NewsReel 21/08/09

Give us your news. Give us your news. We’ll swap it for … er … coverage. And friendly emails. Promise. Sling it to this – editor@thereel.net.

Got boobs?

Hey you! Are you a girl? Do you have all the relevant girl parts? Well Grey Amsterdam is looking for you. The top notch agency is creating a new TV and print campaign for the launch of Pink Ribbon Magazine NL, published by Sanoma Publishers - a charity glossy magazine from which all profits are directly donated to the Pink Ribbon Foundation, Netherlands.

The print work is being created by Ian Rankin. The TV campaign is directed by Chris Palmer of Gorgeous Productions. Launch is end of September. Everyone (and I mean everyone) involved is giving their time free because it's for breast cancer awareness. ECDs (and all round top blokes) Colin Lamberton and Seyoan Vela asked and people climbed on board. Great stuff!!

Now here’s the nub - do you want to have a role in the TV commercial? And so contribute to the fight against breast cancer? In that case Grey are looking for you. It’s a special role - only your breasts are on TV. The team are looking for hundreds of women who want to take part - all ages, all shapes and sizes.

All you need to do is send an e-mail ASAP to pinkribbon@groencasting.nl and include your name, age and cup size. Filming takes place in Amsterdam this month.

The Reel think this is a great sounding spot for a top charity, and would gladly take part if only man-boobs were accepted. Chris even knows his cup size!

MySpace meets The Munsters

The latest work from digital marketing superstars The Viral Factory promoting the Samsung ST550 digital camera is a film inspired by the internet meme ‘Beware the Angles’ which reveals the truth behind some people’s very flattering profile pictures. The campaign uses YouTube Hot Spots to interlink six different films into one, each with a different scenario and character, first showing their ‘good’ angle, then revealing the ugly truth. The different characters include a witch, zombies and an alien, who conceal their identities in a variety of cunning ways.



Samsung has done research showing that a high percentage of photos are now ‘self-shots,’ which are taken to be put up on social network sites, so the camera incorporates the IE feature – an image screen on the front of the camera as well as the back - meaning the person taking the pictures can take better ‘self-shots’ of themselves and their friends. The Reel are prepping their ugly mugs in anticipation.

Shifty DVDs

‘Shifty’, the feature debut of Between The Eyes director Eran Creevy and producer Rory Aitken is out on DVD next Monday. Here’s what Rory has to say about the film:

Empire gave the DVD another 4 star review, both for the film and for the DVD Extras, and said “it’s thrilling and funny, full of affecting performances and real-life bite… you owe yourself the DVD”.

There are lots of DVD extras, including a Behind-The-Scenes documentary in which I feature (talking nonsense), director’s commentary, and some of our music videos from Between The Eyes. There’s also a special edition DVD, exclusive to HMV, which has more extras such as extended interviews with cast and crew, original script and storyboards, etc.

We had our fingers crossed that it would get into at least one supermarket chain, as this is key for DVDs, and the good news is that it’s in every supermarket chain, and it’s DVD Of The Week next week in Tesco, Asda, Morrisons, and WHSmith, as well as on the “Sainsbury’s Recommends” shelf, and “Empire Recommends” shelf in HMV!

As with the theatrical run of the film, the opening week of the DVD is essential to its success – we think that it could have a long life on DVD as the reaction so far has been so positive (96% on rottentomatoes.com!) – but it needs to kick off in the first week for the retailers to believe in it and get behind it.

There we go. No excuses! Get yourself down HMV on Monday and sly a copy for you and your Mum. She’ll like it … honest!

DiD

Jake Sebastian-Wynne, Director/Senior Editor at Prime Focus has made a short film called DiD, and it looks rather splendid.

The film centres on a man who’s suffering from DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder - like Multiple personality disorder) and is attempting to climb a mountain to throw his dead mother's ashes off the top. His other personalities have other ideas though.

Interested? Check out the trailer.

…and finally

Rocky … Turkish style

Indie - Serious about comedy.

Pioneering Amsterdam agency INDIE recently launched a new campaign for the Dutch brand Bolletje Knakerbrod and decided to chuck in a refreshing twist on the agency model to boot. (No fear with these guys!)

After the idea of featuring famous comedian André van Duijn in the campaign had been booted round the office for a few days, the INDIE team hit upon the maverick idea of actually including van Duijn in the entire creative process, from start to finish. Why? The only real question for the INDIE team was why not?

In trailblaizing fashion it was out with the standard creative team and in with a famous comedian, producing an interesting new take on the creative model, and a refreshingly new creative environment for the agency team.

We talked to INDIE head honcho Lode Schaffaer about the campaign and how it came together.

The new Knakerbrod campaign was an interesting one… You guys sort of altered the usual agency model for this – how did this come around!??

We are just always on the lookout for a different point of view – it can be very refreshing to get an outside perspective. Working with fresh minds like industrial designers, a comedian, a child-book writer enabled us to escape from traditional advertising patterns.

For us brainless limeys – who was the famous comedian that you involved?

André van Duijn, world famous, but only in the Netherlands...

Do you think that the outcome was better as a result?

The outcome was less predictable. We were able to create a new way of integrating packaging, online and also took a new approach to TV ads, opening ourselves up and allowing different animators and directors from Holland, the US and the UK to work together more freely.

Is this something that Indie is keen to further / pioneer?

This way of working - being open to fresh talent from outside the advertising world - is at the heart of Indie. This is only the beginning. The more we can veer off the predictable pathway of advertising, the brighter the future for us and our clients.

Who else would you love to work with!?!

Depends on the project. We did a banking project with Noreena Hertz and now we are talking to musicians, spiritual thinkers and entrepreneurs for a Ben and Jerry’s project. But artists like the people from Greyworld (http://www.greyworld.org) are on my list…

Do you think that the industry is still afraid of change?

I’m afraid that the Industry is only human. Although we say we are looking for new ways, a lot of people are still holding on to safety. We say Safe is Unsafe. Open-up to new ways of thinking, new media and new refreshing approaches. In these times of crisis it’s logical to have a tendency towards more conservative ways of working, but that will only make things worse.

Can you think of any campaigns where the traditional industry model has obviously suffocated / stifled creativity?

All the campaigns that I can’t think of right now… I’m afraid there are quite a lot of them. They offer nothing to make them memorable.

We love innovation at The Reel – what is next? Excite us!!

Well, that would be telling… you’ll have to just wait and see! But, you will definitely be eating more ice-cream next year!