Reel Opinion - Nick Hussey

There are three things we at The Reel look for in a Reel Opinion guest – shrewd, insightful observations, caustic wit and a neat haircut. Therefore, it was only a matter of time before we knocked on the virtual e-door of Rokkit’s new Executive Producer Nick Hussey. Here are his sublime takes on five choice selections from The Reel’s March DVDs.

Nick Hussey

Executive Producer

Rokkit

Comic Relief - Brand Aid

Agency: Fallon London

Production: Spank Films London

Director: Steve Bendelack

Perfect Comic Relief fare that's cleverly populist. Chris Bovill & John Allison have an amazing track record of engaging us all, without pandering to a knowing elite or going for the lowest common denominator. Getting the permissions for each of these icons must have been, er, comically grim. I'm sure the clients at Admiral and Bounty didn't take long to say yes though. Amazing that Meerkat gets straight in there. That's a sign of an effective (dirty word but the best word?) ad. I'd be interested to know how it went getting the permissions for the defunkt icons. I haven't checked, but I wonder if there's a politically correct spread of UK ad agency ideas on that table. It pains me to think of the negotiations. I hope the producers on this still have hair.

Nike - The Cortez Brothers

Agency: Nike EMEA Brand Design Amsterdam

Production: Picasso Pictures London

Director: tokyoplastic

Tokyoplastic did a great job with creating the look of this, but it does feel flabby. Why should I watch it all? Maybe if you're a Cortez freak, this is Nike Porn. But I definitely drifted off the stop-motion shoe colour frenzy. It needed a backbone, or some characters throughout. Instead it came off as a moving brochure. Which is cool for instore screens, but not entertainment in it's own right. I have a pretty major problem with the track, which is like chewing batteries sweetened with molasses. Nike Amsterdam do wicked stuff, but I think out of context this film is just a really shiny catalogue.

WWF - Earth Hour

Agency: Hasse & Lasse Stockholm

Production: Film De Liberte AB Stockholm

Director: Joakim Eliasson

Some beautifully shot moments that could have been bound together more tightly with narrative. We've seen a lot of spots and shots of light switches being turned off, and charity fatigue may mean that viewers do the same. Turn off, not think on.
My favourite scenes involve mimicking darkness with the bags and blindfolds, and I think that was a route worth pursuing further. It's essentially a pretty montage, and thus was overlong, needing trimming to 30-40 seconds. I found the visuals emotive for their images of human society, but it didn't remind me why I should be turning off my lights. Back to the narrative. Perhaps a juxtaposition of the fun side, verses the beauty of nature lost in time? Hell, I'm certainly no copywriter. I should back off.

Visa - Bill

Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi London

Production: Academy / Ghost Robot

Director: Joey Garfield

Taken directly from a music video that the director did with wonderful dancer Bill Shannon, this is really all about that performance. Its an arresting idea that hasn't been shoehorned with the project, but fits nicely. However, and I am quibbling, because I'm a fan of this spot, it's difficult to get enough of the languid beauty of Bill's moves into the timeframe, along with the necessary Visa narrative. I would have preferred to have seen a one-shot treatment, as with the RJD2 original, to get that across. Coming from production, I'm more circumspect about the direction and photography. Specifically it was too sparse and bleached for me, but I can see how that was necessary to leave us concentrating on the dancer. It stands out in the ad break and brightened my day, so I come away tasting sweetness.

Puma - Lift

Agency: Droga5 New York

Production: MJZ New York

Director: Rupert Sanders

Gondry. There I said it. Sanders would hate me for it, but that's all I can think. That whole projection moving set thing is impossible to disassociate from him. But that's unfair to all involved. I loved it. A technicoloured STORY that bears up to, infact requires, repeat viewing. And the Puma client have been cool enough to step back from insisting the brand be constantly on screen. We've seen these one-shot fantasias done before (specifically by Monsieur G) but this is a locked off shot that lets us take in what we can, as it comes at us apace. Clever, thought-provoking, serious, funny, wild and saucy. And I just realised, it's a wicked music vid cut to ad length with a shot of a shoe. Promos will rise again. Let's hope.

