A few things that have come out recently reminded me that even though we live in this crazy hi-tech world it’s the really simple shit that still cuts through.
The Skype phone box experiment. It’s just a dude, capmed next to a phone box, with a camera. Ok, it’s kind of been done before (we did it for Dare School in 2006) but it’s a good piece for Skype.
The Knocking iPhone app. This app allows you to see through someone elses iPhone camera. That’s so simple, a classic case of ‘doh, why didn’t I think of that?’.
And last but not least even though Dave at Lean Mean can’t spell or make decent flip films their iLingual app is also wonderfully simple too.
The thing that I like about Maira Kalman (without knowing anything about her) is that I would imagine that being married to Tibor Kalman was pretty cool (I’m sure he would have said the same about her). So when Tibor died that must have been truly heartbreaking. Again, without knowing any of the details, I would assume that it would be easy to lose faith in shit and become melancholy and all ‘what’s the point?’ about everything. But, it seems, she never did that. She just keeps coming out with wonderful pieces of work. So thanks Maira, you rock, just like Tibor did.
So a while back this dude released a load of colored balls down a hill in San Francisco and made a film out of it - no not Letterman silly, Juan at Fallon. That film won lots of awards. Then he did the same with some paint in Glasgow and some playdoh bunnies in New York. Part of the strategy was to do everything for real. Not only because that worked for the product - in this case Sony Bravia but because it was reckoned that the shooting of an ad event became an event. And who doesn’t want an event? You’re going to shoot something anyway why not got ‘an event’ out of it?
Awards were handed out because everything was done for real - but not only that - because the end result was fucking cool. Say what you like that first balls film looked fucking amazing.
I have a hunch now though that some people think doing stuff for real means it’s automatically going to get hits and win awards. There are two problems with that.
1. No one outside of advertising gives a shit if you do something for real or not - they are just interested in the end product - the experience. So unless that experience is truly amazing the hits will soon dry up.
2. Awards juries are notoroiusly fickle little shitfests where all you need is for some wise ass (sometimes me!) saying, ‘yeah, whatevs, seen that before’ and what was gold now becomes at best silver, maybe bronze, maybe worse.
So I got sent two things today that really crystallized this thought. The first was the Toshiba HD camera in space thing. The other was the Panasonic 8x picture thing. None of these are bad ideas at all. They are both pretty good ideas. But I get the feeling they would have been sold in as ‘if we do this for real it will be amazing’ as if the output - the consumer facing experience - at the end is not so important as the process itself.
I think this is something that should stop. Real people don’t give a shit.
You go to a bar to watch a football game and they have the sound off. What if there was an app that you could use to stream the audio from the game? Will someone get on that please? Thanks.
This is a good description of the Vice party last night. I, too, was able to bypass the line thanks to the blessed smiley-face VIP wristband, and the party was overwhelmingly, amazingly extreme and hip. There was, however, TONS of room for the 3-block line. They could have easily let every single person in line into the warehouse and it would have been fine. This article offers an explanation: Security went rogue. Still, though, hearing all early 90’s music was AWESOME. The DJs killed it. Candyflip. Primal Scream, Cocteaux, Nirvana, The Mondays, MBV, Ride, etc. A good time.
Ha. Me too. I definitely thought it was going to be busier. Good times though.
