glitterorpolish

Kiki & Bouba

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:32:00 +0000

It's still miles from completion...in fact I've not properly started it yet, it only exists as storyboards and scraps of paper on my floor but I have a new idea for an animation. I should say it's a collaborative effort with me doing the visuals/animation and my friend Richard of Pen Paper (Pause) fame creating the accompanying words and music.

Richard is far more organized than I (or perhaps less busy at work?) as he has already completed the poem to which I'm meant to be creating visuals. This makes me feel a bit of a guilty shirker as it was my idea to do this in the first place. However my initial concept is pretty ambitious so I'm confident that the end result will either be an unmitigated disaster or an accidental triumph. Perhaps this may prove to be the perfect opportunity for me to live the Wieden + Kennedy mantra of 'Embrace Failure'.

The inspiration for this project came from a faded newspaper article I found myself reading a while ago that mentioned an experiment first conducted by a German clinical psychologist called Wolfgang Kohler in the 1920s. He and later other sociologists became fascinated by the construction of language or rather the unconscious and culturally mediated cognitive processes through which human beings comprehend meaning in one another's speech. The experiment was called the 'Kiki Bouba' effect. It found that irrespective of the subject's native tongue when asked to assign the made up names Kiki and Bouba to two abstract shapes- one curvy, the other spikey overwhelmingly subjects associated the curvy shape to Bouba.

Re-reading lots of old Shakespeare plays reignited my pleasure in language and the fun that playrights or poets can have simply by adjusting the relative balance of vowels, consonants and where the various syllabic stresses lie on words. This got me thinking about whether tricks could be played by abusing these various linguistic phonemes. Mightn't it be fun to say one thing with language but communicate something else entirely through the aural effect the combination of these words and sounds have upon the listener's ear? What is more can visuals be used to distort this meaning still further - could they exacerbate as well as reduce confusion caused, could a narrative be overlayed on top of this? These questions led me to explore other variations of synesthesia such as graphemes, euphonics and cacaphonics.

As I say the animation itself is still a work in progress but I can tell you it features a black plasticine dog and attempts to animate light and shadows simultaneously. Yes, I realise I have bitten off far more than I can comfortably chew.

One shot

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:32:00 +0000

Here is Vanessa's recently completed music video (yes another one....she's been busy). The track is by a new young singer-songwriter from Australia called Lisa Mitchell. Apparently she is a bit like the Will Young of Australia in as much as she got knocked out in the final of Aussie Pop Idol but is still pretty popular.

Apparently she took rather a lot of coaxing and spent a lot of the time crying quietly to herself in a corner...oh dear. The film itself is one single shot (I'd love to know how many takes they did?) and seems quintessentially Vanessa in style, I think it fits the gentle naivety of the song pretty perfectly too. I also love the grading and the warm aged-fairy tale quality that those colours deliver. If only poor Lisa could lip-sync better.

Trip to India with Save the Children

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 17:44:00 +0000

Just got back from a work trip to Delhi and Rajasthan with StC (one of my clients). It was a pretty exhausting week filled with emotional highs and lows. At the very least I learned a great deal more about how the organization works tirelessly to reduce child mortality around the world.

Neil very kindly posted up more info from the trip over at the main w+k London blog. You can see a couple more photographs and find out what I saw and did by clicking here.

I made some new friends and also spent time with my fellow w+k'ers in the Delhi office. I even found time to pick up a few saris to use as backdrops in photographic projects I'm currently working on.

If you'd like to find out more about StC or if you wish to help those currently displaced by the floods in Bihar you can give directly at the StC appeal website here.

Insert Title Here

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 20:13:00 +0000

Having just visited Vanessa's website for the first time in a while I stumbled across this piece from a year or so ago. We made it on Super 8mm to enter into the national Straight 8 film competition, where it was successful enough to make it through to the final at the Curzon Mayfair.

It was made exactly as you see it. One cartridge, no editing, one take for each shot. It is funny to watch it again after so long and to remember the fun we had making it one damp Saturday in a warehouse in Wapping. The story follows the struggles of a procrastinating writer and stars lots of friends. I think you'll agree though that the barman steals the show?