NewsReel 09/04/09

A new media mutt in the kennel

The communications A-Team of Peter Law, Veronique Rhys Evans, Sam Espensen and Georgie Easton have all left The Media Foundry, part of Cagney plc, and set up a new communications agency named Red Dog Communications. Founding clients of Red Dog include big dogs TBWA\London, STREAM\, The Viral Factory and Media Equals, with announcements of new client wins expected shortly.

Speaking of the new endeavour, Veronique Rhys Evans said "Red Dog has been set up to meet all the needs of our clients in this challenging environment. Some of the greatest ideas are borne out of recession, where there are great opportunities for a small, entrepreneurial business like ours. Like all the best dogs, we'll be smart, loyal and tenacious."

Red Dog Communications is a full service consumer and corporate agency. With a team this full of BITE, we’re sure they’ll be HOUNDed with offers and will LEAD the way in PUP-PR. GRRRRRRRRRRReat stuff! Ha ha ha … *groan*

http://www.reddogcommunications.co.uk/

Transparent’s seasonal signings

It's out with the old and in with the new, as Transparent "spring" into action with new signings US giant Kinka Usher and Argentinians Martin Hodara and Luciano Qulici for UK representation.

Past winner of the Directors Guild of America Director of the Year, Usher's recent 118 118 extravaganza for Brooklyn Brothers has brought him to a new UK audience. "The competition was formidable" says Eilon Kennet Transparent's MD "and we're delighted that Kinka has chosen to work through us in the UK. We already have interest from two major London agencies."

"We've been in discussion with Martin and Luciano for some time now and this is the perfect opportunity to formalise our agreement. Hodora has already shot his first job for the UK for Lowe."

To check out all of Transparent's directors go to http://www.transparentuk.com

Easter tele-treats!

If you’re appetite for The Great Escape and Bond has wained and you’re looking for a visual treat to entertain over the Eater weekend, Skellig, the latest movie by Feel Films & UK commercials director AJ Jankel, may be right up your street. Premiering on Sky on Easter Sunday, the film, adapted from David Almond’s multi-award winning and critically acclaimed book, is the first project to reach the screen from Sky’s investment fund committed to original drama in high-definition.

Director Jankel first exploded onto American and UK television as the co-creator/director of the memorable cyberpunk series, Max Headroom. With partner Rocky Morton she created original and inventive music videos for leading artists leading to numerous awards and the inclusion of their work in the permanent collection at New York’s Museum Of Modern Art. Jankel and Morton partnered with David Zander in 1991 to form highly successful production company MJZ. Jankel/Morton directed many commercials during their partnership winning accolades for brands such as Coca Cola, GM, IBM, AOL, Hellman’s, Bell, Speedo and for her Hallmark ‘Kiss’ campaign JANKEL earned “World’s Best Humour Commercial” and “Best Directed Commercial, Best of Show” at the International Broadcast Awards plus GOLD Award for “Best TV Commercial Campaign” at The Worldfest Remi Awards.

…and finally

We’re big fans of (Ke)Vin Deisel and Paul ‘The Charisma’ Walker here at The Reel, so imagine our excitement upon spotting that their latest opus has got the Addictive TV treatment. Following their official remix of Oscar winning Slumdog Millionaire, British audiovisual artists Addictive TV have just remixed the new blockbuster Fast & Furious. The film is produced by Hollywood studio Universal, who asked Addictive TV to create an alternative web-trailer.



This is Universal’s first foray into film remixing, and one which puts Addictive TV in the unique position of having now created film remixes for nearly every major Hollywood studio. The London based audiovisual artists and performers have made their name as trail-blazers in the art of audio/video remixing - especially when it comes to movies.

We can’t wait to see what these guys will do with The Expendables.

Turn Out The Lights

Film De Liberte honcho and Bare Films uber-talent Joakim Eliasson recently completed a fantastic campaign for WWF Earth hour with an incredibly limited budget, and nothing more than a Canon Stills Camera.

