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!

The Rise Of The Artists...

More than ever people who have honed their skills with a pen, paintbrush, spraycan, a bit of paper or canvas are turning their static creations into moving works of art. If you can illustrate or draw odds are that you can also direct – the visual mediums or artwork and moving image are closer than they have ever been.

As brands increasingly associate with famed artists for a mixture of credibility, interesting content and style that they simply cannot conjure for themselves, the trend of artist / brand partnership appears to becoming a catalyst for illustrators and artists shifting up into moving image direction.

Well known illustrator and toymaker James Jarvis made just such a gearshift with the recent ‘onwards’ project for Nike. Jarvis’ interest in running and Nike’s interest in Jarvis catapulted the pen wielding Englishman into the world of animation.



Working with Shynola’s Richard Kenworthy, Jarvis aimed to maintain his graphic style and hand drawn aesthetic in the same fashion that Shynola had done for Scottish nutcase and artist turned director David Shrigley in the brilliant ‘Good Song’.



Another similar situation had been created in the Nike IAM1 project (featured a few months ago on The Reel blog) with graffiti artist INSA producing a short but brilliant animation for the sports giant.



Alex Pardee is yet another artist-turned-director who uses the interesting medium of the Unreal 3 video game engine (as used in Gears of War, Unreal Tournament 3 and GOW2) to create the world his character ‘Chadam’ inhabits.



To give us a bit more of an understanding of the artist / director realm, we turned to the Picasso Picture’s wonderful Claire Tredgett. Picasso are the undisputed world heavyweights in illustrator / directors, and are home to the endless draw-scribble-film-animate talents of tokyoplastic, Finkbom, Pyjamax and Laundry! to name but a few.

Picasso is a brilliant example of a production company that actively seeks out artists / illustrators who are also directors. Was this always the way at Picasso?

We are very lucky at Picasso to have always worked with director’s who are talented in both illustration and animation. From our pre-digital days we’ve been drawn to directors with a strong design sense – with directors such as Damian Gascoigne and Steve May, post digital tokyoplastic and Griff impressing us as much with their design portfolios as their films. Many of our more recent signings, such as Julia Pott, Lesley Barnes, Laundry and Motomichi Nakamura find that their enterprising and commercial attitude to their design work brings them as much attention as their animation.

Do you think the two go hand in hand? (art and direction)

Not necessarily, as any technically proficient director with a creative eye can direct and animate another illustrator’s style. However, there is definitely a tradition for an animation director to carve out a career as an illustrator first and subsequently become consumed by the desire to see their creations come to life. Animation tends to be a very personal craft, with a lot of the director’s sensibility reflected in characters and illustrations they create. I believe some of our director’s best work is created when they have a personal investment in the design.

Do clients ever approach you looking to turn an older piece of illustration or an illustration style into moving imagery?

This definitely crops up and, as I mentioned before, it’s something easily achieved. However, more often than not we’re given illustrations as a reference point with a view to creating a similar look which embraces our director’s own unique style and gives it a contemporary feel.

You can effectively animate with photoshop and the adobe suite, do you think the advancement of this technology is pushing artists and illustrators to think along moving image lines and experiment?

I think this is definitely happening more and more these days. Technology is becoming so much more accessible and experimenting with software is as easy to do as playing around with pencil and paper. I’m very excited about this, animation is ever evolving and artists coming into the business with a new perspective can only be a good thing.

For more illustration and direction goodness – jump over to http://www.picassopictures.com/ now!

Thanks to Claire for the super last minute interview!

NewsReel 14/08/09

London flooded with Pirates...

Pirata the international high end digital production agency (and blood thirsty group of buccaneers) based in London – has just completed a significant recruitment and expansion drive to accommodate its recent buoyant growth. The agency’s new ‘pirates’ hail from the likes of Dare, Glue, Unit9 and Tonic and bring with them a fat haul of booty in the shape of numerous industry awards.

Since launching in December 2008 and partnering with agencies and ad design specialists like AMV BBDO and This Is Real Art, Pirata has undergone exponential growth which led to seven key new personnel hires and a need for a bigger boat (bigger premises). New talent signings over the last two months include:

Adrian Rowbotham, hailing from Dare and Glue, who joins as Technical Director. Rowbotham received a D&AD nomination for his work on the Brahma launch.