How Come Loretta

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:40:00 +0000

My dear friend Vanessa who is busily smashing her way into the film industry has recently finished another couple of music videos. The most recent is this one for a band called the Ryes. I didn't spot it myself but apparently John Lennon makes an appearance at some point?

Secondly this is the finished video of the Escape Artist by a band called Revere. I blogged about it a few months back because I helped out as the the stills photographer on set. The video isn't yet up on YouTube so this is the link to it on Annex Films' own website. Vanessa is represented by Annex in case you would like to get in touch with her.

Regular Everyday Normal Guy

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:44:00 +0000

I enjoyed the banality of this guy's lyrics. It is easy to forget the innate humor of the everyday.

Sometimes I wonder whether we planners devote too much time gazing into the middle distance for the new, unexpected, momentous human insight when in point of fact the really surprising insight or understanding often lies beneath our own noses.

I think this thought worked pretty well for Pot Noodle. Okay, so it's a more overt parody of hip-hop culture and doesn't quite have the same level of charm or pathos for that matter as the guy singing above but it's still a nice execution that I suspect ticked the boxes for the target audience.

Friendly Rivalry

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:33:00 +0000

Here is w+k's new ad for Coke in China in time for the Olympics. I like it, I think. It all ends nicely of course but I like the fact it acknowledges the extremely high and frequently politically tense levels of competitiveness which exist between these two great nations.

China is undoubtedly a tricky market within which to advertise, even more so as a western brand/agency. It's uniquely fierce levels of patriotism exist hand in hand with a strongly traditional (by which I mean largely celebrity driven endorsement) model of advertising. It has caught out many an ad agency in the past and frequently results in bland communications which either pander to well worn stereotypes or worse result in ersatz pastiches.

Well done w+k Shanghai for striking the right balance between emotionally honest, creatively provocative, and of course pleasantly entertaining. Nice one guys.

Creative Creole

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:52:00 +0000

I'm fortunate to have friends who do and make stuff as a matter of course. Some like me share a belief that there is intrinsic worth in the act of doing and making and that more importantly this drive can exist separately from a desire to foist one's wares onto an unsuspecting public. For some the pleasure is in creating not necessarily in promoting. Alternatively there are those friends who happen to have jobs which mean they get paid for doing and making stuff. Either way lots of people I know seem regularly to be engaged in what from the outside at least sound like interesting side projects of some description, myself included.

The thought occurred to me that it might be a nice idea to get together one afternoon and share our various wares the idea being that future collaborations may casually result or at the very least we'd inspire each other in unexpected ways over a few cold beers. I called the event Creative Creole. I liked the idea of a 'creole' because it's a distinct phenomena in its own right but it bears the characteristics of two or more composite languages. It seemed to get at the heart of how I'd envisaged the afternoon working....coincidentally it was also alliterative which made me happy!

Despite some initial skepticism the event proved a great success. On the day the line up variously included stand up comedy, live music (including saxophone and flute), singing, performance poetry, art sketches, photography, music videos, viral films, short films, animation, a documentary and a brightly coloured piñata which we soundly battered to death at the end of the night.

It was a joy to see different people's work and the impromptu freestyle musical art piece at the end was....well..it was terrible but a lot of fun nevertheless. I hope to organise another Creative Creole in a few months time.

Helen kicked things off with two new songs

Rich the unlikely rapper/poet wowed everyone with new material

Ed relaid yet another embarrassing true life story in his stand up routine

Helen prepares to face the piñata

The piñata proved more resilient than you'd expect

Power ballads at midnight it turned out were just what the audience wanted to hear

Freestyle in the early hours of Sunday morning

From my perspective sharing my freshly pressed animation with people (let alone friends) for the first time was a nerve-wracking experience. I found it strange to share something the inception and creation of which had been an entirely solus enterprise. Whilst I'm pleased with it there was really no way at all of knowing whether anybody else would enjoy it. I felt very naked as I glimpsed what creatives go through on an almost daily basis, offering up the fruits of one's mind for critical analysis. Thankfully the reaction seemed pretty positive which I guess isn't bad for a first attempt at animation. I particularly enjoyed hearing how people's interpretations of it differed...is he a goodie or a baddie? Should I sympathise with him or did he get his just desserts? etc. I'll let you form your own opinion.