Eliason told us:

“When Film de Liberté in Stockholm won the project to shoot a global Earth Hour campaign through WWF in Stockholm they quickly decided to shoot it with the new Canon 5D Mark II.”

“Although we are used to working with 35 mm cameras plus a huge lighting department and grip team behind our back, we realized that if we wanted to do this spot we needed to rethink and go back to basics again.”

However the decision to use the camera was not one of the easiest roads that the team could have taken. As Eliason soon found the Canon sales staff to be slightly on the unhelpful side when extracting any tips on how to get the best out of the gear:

“(We were) banging our heads against the Canon Sales Department wall trying to explain what we needed but received no help or support whatsoever. We had to turn to the mighty internet to learn how the camera worked.”

To make matters worse, time was of the essence for the small team working on the shoot.

“Getting the camera two days before the shoot meant that we spent the nights making tests and sending clips to our posthouse The Syndicate. They really helped us get the best out from the test material. We sent them QT files on the FTP and they posted the material back in minutes with corrections. We were quick learners.”

Travelling to five continents within 20 days coupled with a minimal budget for the project meant that the team were experimenting with new ways to work all the time.
The only ‘crew’ available were friends that helped (in any way that they could) and all scenes ended up being shot with the lights that existed at the location.

“We used somebody’s friends shop, an aunt’s children, and a best buddies home, who we ended up having dinner with after the shoot. Needless to say, we have a lot of new Facebook friends”
Alongside Joakim, Producer Christer Kildén and DOP Ulf Brantås, were able to get closer to the people they were filming and with this hands on approach were able find locations that would otherwise have been missed.

“Since we wanted to shoot real locations for maximum authenticity we were constantly looking for new locations to shoot on the way. And when we found them Christer would could have a coffee with the shop owner trying to explain our mission. By the time they had finished their coffee Joakim and Ulf had already shot the scene and we were out from there and on our way to the next place.”

Unfortunately, small budget innovations does have its drawbacks, as Joakim went on:

“The only problem we have now is to get our accountant to approve the bag of handwritten receipts in 8 different languages…and trying to explain to the next client why we need a proper budget!”

Six of The Best.

1. Why the Canon camera?

We knew we had to travel, and being a small crew (director, DOP, Producer), we could be as quick, flexible and spontaneous as possible as well as being able to use locations and people that we found along the way.

Therefore the first thing we had to do was to minimize the technical equipment and at the same time, make sure the end result looked good.
We looked into RED but the material didn’t look great when shooting at night with little lighting.....and we did not want to shoot on ordinary HD cameras because I’m generally not happy with how it looks.

We stumbled upon a Test film on Vimeo made with the Mark II and it got us really excited and we started the chase for the camera. Amazingly enough, Canon themselves refused to help even for our test and that was even after WWF explained the whole campaign!
Luckily, we talked to our friends and were able to sneak in front of the pre -order line.

Two days before the shoot, when we had done our tests we saw that the camera was very light sensitive and the new large sensor gave the images the short depth of field that gives it that 35mm feel that we really like. During those two nights testing and giving the camera a hard time we were sure that they could do the things we wanted.

Our DOP Ulf Brantås came up with homemade inventions that we added to make the camera work better. He is also the king of handheld camera. After shooting Generation Kill and his BBC projects, he had found the problems that we didn’t think of - and solved them along the way.


2. Was it intentional that you used no lights for an ‘Earth Hour’ spot – or was it a happy accident?

It always produces mixed feelings travelling around "white spots" on the production map and knowing that there is no production service in that particular area so you have to arrange most things yourself when you get there. And we also didn’t have the budget !
Travelling to 6 different countries in less than 20 days we pre-booked some small lights on each place to be prepared for the worst but in the end we realized very early on that we did not need any additional lights at all. Being able to work without the light gave us the flexibility we were aiming for. It soon became a theme. What can be better than shoot an Earth Hour film without lights?

3. Do you think that you can ever substitute for a larger format camera and lighting rig for the limited equipment that you took on the shoot?

Not yet. If there is a proper budget I will still go for 35mm and RED in a studio situation where you can control things. But if there is a project that is interesting but with a limited budget I will definitely use it again, with our tricks and improvements that we used for this project despite Canon’s lack of input and support.

