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NewsReel 28/08/09

Saussey becomes Transparent

Award winning Kiwi comedy director Steve Saussey joins Transparent in London for UK and European representation. Steve began his career as an Agency creative, however decided to direct himself after all of his ideas were ruined! Steve has won awards for New Zealand's 'Axis Awards' and shot commercials for Heinz and McDonalds.

If you cant get enough of the Kiwi wonder - look here:

http://www.transparentuk.com/downloads/saussey_showreel.mov

Johnathan Dennis Joins Feel

Director JONATHAN DENNIS, a newcomer to commercials, has announced his decision to join FEEL FILMS for UK commercials representation.

Jonathan has had a hugely successful career as one of the UK’s most in-demand and awarded TV promo directors. In 1998 Jonathan joined Sky Television, where he directed award-winning campaigns for Sky Sports. He subsequently worked for the BBC, Red Bee Media and Channel4, winning a string of the most coveted industry gongs for his success in commercials, trailers and idents.

Jonathan joins Feel Films from Serious Pictures, with the intention of a long-standing collaboration on film and commercials projects with Feel that both have a strong passion for. The move made sense long-term for Jonathan.

Dennis gave us the real reason for Joining Feel: “ I joined Feel because it’s closer to Oxford Circus Tube station than most other companies - I could have gone to Partisan but it was a bugger to find”.

Phillip Paget becomes Ad Forum CEO

AdForum.com, a leading global services provider for the advertising industry, recently announced the appointment of Philippe Paget as big kahuna and CEO Worldwide.

Philippe Paget succeeds Christopher Wynne, who has resigned after six years within AdForum.com. Philippe Paget has twenty years of experience in the advertising, media, and internet industries. Which is a lot. In fact he has more experience than we have had hot dinners. And that’s also a lot.

Carlos Ulloa gets Tooled up

Tool of North America is pleased to announce the recent signing of industry-leading Flash and 3D developer Carlos Ulloa to their digital practice. The London-based Ulloa's signature works include the creation of the revolutionary open source application Papervision3D, the leading real-time Flash 3D engine.

Since the library's debut, Papervision3D has vaulted into the mainstream, its universal penetration allowing it to become central to prominent campaigns for Sony BRAVIA, Renault, Absolut, Red Bull, and Nike. Using Papervision3D and Unity, Ulloa builds interactive 3D experiences for the Web and iPhone applications.

"Signing with Tool will allow me to focus on creativity," noted Ulloa. "I like the way Tool portrays their people and the directors. The approach is really nice, they take care of their people."

Art that is cool AND square…

Square Art – Golden square posts’ long running art comp returns for the fifteenth time on the 26th of November 2009 with art world endorsements from White Cube artist, Harland Miller, and the legendary Slade School of Fine Art–UCL.

Square Art is the extra-curricular showcase for talented and artistic commercial industry insiders. To coincide with Golden Square’s 10th anniversary, this year’s theme is ‘Ten’. Submissions are encouraged across all media – paintings, videos and sculptures; and the show is open to anyone employed in advertising. Previous entrants include advertising heavyweights like CHI founder, Charles Inge; and last year’s judging was by WCRS president Robin Wight and Sunday Times art critic Waldemar Januszczak.

This year’s Square Art sees the show’s advertising roots stretch even further into the art world. Celebrated artist and writer, Harland Miller, and head of undergraduate painting at Slade School of Fine Art–UCL, Andrew Stahl, will act as the show’s curators. They will be joined by an advertising luminary whose name will be announced soon. Finally, the 2009 show will hang adland’s artistry side-by-side with Slade’s finest in a move to expose the fine art school’s fresh talent to the commercials industry whilst providing young inspiration to advertising artists.

Ewan MacLeod, Golden Square’s executive producer, said: “Each year the show gets stronger and stronger. But this is the first time that we’ve had such tangible connections with the art establishment. It’s exciting to see Square Art grow into a fully paid-up member of the art world and give the commercials industry the artistic recognition it deserves.”

Submissions are free and open to anyone who works in the commercials industry. Deadline for entries is 1st November 2009. For more submissions information email Karen Scott on karens@goldensq.com or go to http://www.goldensq.com/squareArt

AND FINAALYYY…

For those of you that think you’re good? This kid is better… No… Really… he is.

Neurosonics Audiomedical Labs Inc.

Every so often something drops into The Reel’s heaving mailbox that blows our collective tiny minds and makes us feel all funny inside like a sneeze but eight times better. And it happened this week. And it was marvellous.



Fresh from Partizan’s charmed creativity lab Darkroom come Chris Cairns' (he of the magnificent Cadbury’s Crème Eggs spots) latest, a short film made in collaboration with world champion turntablists Scratch Perverts, Foreign Beggars and Shlomo with sound design by Will Cohen.

We managed to grab Mr Cairns for a few questions about the production – but be warned, it seems that excessive exposure to beatjuggling has warped his mind somewhat.

How did the collaboration with the Scratch Perverts and Foreign Beggars come about?

Blackmail and bribery respectively.

Who came up with the concept? Was it something you’d considered before?

My mum. Once before.

Any thoughts of turning the short into a promo?

I like the idea of a gnarled A&R man, rendered destitute by music theft, exhuming the corpses of his favourite historical musicians and making biomechanical attachments from their heads. In his dilapidated basement Buddy Rich's head comes to life on a pristine robot body and proceeds to chew out the man's young assistant. We recognise the assistant as QBert who, after cracking his neck, nods in time with Mister Rich's beat and starts cutting up Biggie and Bob Marley on the turntables.


You have pretty much visually explained the art of turntablism and beatboxing in one fell swoop – which is no mean feat! How does that make you feel?

Like Rocky after the Russian training montage. He's knocked out an on-the-payroll journeyman, I've felled a big tree.

‘Neurosonics Audiomedical Labs Inc.is getting loads of attention, and has already been screamed about in The Metro and Hype Beast, which means the great unwashed love it now. Did you make the name of the short deliberately difficult to say?

It was a toss-up between that and Cool Internet Scratching and Beatboxing Video.

Who was the best at scratching? (come on you must have a favourite)

Anthony Dickenson, the first AD and my erstwhile lover, had a rash on his face and wins hands down.


Scratch Perverts vs Foreign Beggars? Who wins?

Irresistible Force versus Immovable object. Experience versus enthusiasm. Stig's a big lad but I reckon Tony Vegas could give a good account of himself in a fight.

You vs Tom Vek? Who wins?

Tom has better hair than me. I'm better at cricket than Tom.

And finally, have you got anything exciting in the pipeline you can tell us about?

A haircut.

Lovely.

Many thanks to Chris and the team at Partizan for the interview. Check out the short in-situ on the microsite here - www.neurosonicsaudiomedical.com

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