So...

without further ado here is my animation based upon Aesop's fable 'The Middle-aged Man and his Mistresses'. I hope you like it, feel free to leave me a comment if you so wish.

Note that unfortunately You Tube's compression codec reduces the quality of uploaded films. Whilst I've embedded the film below I would encourage you to click through to You Tube itself where there is an option just below the number of views to 'watch in high quality'. If you click this it will launch a slightly better version of the film optimised for the standard in-page You Tube viewing size. It's not perfect but it's as good as You Tube presently allows. Thanks.

Weekend Escape

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:33:00 +0000

Somewhere along the way I managed to get out of London one weekend and head down to a friend's family cottage in the Isle of Wight. Surrounded by close friends with the sun unexpectedly beating down we couldn't have wished for a more perfect retreat. It provided the time and space to play and for the mind to wander. It was the stuff halcyon days past. Naturally my camera was never far from my hand.

Two months since my last post

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:28:00 +0000

The teeshirt I've just bought myself

A fact that irritates me for a whole host of reasons. I dislike the low level self-imposed guilt that I needlessly place on myself for not having posted as often as I for some reason feel that I should. I've started to disbelieve the daily lie I tell myself that I'm too busy to post- whilst I'm undoubtedly busy it's patent nonsense to tell myself I can't find 15 minutes at the end or beginning of the day. But most of all I fear losing the cathartic effect I've found writing my blog has in the past had on my ability to formulate opinions on the matters I deal with at work on a daily basis. After all a planner without a viewpoint is like salt without vinegar.

As all Londoners with unused gym memberships will no doubt tell you with puse faces it's about routine, or rather forcing oneself to partake in routine. To willingly submit to repetitive and on occasion seemingly undesirable courses of action in the knowledge that it's somehow good for you. Whilst blogging won't get me fit it will help me order my thoughts, which can only be good thing in my line of business.

So what have I been doing these last two months? All sorts of things it feels like. So in no particular order here is a brief sumary:

Mainly I've been settling into my new life at Wieden+Kennedy London. It's been simultaneously challenging and invigorating in equal measure, precisely what I was after. I'm surrounded by dazzlingly talented individuals on a daily basis who are as generous with their passion as they are with their knowledge. I've been loving working in the East End, cycling to work and the sunny weather all of which have collectively made me feel more connected to this wonderful city of ours.

I've been reading lots of books and gradually working my way through all the 'other' Shakespeare plays on the side. I realise it's terribly boring to say but Shakespeare really is fucking startlingly brilliant in every conceivable sense isn't he?! His characterisation impeccable, his narrative structure so perfectly balanced, his linguistic tomfoolery coruscating, and his wry satirical humour breathtaking in its ability to resonate with rich and poor patrons alike. And if that wasn't quite uniquely impressive enough he manages to write the whole bloody thing in iambic pentameter. What a talented bastard!

I've also been taking lots of photographs and enjoying my various cameras. It's given me focus and a refreshed zeal to pursue personal art projects in my weekends, which I'm pleased to report I have actually been doing. I notice that my technical and compositional skills are improving (slowly) and I'm enjoying the little breakthroughs that inevitably follow.

Playing about with high shutter speeds, high frame rates and of course water melons on Primrose Hill

Gender pleasures

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:19:00 +0000

This is my favourite ad of the week. As well as being beautifully executed it also has a powerful category overturning creative idea at its heart. It deftly avoids prurience, novelty, or a big 'fooled you' moment. Instead a story of truth, self acceptance, authenticity, respect and ultimately self empowerment gently unfolds.

It's a brave idea for the agency to propose and even more so for the client to buy. Well done both whomever you are. However what I really love about this ad is the casual nod to women and not men at the end. It manages to perfectly create a bond of empathy with it's target audience whilst highlighting the product benefit. It also shows that rational and emotional can co-exist in the one execution.