But everyone knows that there are still issues. It only shoots 30fps and there is a limit on how long you can roll on each take. The DOP has to handle the focus himself etc. And the editing is still a bit tricky. But if you know that and only look at the images it produces, it’s really amazing.

4. Do you think you got better reactions from the people – because of the less intrusive size of the camera?

In some locations where we literally just ran in and out I am sure it helped us. We had two cameras. My DOP made the wider shots and I took the pick ups of faces, details etc. We asked the people to do it twice. In between we took another angle and after 5 minutes we were out of there and had at a minimum four angles.
Christer (Producer) would chat up the location owners and by the time they had agreed, we were already done with the shooting. Lots of coffee and lots of laughs.

5. Would you do it again the same way if you had a bigger budget? If no – what would you change?

For this project I would not change one thing about the shooting process. In post I would have it a different way. More time for one! And also be able to change the offline process. It was fun to present the material for the online guys, and see their reaction. We did some tests during the online where we tried to get as much info out of a 35 mm and our material and we came up with some funny things...

6. Have you got any exciting projects that you are working on and that you can tell us at the Reel about!?!? (don’t worry if you cant!)

We are in pre production for a web project with interactive clips that will be inspired by David Lynch. We are going to shoot 3 music videos for some major Swedish artists. We are also about to shoot an ad that is going out in cinemas only.

All this will be shot on the Canon 5D Mark II. We are very interested to see what the images look like on the big screen. We are keeping our fingers crossed.

And we are pitching another job with a lot of different locations, not much time, lots of natural light, slightly limited budget...hmm lets see, perhaps we will use the Canon for that project as well!

Thanks to Joakim for the short notice Interview and to Frankie at Bare Films for the super quick turnaround!

NewsReel 03/04/09

April Fools of us all!

You know what it’s like, come 01/04 and every ‘comedian’ tries to jape all and sundry with some clever trick. Ever since spaghetti was allegedly grown on trees, the media have taken All Fools Day as an opportunity to play Puck and mess with the public’s brains for heavy giggles. This year was no exception, with a few brands trying their best to dupe the masses – and so we present to you The Reel’s personal Good, Bad and Fugly from the collective:

The Good - BBC3

The Beeb, with the iPlayer and extensive online interactivity, are getting extremely good at ‘added value’ content for users, and this April Fool’s Day trick is a great example. Derived from the prevalent truth that everybody likes to make their mates look like douches, this ESP test uses clever playback tech to allow erstwhile dupees the opportunity to fool a pal into thinking they have Lion-o style sight beyond sight.



If you’re game (and you should be ‘cause it works!) check out the ‘How to’ clip above and then fool Ernie from accounts with the spoof vid here - http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/videohub/esptest.shtml

The Bad - Xbox

Ha ha ha, Guitar Hero’s well popular. Imagine if, ha ha ha, imagine, ha ha, imagine is there were a Guitar Hero style game for, ha ha ha, for, ha ha … it’s too funny .. ha ha, for a massive alpine horn. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha … oh.



OK, we may be being a bit too cruel here, but we’re afraid that this little yodelling number didn’t tickle our funny bones nearly as much as it should have.

The … er … WTF - Squeeze Bacon

Squeeze Bacon. Erm, that’s all that really needs to be said (apart from mentioning that a certain member of sister publication Contagious got over excited when seeing this spoof and is eagily awaiting it’s appearanve in ASDA’s aisles.



2AM fills its timeslot

The friendly peeps at 2AM - http://www.2am.co.uk/ - have been making some big changes and signings recently. After seven years in Camden Town they’re set to hang with the cool kids (i.e. us) and moving into Soho.

They’ve also had a major reshuffle of their Directors roster, including the signing of the legendary filmmaker Wim Wenders, the critically acclaimed documentary director John Dower and cult promo director Steve Glashier.