Nick Wavish joins as Senior Designer from Unit9 where he was Interactive Director. He won OneShow Gold, FWA site of the day and a Cyber Lions nomination for ‘Got Milk?’ and Cravendale Milk Matters campaigns.

Mark Evans joins as senior producer. He previously worked at Dare where he looked after the Vodafone account whilst ratcheting up Campaign Digital Awards and Revolution awards for Vodafone and Becks.


James Booth joins as a Designer from Tonic where his work for the COI’s Cyberbullying and Frank Class A campaigns earned him a Campaign Digital Big Award and a Creative Showcase runner up accolade.

From August 2009, Pirata’s shiny new ship will be: 6 Playhouse Court, 62 Southwark Bridge Road, London SE10AT

www.piratalondon.com

It’s a BUG’s life…

While some of you might be in the middle of summer holidays, the people at BUG Towers are hard at work creating the next episode in our series of music video extravaganzas. As usual BUG will be bringing double the fun in September with 2 shows, both hosted by the brilliant Adam Buxton, both on Friday nights and both at 6.30pm.

The first show will be on Friday September 18th and feature an interviewwith a leading light of the video world (no clues as of yet). The Director’s Cut show will follow on Friday September 25th.

To book for one or both of the BUG 15 shows, call the BFI SouthbankBox office on 020 7928 3232 or click here to book via the BFI website.

MOFilm Sponsors the 53rd London Film Festival... and launches another competition!

MOFILM has announced it is to be a Main Sponsor of The Times BFI 53rd London Film Festival taking place from 14-29 October 2009.

Following the success of the MOFILM Cannes Lions User Generated Content competition with Spike Lee, MOFILM is launching its second online competition with some of the world's biggest brands including AT&T, Best Buy, Campbell's, Hewlett Packard, McDonald's, Nokia, PepsiCo (Pepsi Max) and Unilever (OMO).

Each brand will provide a creative brief on the MOFILM website http://www.mofilm.com for a limited period.

Entrants will create a 90 second advertisement based on the creative brief and upload it to the MOFILM website before the closing date. The competition is open to anyone over the age of 16, with awards and prizes to be selected by a brand representatives and a distinguished group of independent judges.

Andy Baker, CEO of MOFILM said "We are thrilled to be working with the London Film Festival and so many exciting brands to provide this global showcase for ordinary filmmakers and the MOFILM community.

It's fantastic that London, one of the most prestigious international film festivals in the world, is supporting emerging talent in this way."MOFILM and its partners are offering more than $200,000 in prizes and an opportunity to "walk the red carpet" with celebrities and leaders in the film community at the London Film Festival. The overall winning advertisement will also be played prior to the MOFILM Gala at the Festival.

The MOFILM competition opens today and closes October 5, 2009 at Noon GMT.

Brand winners will be announced on October 12 and the top three finalists selected on October 20 at the Festival. All brand winners will be flown to London to experience the 53rd Times London Film Festival, with the grand prize winner walking the red carpet at the MOFILM Gala.

For complete competition rules and to enter, please visit MOFILM at www.mofilm.com

NewsReel 07/08/09

Hey you! Got news for us? Chuck it at this – editor@thereel.net.

The Sweet Shop gets Rudy and Levene


We love a bit of Sweet Shop action, so the latest news from the tasty production company got us all excited. International hothouse production company The Sweet Shop has just expanded its London operation with the hiring of Rudy Taguri as Director's Representative and Andrew Levene as Producer.

Speaking on the move, Taguri commented, ‘I’ve admired The Sweet Shop’s talent pool and quality of work across the globe for some time now and the chance to amplify its already rapid success in London, is something I’m definitely looking forward too.

The move re-unites Taguri with former colleague Candice Chubb, now MD of the Sweet Shop. Chubb has taken time to pick who she thinks to be the perfect team to help drive the London office forward. She comments; ‘I am thrilled to be welcoming Rudy and Andrew to The Sweet Shop, having them on board cements and furthers the strength of structure in our London office. We are getting interest from some amazing new talent, who see an advantage to how we are doing things differently, the local support we provide along with our global model makes us unique. It’s not hard for directors to see how the opportunities of our strengths beyond the UK base of operations will further their careers. Having Rudy and Andrew with me is further testament to our progression, I am truly excited about the time ahead'.