I'm enjoying this joyful tongue in cheek banter between the sexes that I keep see popping up in various guises today in London. It's not done for provocations sake nor is it tainted with sexism or malice. Whether it's art or advertising it seems the pleasure and delight of sparring gender roles is in knowing that in today's world we each embrace their fluidity and recognise the importance of their equilibrium in whatever shape that may take.

On that note I went to see George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion last night at the Old Vic. I loved it. Consummate performances all round with plenty of jokes just for women, just for men and for men and women together to enjoy peppering the dialogue. The play's themes of class relations, unhealthy obsession, and antagonistic sexes seemed as fresh today as they must have done in the 1900s.

Of course Eliza's famous line "Not bloody likely" brought the house down.

Stephen

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 21:04:00 +0000

I have of late rediscovered the joy of Stephen Fry, or rather his wit and wisdom. Like most people of my age I first encountered him in the impeccable Jeeves & Wooster series on BBC tv. Since then he has been one of those fantastic old-guard British actors who pop up on my radar from time to time and manage never to appear in anything mediocre. For the most part I put Laurie and Brannagh in the same camp.

I have in the past thoroughly enjoyed his books like Hippopotamus in much the same way as I have savored the linguistic tomfoolery of Will Self's books. I've never read the Star's Tennis Balls simply because I love Dumas' original too much but I'm reliably informed it's also effortlessly brilliant. Anyway I'm rambling.

I recently saw Peter's Friends for the first time in years and it reminded me how much I like Stephen Fry. A friend then pointed me in the direction of his new series of Podcasts available free from the iTunes store or from here. They make perfect weekend listening. As well as a masterful storyteller Stephen's delivery manages to flop uncontrollably between the stumbling British self criticism he does so well with the vim and alacrity that comes from pursuing his own tangential foibles. If you haven't already, download and have a listen...well only if you like that sort of thing obviously.

A Return to Craft?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 19:36:00 +0000

This is Aesop. He's my lead character in the short animation I'm making

Last Thursday I went to a Pecha Kucha night with two dear friends from Republic. I intentionally didn't take notes because I felt that I'd probably miss some of what was being said had I have done. Upon reflection this may have been a grave error on my part as within moments of leaving the building the numerous speakers and their comments had begun to coalesce into one incoherent blur in my mind. To the extent that even if you paid me I'd be hard pushed to pick out any specific points of view beyond the broadest sweeps of generality.

I recall things like; don't fear the tyranny of the blank page, Lean Mean Fighting Machine like lovely Martin Parr style observations, we should seek things in our lives that wear in rather than those that wear out, and people will use things in ways that we hadn't designed for or anticipated...oh and something about Bangra sausages too?

One idea however did stick in my mind. I couldn't tell you who said it or in what context it was uttered but it's a thought that I've long since believed regarding my emotional response to art. He (it definitely was a he) for sore a return to 'craft'. What is more he mused that this would be accompanied by the publics willingness to pay for craft once again. A simple example would be the music industry presently being disrupted by the likes of Radiohead et al. As the perceived monetary value of digitized music drops below zero in many consumers' eyes perhaps the value of live, intimate, personal experiences of that same music will increase. It's a contention that I believe reaches far beyond the world of art, theatre and music. I've read umpteen nauseating trend sites recently whose reductionist methodologies blithely label this the 'Experience Economy'. We apparently live in a time where we'll all seek out and pay for authenticity and provenance wherever it's to be found; be that in food, art, music, holidays, books, anything really. I speculate that this is largely because it represents unique bragging rights or at least currency to this end, but also I believe it must stem from a deeply rooted desire for emotional connection. A genuine resonance with or empathetic bond to something. In an atomized society has this become harder to find?

My final thought on the subject is it's inevitable assimilation by the communications industry as an effective and oh-so de rigeur mode of engaging a contemporary fickle public. This needn't be a bad thing...in the right context done by the right brands it could be wonderful. I just hope that some misguided planner out there doesn't advise Daz or Churchill or Calgon or some such other marque of tedium to create small scale intimate personal experiences designed to emotionally trap me (kindly fuck off please). Perhaps it comes down to the apparent lack of special effects in today's commercials. Why pretend when you can make it and do it for real? It seems as if everyone is at it these days. Ok so the trick is getting a bit tired now but the new Sony ad is a fine example of realness and wow factor in happy unison.