WIM WENDERS

This is the first time Wim has been represented in the UK and Europe for commercials, with the exception of GermanyProbably best know for his acclaimed films – Paris,Texas, Buena Vista Social Club, Wings of Desire – Wenders has also helmed commercials for Leica and the UN Development Fund, featuring the footballers Zinedine Zidane and Ronaldo.

JOHN DOWER

John’s film making career was kicked started in 1999 by Bobbyjo winning the Grand National. With his winnings he was able to buy a digital camera and start shooting what was to become his first doc 'When Will I Be Famous?' Bought by Channel 4 he went on to make a series of landmark films for the channel such as, 'Porn in the UK', 'John's Gone to Iceland' and the cult hit 'Sneaker Freaks'.

In 2003 he completed his first feature length documentary ‘Live Forever – The Rise and Fall of BritPop’ featuring Liam and Noel Gallagher. Damon Albarn, Jarvis Cocker and Damien Hirst. It was released theatrically in Europe, Australia and Japan. His follow up feature ‘Once In A Lifetime – The Extraordinary Story of The New York Cosmos’ was picked up for distribution in the US by Miramax.

His latest feature ‘Thriller in Manila’ screened at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for the Grand Jury prize and was recently shown on C4 to critical acclaim. The film documents the 1975 epic fight between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali telling the story from the now 60 year old Frazier’s point of view.

STEVE GLASHIER

Promo Director Steve Glashier signs to 2AM for commercials representation. His prolific output over the past 4 years has produced videos for CSS, Juliette and the Licks, The Rakes, and Fatboy Slim amongst others. His recent video for Jimmy the Fingers “Grace” is being hailed as a You Tube sensation. Check it out here!



Commercial time for Mr Anderson

Paul W.S. Anderson, the British-born Hollywood director, producer and writer, has joined the commercials’ roster at The Mob Film Company - www.mobfilm.com. Anderson, who is well known for hugely successful video game adaptations and explosive sci-fi movies, has already completed his first advertising production for VW Golf, through DDB, which airs at the beginning of April.

Not to be confused with the similarly monikered Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights and Magnolia), P W.S. A is renowned for his strong visual style and high-impact action, being behind such guilty pleasures as Mortal Kombat (Lambert!!), Alien vs Predator (not the worst AvP movie) and Death Race (starring The Reel’s #1 man-crush Jason Statham). Whilst his back catalogue has never really troubled the bods at BAFTA, Anderson’s style is set to work well in the commercial world – and with lines like Death Race’s ‘Okay c*cksucker. F$ck with me, and we'll see who sh%ts on the sidewalk.’, The Reel is eagerly anticipating his foray into ads.

…and finally

A well designed website really floats our collective boat here in Reel Towers, so we’ve been seriously loving the playful nature of Cravendale’s feature rich offering - http://www.milkmatters.co.uk/. Giving you the opportunity to watch the ads (wot we well love), play a slurptastic game, question a cow and even make a useful tea rota, the superlative site balances friendliness, functionality and sheer good-natured pleasure with ease. Cravendale, we raise our milky tumblers to you.

Pssst...

PSST! is a collaboration film project comprising of 17 films made my 51 teams of designers, directors, animators, composers and (we think) the kitchen sink. The collaborative short films made over the last year by over 175 participants in cities worldwide, including: New York, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, Atlanta, Nashville, London, Glasgow, Paris, Vilnius, Amsterdam, Berlin, Dublin, and Copenhagen.

Curated and organized by Bran Dougherty-Johnson of Grow Design Work, the PSST mission statement is a common and simple one: to produce original short films through the collaboration of Designers, Directors, and Animators, however – it’s the production process that sets PSST apart from other film challenges.

Derived from the Dadaist game of ‘exquisite corpse’ (more commonly known as consequences – where one person draws or writes something on a piece of paper and passes it to another person, that person then adds something to the existing work and passes it on to someone else and so on) PSST aims to reproduce the game in a moving image / motion graphics format.

This mixing of many talents and narrative ideas results in some pretty sideways and interesting pieces of work. From thieving bunnies to future-retro astronauts – the nutty nature of the exercise makes the storytelling fearless and unfettered, rather like a type of visual freeform jazz.