Great stuff! Looks like Rudy can’t fail (to work for good production companies). Ha ha ha … oh.

http://thesweetshop.tv/

JWT gets PB to DCD


JWT London announced this week the appointment of Paul Banham as Digital Creative Director. Paul brings to JWT 16 years of outstanding marketing experience and is one of the elite few creative directors to have won awards across both the on and off-line worlds.

During his career Paul has worked at world-class agencies such as AIS, Agency.com and WCRS Arnold Worldwide, where he has held senior creative positions, working on a raft of multi-award winning campaigns.

Paul's extensive experience in branding, design, integrated and digital have given him a unique perspective and approach. He has won over 130 creative awards, these include the likes of D&AD, Cannes, Euro Best, The One Show, Clios, Creative Review - The Annual, New Media Age, Revolution, Eyeblaster, IAB Creative Showcase, The Viral Awards and the LIAs.

http://www.jwt.co.uk/

Maxim goes Partizan


Partizan has just signed (to much coo-ing and ahhhi-ing) 23 year old director Maxim Zhestkov. Born in Russia, at the age of six he was given his first computer, a ZX Spectrum, and devoted his time to drawing huge and very detailed illustrations. He was also a keen gamer, and believes his enthusiasm for design and CG effects can be traced back to those days. After high school Maxim undertook a degree in architecture, which he followed by studying graphic design, fine art, illustration and sculpture.

He says: “There are no limits in graphics - everything you can imagine is possible. But I have to say I still love architecture. It all started with 2d illustrations, that smoothly turned into 3d illustrations and spaces. Then I developed a passion for architecture and graphic design. Then I realized that the most important thing is video!”

To check out his latest (frankly awesome) MTV work head to his showreel or look forward to the imminently shipping July Reel DVDs.

And finally…

We’re sure you crazy, web-savvy Reelers are all over this already, but for the uninitiated here is the latest ‘Autotune The News’. Amazing!

Fans Get The Power...

Handing power to your fanbase is not the newest of ideas in the promo world.

Welsh rockers Feeder tapped into the power of their fans way back in 2004 with the promo for ‘Just A Day’.



The video for ‘Just a day’ was such a big hit, it became an inspiration to Jetplane Landing and Canadian rock band the Barenaked Ladies, for their videos to "Brave Gravity" and "Wind it Up" respectively.
A clutch of promos have returned to this concept and placed the all important fan in the driving seat this month. But now, with the rapid advancement of online and interactive technology, the fans are getting a bit more in the way of fun and games to fuel their devotion.

Indie wailers Bloc Party have gone the way of crowd-sourcing content for their latest video. Made up of mostly fan-submitted mobile phone footage, the video for the group’s song Ares (Villains Remix) delivers a brilliant naïve feel and pulls together a wonderful cross-section of different ideas.



FANtastic! (ha ha).


The new video for The Cold War Kids ‘I’ve seen enough’ has been released with an interactive online version of the Promo. Fans can utilise a simple colour co-ordinated toolbar to change the actual audio as well as muting and un-muting drum sections, vocals, bass and keys. In this fashion fans can almost re-mix the song themselves on the fly, playing around with it until they settle on a version that they like.

Go play here.

More interactive-promo tomfoolery comes from Blac Ionica and Agency Devilfish who designed and directed an imaginative augmented reality music video for young new Columbia Records artist Julian Perretta.

Built around his track "Ride My Star", the video is a 3d trip through Julian’s imagination as he searches for his girl. Using a combination of Flash and Papervision to create the 3D scenarios. This was then developed in Augmented Reality, which uses Flash, your webcam and a special printed "icon" (tracker) to create a fully immersive, interactive video.
The pop-up book designs were created by London based directors Blac Ionica. Zerofractal Studios from Colombia programmed the video in Papervision and Flash, developed and created the accompanying interface.



This is the first time that Augmented Reality has been used on this scale in conjunction with a recording artist, and more than likely will spark the trend in Pop Promos. The icon/tracker will be handed out as part of a flyer at dates on Julian's tour supporting Girls Aloud. It will also be available to download Julian Perretta’s website.