To conclude my weekend has been spent busily photographing a small plasticine man and tiny bits of cardboard. It's all in aid of a short stop-motion film that I'm making at present based upon a fable by Aesop. None of my friends were around to act in it so I decided to make the entire thing on my own- actors included! So far they've been just as stubborn to work with as the real thing. I've a few more scenes to shoot but I'm hoping it'll be finished in a couple of weeks- evenings permitting. I wonder...does this count as craft?

When things work as they should

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 14:50:00 +0000

One half of Margabe

The other day my friend Abe sent me an email. At the bottom he'd casually written "why don't you download Skype, it's free and it works" or words very similar to that effect. Within 5 minutes I was sitting in front of my laptop laughing away as I video chatted with my friend on the other side of the Atlantic. It felt nothing short of miraculous.

In an age of digital ubiquity it's easy to forget the jaw dropping power and potential technology has to connect people all over the world. Its all pervasiveness leads to invisibility, just as once important prefixes like 'mobile' in mobile phone gradually fade anachronistically. What follows is the inevitable tragedy of human indifference to technological wonder. So it's nice when once in a while we're suddenly and forcefully confronted by this sense of wonder as though for the very first time. This is how I felt upon opening Skype.

Perhaps because digital feels so 'now' culturally speaking we're quick to dismiss personal feelings of digital nostalgia as being somehow oxymoronic? I don't believe this need be the case. I vividly recall two such occasions when I've been astounded by technology and specifically what it has done for my world: One was buying my first mobile phone- a Nokia 5120 as I recall, and the second was when I first installed wifi broadband in my London flat. Both times I felt as if the technology had somehow been invented for me personally. It seemed to fit my life so perfectly and intuitively that it surely couldn't be for anyone else, could it?

I wonder whether 'digital nostalgia' is a relatively untapped equity amongst the marketing community? It strikes me that my perception of the brands connected with delivering said experiences are far more positive than those who have not. It's as though Nokia, BT and now Skype are or were once true partners in my life's unfolding digital journey. It's a good feeling, and one I think that more technology brands would do well to recognise.

If only Abe had had something of interest to say besides how much he likes New York!

Professional Happiness?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 13:33:00 +0000

I woke up a month or so ago with this clumsy phrase turning itself over and over in my mind. I'm not entirely sure I whole heartedly believe it myself but I think it goes some way towards the right idea.

A dear friend suggested it sounded rather a lonely philosophy, he thought perhaps that 'independent creative endeavor' meant no other could be involved in the process. This isn't the case. For me independence relates to freedom from imposed stipulations by others not the absence of human co-operation. My own experience has taught me that I by far prefer collaborative enterprise to solus enterprise.

But then I ask myself what profession actually fits this ideology, does any? I can think of only one- the artist. Only the writer, painter, photographer et al can know this pleasure, but even then only a fractional few. Certainly not journalists who write/broadcast according to predefined contexts, historically even the greatest painters have at some point tailored their output according to client demand/commision. Authors too must conform to the requirements set out by their publishing houses.

Perhaps I'm full of shit and Dylan was right all along? Perhaps 'constraint' irrespective of what form it takes is in fact a healthy necessity that on very rare occasions induces individuals to startling creative brilliance.

The Escape Artist

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 22:25:00 +0000

Ness getting in on David Rom's DOP act

I spent last weekend helping Vanessa out on the set of her latest project. It was the music video for a band called Revere who are just breaking through (if you click here and select the track entitled 'The Escape Artist' you'll be able to hear the track the video has been made to accompany).

The stock is currently being edited but I'll post the finished article on my bl0g as soon as it has been released into the public domain. As far as I know the band are considering projecting the finished film onto the the stage whilst they perform at Glastonbury later this year. As well as being one of several general dogs bodies/runners on set I also found some time to double as the stills photographer.

