My Vote for the Oscar in Animated Shorts
Unfortunately this is a link. Youtube took it down.
In an era of slick production, CGI and Pixar, Konstantin Bronzit’s “Lavatory Lovestory” may be sentimental, but it’s brilliant in its simplicity. No color, no computers, no dialogue. Yet in nine minutes it covers all the human emotions of despair, hope, joy. This year’s nominations may not be the best animation the world has to offer (the Academy is a little predictable and safe to say the least) but they’re impressive nevertheless. While Pixar’s “Presto“ is the likely favorite, “Oktapadi” is wonderful and “La Maison en Petits Cubes” gets rave reviews as well.
Shepard Fairey Sued by Associated Press: Brilliant Idea
Photo by Manny Garcia, Poster by Jared Fairey
I don’t believe a word of this one. On the eve of Shepard Fairey’s first major exhibit at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art (in fact he speaks there tonight) the AP sues him for basing his ubiquitous Obama poster on a photograph taken by Manny Garcia in 2006. Not like this is news to anyone. The poster has been around for well over a year. Hundreds of thousands have been given away and couple thousand sold. Fairey has always admitted it was based on the photo in question, but that he’s within in his rights. Now, in a perfect orchestration of public relations, the AP and Fairey get together to concoct a lawsuit. Brilliant. Every network, news site and daily paper in America covers the story. Fairy gets more famous. The poster becomes more coveted. And the potential value of the original photograph goes through the roof. A brilliant idea. Congratulations to everyone involved in thinking this one up. Wish it had been me. Then again, maybe I’ll get sued by both of them for writing this and using their images.
The Courier Bag: The Inspiration Behind Twitter
Photo by Jeff WernerHere’s a great story. Kid has a Mom who’s obsessed with handbags. She frequently schleps him to the mall to shop for new ones. To appease his own boredom he submits to the experience and gets himself a courier bag. Courier bag inspires an interest in the entire culture of bike messengers. Kid goes to work for dispatch company in New York and notices there’s something magically telegraphic in messages like “empty bag at Bway and 5th.” Begins to write software to track dispatches from bike messengers and cab drivers. Discovers that overlaying them on a map of Manhattan paints a beautiful picture of what’s happening in the city. A few years later IM starts to become prevalent. A few years after that it moves to mobile devices. And Jack Dorsey has all the ingredients he needs to create Twitter. From a courier bag to one of the coolest social networking platforms ever invented. A reminder that inspiration can come from anywhere. In fact it might be staring you in the face at this very moment.
Old media (Super Bowl ads) meets new media (Twitter)
In a way it’s ironic that anyone would use Twitter to talk about television advertising. But last week, that’s just what we did. A few of us at Mullen got together and created the hashtag #sb43ads and the website Trash Talk From Section Twitter to aggregate comments and criticisms about this year’s Super Bowl ads. We set up a hashtag on Tuesday, alerted the Boston Globe on Wednesday, had the site up by Thursday, and started inviting people. Emails to contacts, a few tweets to followers, and a couple of notes to local ad schools were all it took to start the momentum. While it tested the multi-tasking abilities of a few thousand people who joined in — it’s challenging to eat chicken wings, drink beer and keep your fingers de-greased enough to tap away on the key board – it clearly had an attraction for a lot of people. In fact by the second half of the game #sb43ads was the fourth most tweeted topic on all of Twitter. Is it me or does the combined power of technology, word of mouth and consumer participation created in a couple of days make even Super Bowl ads feel tired?
