFY&noredirect=1

…and the making of:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdPzW8oUJCY

The Ben Affleck sad Batman meme.

R.I.P.H.R. Giger (thanks, B).

Dog Shit Selfies (thanks, V).

I’m sure I put this up earlier in the year.

Then someone (thanks, S!) pointed something out that makes it fairly clear that this has been created entirely for the purpose of entering awards.

Aside from the clearly set-up scenarios of people ‘using’ the posters (the girl taking her luggage up the ramp looking at the poster is particularly contrived) there’s one obvious pointer to the fact that these did not run with the intention of persuading the majority of people of walked past them to give a shit about IBM.

Shame the D&AD jurors didn’t spot it.

Can you?

http://youtu.be/I-zo12V81oU

(Scrub to 3:08)

I confess to feeling a little uncomfortable watching that; after all, it’s a bit shit.

Then again, it was a different time, and my first ad.

As I played it my wife quoted all the words, while I muttered ‘what was I thinking?’

Anyway, enjoy, and if you watch it you have to put up a link to your own first ad, otherwise your children will die in agony (I don’t make up the rules).

I haven’t seen Paul Blart: Mall Cop; I haven’t even seen its trailer. In my imagination it’s an utterly dreadful film.

Let’s see if I’m right:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UX51lmL6sk

Yeah, looks pretty shit.

Anyway, that film took over $146m at the 2009 US box office, beating Inglourious Basterds, District 9 and Up In The Air.

‘Quality’-wise it managed a fairly poor 33% on Rotten Tomatoes and gained reviews such as, ‘It’s not hard to see why the studio dumped this suckfest in January,’ and ‘The last name Blart may be the funniest thing in the movie’.

So lots of people went to see a shit film. So far, so unremarkable. But when a piece of crap like this succeeds it makes many people question what they’re doing. They think that if Paul Blart: Mall Cop can take in a ton of cash then maybe the search for success should end in pisspoor pratfalls and dismal, derivative plotting. Of course, some people are trying to make Django Unchained or American Hustle, but for the others out there who just want to be rich and famous, a glance in the direction of PBMC would suggest that there’s an S-Class Mercedes awaiting anyone bovine enough to string a few unimaginative gags together.

I think it’s the same when anything succeeds that makes people scratch their heads and go ‘really?’. People start to wonder if they’ve got it wrong, if the path they were on was somehow deluded or misguided. Creativity takes confidence, the kind of self-belief that can build a brick wall to protect against naysayers and internal doubts, and all sorts of things can chip away at that confidence. So when something you think of as awful streaks ahead on the outside it can make sane people question themselves just a little bit more. Sure, PBMC looks woefully unfunny, but it obviously made millions of people very happy indeed (not least its financial backers), and what’s so bad about that? The magazine covers, swanky lunches and all-round adulation that would have resulted from the success of PBMC are the goals of many, many talented people. Is it wrong to go down whatever route takes you to the land of milk and honey?

These are rhetorical questions, of course. Most people are incapable of creating that success because its actually very difficult; otherwise they’d make 50 of those a year and retire as billionaires (although I should point out that Adam Sandler’s production company is behind PBMC and he does seem intent on shit-movie-ing himself into enough cash to choke a hippo).

Have you ever seen a shit ad win loads of awards and wondered if your taste is out of whack? Or written a script and thought ‘If such-and-such crappy ad can win a Gold at Cannes then why can’t this?’? But for your own sanity, for the preservation of whatever you think your soul is, you have to keep those thoughts at bay. What you consider to be good or bad is a true a reflection of yourself as anything. For all intents and purposes it defines your every creative action. It may be hard to keep your compass pointing to true north, but at the end of the day that’s all you’ve got.

So treasure it as you crawl into that cardboard box under Waterloo Bridge, smug in the knowledge you never inflicted Paul Blart fucking Mall Cop on the world.

The GoT cast in the 21st Century (thanks, M).

How to win at Rock, Paper, Scissors (thanks, J).

James Joyce reading from Finnegan’s Wake (thanks, V):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtOQi7xspRc

Ker-azee planets.

Obama being funny (thanks, D):

Who has the widest vocab in hip-hop? (Thanks, J.)

The crazy shit people search Google for (thanks, J).

The most ironic photos of all time (thanks, J).

Shakespeare movies improved by Danny Dyer (thanks, D).

Tree rings sound fucking cool:

Urinal fail:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InR7tip2Izk

Amazing shot of film vs greenscreen (thanks, J).

Babies with eyebrows is too much awesome (thanks, S).

The world’s most terrifying penises: the echidna (thanks, J):

We all saw this a couple of months ago, didn’t we?

Well, some incredibly bright sparks made a massive change to it then stuck a logo on the end (and an annoying VO on top).

I don’t mind people being inspired by the internet, but this just makes the industry look lazy.