BBH labs in NY have also turned invention up to eleven in the new promo for Japanese post rock band Sour in their new promo ‘Hibi No Neiro’. Managing to produce the video around their day jobs at BBH, the production team started by posting on fan forums asking for people to volunteer for the new music video. Incredibly interest sprung from all over the globe – and the fans took the project whilst the BBH team provided the working framework.

A few months of tight planning and a detailed animatic later – the volunteer fans were ready to pitch in on the promo via the wonder of the webcam. The result is some pretty inspiring stuff considering the budget was a massive $0 and the directing team were based in NY and the band live in Tokyo…

Complaining promo directors…

Be horribly afraid… fan power is here to stay…

http://sour-web.com/

For more znazzy techy world-conquering info like this be sure to check contagious magazine's wildfire section (which we occasionally write for as well...).

Its RAD!!

Rushes Soho Shorts '09 - The Winners!!

The Rushes Soho Shorts held it’s Awards Ceremony last night, and what a grand shindig it was!! Presented, as every, by Word legend Terry Christian, the snazzy show in the Curzon Soho announced the deserving winners in each of the eight catagories to a rapt audience. But enough of our guff, who won what?

RSSF LONG FORM
WINNER - Romans 12:20 Directed by The Shammasian Brothers (UK)
NOMINEE - Boy Directed by Joe Morris, Picture Palace North (UK)
NOMINEE - Danzak Directed by Gabriela Yepes , Kunay Films (Peru)

RSSF INTERNATIONAL
WINNER - Charlie Thistle Directed by Bragi Schut, Gallantyne Pictures (USA)
NOMINEE - Next Floor Directed by Denis Villeneuve, PHi Group Inc (Canada)
NOMINEE - 18 Segundos Directed by Zchariass & MacGregor (Spain)

RSSF MUSIC VIDEO
WINNER - Prodigy: Warrior Dance Directed by Corin Hardy, Academy Films (UK)
NOMINEE - Coldplay: Life in Technicolour II Directed by Dougal Wilson, Colonel Blimp (UK)
NOMINEE - No Corras Tanto (Take It Easy) Directed by Cesar Diaz (Independent) (Spain)

RSSF BROADCAST DESIGN
WINNER - BBC ‘Journey To The East’ Directed by Jamie Hewlett & Pete Candeland, Passion Pictures (UK)
NOMINEE - Audi 'Unboxed' Directed by Aaron Duffy & Russell Brooke, Passion Pictures (UK)
NOMINEE - BBC 'Medieval Mind Trip' Directed by James Price, Strange Beast (UK)

RSSF DOCUMENTARY
WINNER - Avatar Days Directed by Gavin Kelly, Piranha Bar (Ireland)
NOMINEE - The Madman and the Cathedral Directed by James Rogan, Mix UP Film/ Brit Doc (Spain/ UK)
NOMINEE - Irene Directed by Lindsay Goodall, Blindside Productions (UK)

RSSF ANIMATION
WINNER - This Way Up Directed by Smith & Foulkes, Nexus (UK)
NOMINEE - Txt Island Directed by Chris Gavin, Tandem (UK)
NOMINEE - This Is Where We Live Directed by Ben Falk & Josiah Newbolt, Asylum Films & APT (UK)

RSSF SHORT FILM
WINNER - Washdays Directed by Simon Neal, Deeply Vale Productions (UK)
NOMINEE - Post It Love Directed by Si & Ad, Academy Films (UK)
NOMINEE - Hammerhead Directed by Sam Donovan (Independent) (UK)

RSSF NEWCOMER
WINNER - Tight Jeans Directed by Destiny Ekaragha, Pollibee Pictures (UK)
NOMINEE - Quietus Directed by George Taylor, Lucky Red Ball (UK)
NOMINEE - I Stood Up Directed by Lucy Tcherniak & James Willis, Partizan (UK)

Our congratulations to the champs, and to Joe and all at Rushes for another top-notch programme celebrating all things short. If you want to know more, check out the website - www.sohoshorts.com – or wait for our fabulous Feature issue next month with everything short you could ever want … and more!!