Here are a few shots from the weekend (friends will be able to see more on Facebook). It was a challenging shoot, the high contrast set lighting made it tricky to get all of the shots I was after balanced correctly at the right exposure. It made me really want a telephoto lens with a bigger aperture! In spite of fast glass envy I was pretty happy with the results...lots of candid unaware over the shoulder stuff... the kind that I like.

Ultimately it was an exhausting but wholly worthwhile weekend's creative endeavor, and has given me loads of ideas about how I might go about filming my newly penned Fable short film.

A happy Ness with finished can

George between takes

Organised chaos behind the camera lens

One of the stop motion sequences

Ness' obsessive passion!

Clapper

Baby photos

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 16:35:00 +0000

This is a visualisation of my blog according to the relative numbers of links, images, tables and other syntactical aspects. For specifics about what each node colour connotes go here. Of course it's completely useless yet I find it strangely pleasurable to look at.

Watching it grow and sprout organically made me feel rather paternal towards my blog for the first time? Perhaps it's the seeming fragility of the links between the nodes that made me feel like this. Until just now I've only ever thought of my blog as an entirely abstract thing, a program running within the context of a bigger open source application. I think this picture makes it seem distinct, cut-off, and somehow microscopic. It's like peering at pollen or microbes through an electron microscope.

Anyway it made me think about how the lens of art often helps us to re-visualise and reinterpret something we've thought of as understood or at the very least familiar. It also makes me think about human value ascription; how and at what point bonds of emotional attachment to non-sentient entities can and are legitimately formed. For example anyone who has ever lost a mobile phone or had a hard drive die on them will know the momentarily heart stopping agony that accompanies it....it's something more than simple inconvenience I believe there's also a pain associated with the loss of a source of emotional dependence.

A cautionary tale of what can happen if we let our emotional dependence upon technology or in this case computers get the better of us.

Please excuse the moronic and appallingly xenophobic introduction to this video...

Toodlepip

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 00:15:00 +0000

Obligatory nod to Feininger's famous photo
Leaving Republic last week was a bittersweet experience. As is inevitably the case after four years I leave much more than a company or a building. I’m leaving an awful lot of incredible friends and for me this is the hardest part.

At the same time I’m sufficiently reflexive enough to realise that all great agencies the world over are staffed by great people…it’s what makes them great in the first place…duh! So of course I’m itching to get to know and work with all my new w+k colleagues, but at the same time there are a few people from Republic I’d like to tuck in my pocket and take with.

In my week long vacation or hiatus depending upon your perspective I’ve delighted in all that London has to offer. I’ve eat out loads, I’ve seen tons of theatre of which Much Ado at the National probably qualifies as the best Shakespeare I’ve seen in years, I’ve been to every gallery and market I could think of, I visited Kew gardens for the first time – it looked exquisite as the first shiver of Spring blooms had appeared, I met up with all those London friends I never get round to seeing and I even found time to go on one of those Red Bus tours around central London…loved it.

This has also been a wonderfully creative week. I’ve finally got around to writing up loads of ideas that have been sloshing about my brain for the last few months. I’ve written a treatment for a short film I’ve been meaning to make and I’ve also now written a screen adaptation of a brilliant but little known fable by Aesop called ‘The Middle-aged Man and his Mistresses’.

My principal endeavour however has been photography. I finally coughed up the cash for a new digital SLR - something I’ve been wanting for ages. The other day a friend sagely told me over coffee having first been subjected to my agonised decision making processes whether I should buy the wretched thing or not that expensive purchases induce either “eternal regret or eternal delight” and that you never know quite which it’s going to be until after you’ve handed over the cash. So far I’m thrilled to find it’s the latter. My new Nikon D300 is preternaturally brilliant in fact getting good, neigh brilliant photos actually seems slightly too easy. I’ve always associated ‘proper photography’ with being genuinely difficult…it’s what made the strangely alchemic mixture of mechanics, chemistry and artistic inspiration somehow worthwhile. One really had to coax a great photograph out of my old SLR camera…it was always an unhappy marriage of knowledge, luck and my best guestimation of how to take into account the endless light, speed and temperature variables. But with my new camera I feel instantly like Cartier-Bresson reincarnate.