We managed to make it to the London screening of the project which was a fully rammed out affair. Taking place in Bohdi boutique gallery on Brick Lane the clientele was a heady mix of tightly squeezed contributors, wandering Shoreditch clichés and cheery industry folk. Whilst the work was fantastic – we hope that the organizers can find a bigger venue for the screening next year, as we stopped playing sardines when we were ten.

Chronic gags aside - we at The Reel fully recommend copping a copy of the DVD and checking out the glorious visual madness contained within.

For more info go to: http://www.psstpassiton.com/

Contact PSST!: psst@psstpassiton.com

NewsReel 27/03/09

Jacobs and Hussey Rokkit to the top

Luke Jacobs (former Head of Production at Rokkit) and Nick Hussey (fresh from running The Ebeling Group in London) are now MD and Executive Producer of Rokkit respectively.

Jacobs said "Nick is very connected and well regarded. He's always done sales, but in an innovative way for London. He builds trust through being knowledgeable and understanding what agencies need. He hates the pushy sales thing. What you see is what you get, I really wanted that for us. And he has the experience for us to share the workload."

“We're a production company that you go to with solutions. That agencies and media folk can get advice from, and we have the directors and production skills for all solutions. It's a new world out there and whilst many are concerned, we feel optimistic and comfortable".

Hussey, getting stuck in to the big love-in, said "Rokkit have an awesome roster. The most exciting set of directors I can think of. I would say that, but that’s why I'm here.

“I'd always eyed those guys jealously. I thought there was such enormous potential there. We reckon that with Luke's production and management experience and me concentrating on the sales/marketing/relationship stuff, we compliment each other perfectly. I'd heard that Luke and the guys are good, down-to-earth people, and when you couple that with the most vibrant directors in Europe, it's the best combination I can think of in London."

Hussey will work with Director’s Rep Oli Hammerton in getting the message out.
"I've been watching Oli and it's great to be working with him. He's a self-taught, genuine and clued-up rep. He cares about the directors and the work, and isn't just party party. But he can drink two G&Ts without slipping into a coma, unlike me" said a slightly jealous Hussey.

We can’t wait for the wunder-team to get up to speed. In the meantime, check out the company's impressive roster here – www.rokkit.tv.

Getting Skimmer for summer

Are your Twitters in a clutter? Your Facebook lost its place? Your Blogger bungled up? Well fear not, ‘cause Fallon have created something to get your social networks … er … networked. Skimmer is a new lifestreaming tool that serves as a dashboard for a person’s social networks. The ap saves users the time and hassle of manually checking Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, and Blogger by consolidating the feeds into a single stream of relevant content on the desktop. And it looks well pretty. And it’s free. Result!

We love the idea of brands/agencies/companies providing clever solutions like this, so keep it up bods and boddesses. Grab your copy here - http://www.fallon.com/skimmer.

Calling all Dwarfers


Remember Red Dwarf? Funny sci-fi sitcom. Had the fella off Corrie, the bloke from Scrapheap Challenge, Gordon Brittas and the singing voice of one of the Fireys from Labyrinth. Six good series and two shonky ones. Used the word smeg a lot. Mostly liked by teenage boys, but we knew a girl who liked it too. Her name was Kelly.

Yeah you know it.

Anyway, it’s back on the UK TV station Dave this Easter and Red Bee Media have created a clever little ARG (Alternate Reality Game) for it. Acting like a story-telling treasure, users control their Cat Nav (see what they did there) to reveal the location of the crew’s long-awaited re-union whist hunting for clues and hidden links that will slowly reveal exclusive content online.

Aimed mostly at nerdstroms like us (as most ARGs are), the campaign manages to balance some of the excessively complex puzzle based elements that consign most ARGs to the deepest darkest forums with simple tasks that reveal genuinely interesting content. Whilst we’re not sure the show will actually be any good (going to Coronation Street … really!?!), the online game and footage is certainly engaging enough for a visit.

http://www.listerscominghome.co.uk

Film Friends FOREVER!!!

God we love films here at The Reel. Sure, they can’t all be Back To The Future, Big Trouble In Little China or The Expendables, but all movies, long or short, usually manage to find a cosy space in our hearts. Because of this we love film events, especially ones that say they’ll be our friends forever – so we bloody love www.filmfriendsforever.com and their marvellous attitude towards the flicks.

Here are a couple of their upcoming events, including one featuring Reel fave Eran Creevy:

Film Friends Forever / 1st April 2009
As Obama vowed to restore Science to its rightful place in his historic inauguration speech, Film Friends Forever will be exploring the role of science in short films with a selection based on science and science fiction. We will delight and surprise you with wars taking place in the future, visualisations of invisible fields, animal behaviour and more!
http://www.filmfriendsforever.com/events/shorts-promos-evening-science-1st-april-2009

Preview Screening / Shifty / 17th April 2009
Shifty, the portrait of a drug dealer is based on Eran Creevy's teenage experiences, and boasting convincing performances from a cast of rising stars, the film was funded by Film London's Microwave scheme, and delivered after a shooting schedule of just 18 days.
http://www.filmfriendsforever.com/events/shifty

See you there!

And finally…

If, like us, you were left green with envy at the lucky party goers who got to hang out with Run DMC, Becks and the Ting Tings (the TING TINGS!!) for adidas’ Originals campaign, be prepared to go yellow with envy at this smart Simpson’s parody. Using footage from the series’ 20+ year history, the spot is a viral favourite created by SKY to celebrate the platinum anniversary of show and station. Enjoy.

Where Were They?

This years Comic Relief spot saw no less than 13 brand mascots come together on camera and make a plea for consumer cash. But the crazy gang were not vying selfishly for their bit of the everyman’s pie – in fact the group were asking you not to buy teabags, or insurance or cereal or freeze-dried potatoes.

They were asking you to give to charity…



But who was missing from this brand mascot list of champions? Was this really the premiership of brand talismans ... or had they missed a couple?

We at the Reel thought they had missed a trick on a few…

Douglas - The Lurpak Man

Aardman’s superb trumpet playing maniac could have been the perfect play-pal for the angry mentalist meat man from Pepperami. Whilst the former is a bit of an animal, the buttery fellow’s dulcet tones could have spread a little more comedy gold on the piece.

Flat Eric

Levi’s 90’s talisman was an ideal sparring partner for the PG-tips Monkey. We were thinking a cage, an octagon and a fatman tag team partner to level Johnny Vegas… the smart money would have been on Matt Lucas being in his corner.

Homepride's Fred

Fred the flourgrader has been on the English tellybox since the dawn of time. Okay not the dawn of time, but Fred has been entertaining and flogging homepride flour since 1964. Why then did he not make it into the golden 13? Probably because he was too busy giving millions of pounds to Comic Relief or something…

Barry Scott

Missing out the undisputed king of bargain basement advertising and screaming VO’s ‘Barry Scott’ was a criminal faux-pas on the part of the Comic Relief team. We were flabbergasted that he wasn’t present, with his dirty penny ready to educate and entertain. Interestingly Scott has several foreign cousins Martin Grellis (in Australia) and Dan Dolan (in North America) who both have a penchant for Reckitt Benckiser.product “Easy-off BAM” and loud voice overs… hmmm….

Kia-Ora Crows

It’s too orangey for Comic Relief… Or rather it hasn’t been on the box for several years, which more than likely wrote these fabulous feathered junglebook-style characters out of the picture.

Mr Muscle

A wobbly re-brand from weed into weight-lifter was probably the reason that Mr (that’s actually his first name) didn’t make it into the hallowed comic relief 13. We preferred him when he was a douchebag…

The Milkybar Kid

Tough. Strong. Cant go wrong. Which bits of his resume didn’t Comic Relief look at? I mean, this kid was a NO BRAINER! Im assuming that current ASA rules have shackled the bespectacled hero to a cross or something, because really and truly, the Milkybar Kid should have been there.

P.S. We didn’t do Tony the Tiger because quite frankly, the idea of a talking tiger that eats frosted flakes is quite preposterous. HE WOULD HAVE EATEN EVERYONE IN THE ROOM!