So far I’ve taken some nice sunrise photos around Tower Bridge, I’ve shot the debut performance of two friends’ ridiculous 80s band ‘To Gaze’ and the other day I helped out a local charity ‘The Mental Health Foundation’ by giving up an afternoon to cover/shoot their recent awareness publicity stunt on the Southbank. Tomorrow or rather this entire weekend I’ll be on set somewhere is Essex documenting my Director friend Vanessa’s new music video. I can’t wait. It should be a very varied shoot indoors and out and brings with it the pressure of not being allowed to f*ck it up!

"I am just going outside and may be some time"

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 23:41:00 +0000

It has now been well over a month since my last posting. A record I hope never to repeat. It turns out that as well as being a source of low level background guilt to myself my lack of blogging has also been a mild disappointment to literally tens of other people around the world whom I’ve never met. In the last week alone I’ve received three emails checking whether I’m okay/ alive or simply berating me for my otiose blogging practice.

I am alive and well and have at last forced myself to face the tyranny of the blank page. I’m putting my faith in the act of enforced writing in the wilful belief that it may kickstart the brain into a short and (hopefully) coruscating burst of flow. I propose to adopt Pascal’s famously mis-attributed remark to his friend “I didn’t have time to write a short letter so I’ve written you a long letter instead” as my modus operandi. Rather than depositing one enormous brain coprolite onto said blog I’m planning to break it into several smaller chunks over the coming few days…think of it as a few pebbles rather than one monstrous cable ahem!

This last month has been a peculiar time, one characterised by short-term project involvement at work and a growing commitment to personal projects outside of work. In the process I’ve inadvertently discovered that I’m most productive und happy when my work life balance is 60:40 rather than as previously imagined 50:50….who’d of thunk it? I’ve found that unless my free time is in some way ‘endangered’ I never fully make the most of it when it comes around. A perception of scarcity and thus fear does wonders to focus my mind.

My last hurrah at work so to speak has been the delivery of an annual digital strategy for a leading gin brand. The client’s brief was clear from the outset, which in turn led to a clear and logical creative recommendation that all parties are delighted with. What really interests me however has been the realisation of just how far ‘digital’ ad agencies have come in the last four years, and more importantly still how far clients and many traditional creative agencies have come in recognising and valuing the contribution made by digital to the wider marketing mix.

Four years ago all my meetings were prefaced with a few slides outlining key metrics such as how many people were online or owned a mobile phone or what age they were etc.…this was before any of the actual ‘thinking’ was shared. A couple of weeks ago I sat in a meeting during which a senior media strategist stated in unequivocal terms how few given target audience members would be watching television relative to those actively engaged online. Now this in itself isn’t especially revelatory or ground breaking for that matter- media planners have always best understood where and what the nature of consumers’ relationships are to different channels. Instead I was impressed by the media strategist’s willingness to make a decisive budgetary recommendation against this data and the client’s willing complicity in an approach that effectively turned her previous year’s budget allocation plan upside down. It is as if everyone now knows it, and everyone now gets it. In my mind this raised the question what drum has digital left to beat?

I haven’t fully pieced the answer together yet in my own mind. Unsettlingly though I do believe I’m seeing evidence of digital agencies unknowingly sliding into a trap more commonly levelled at traditional agencies. In a climate were all clients now want you, want your talents, and crucially are sufficiently digitally literate to know what is possible for their brand then one’s focus as an agency under conditions of opportune profitability might become swayed in favour of commercial expediency. My contention is that under such circumstances agencies inevitably (but mistakenly) devote more time and expend more creative energy trying to develop different coloured and shiner wheels rather than as they once used to trying to reinvent the very spindle and framework around which the wheel revolved in the first place. Now I apologise for this somewhat unwieldy and dyspraxic metaphor but the point I believe is a valid one. The delight of being a digital planner or a creative for that matter I have always felt was the permission to invent the means of message distribution as well as the message itself. This was a privilege TV agencies could never know. We never started with “fill this 30 second hole”. Instead we first tried to crack what the desired emotional and physical interaction consumers might want to have with our brand/product only then moving on to craft the message specifics towards this or another given end. I wonder whether today digital agencies too often start with the questions; “what shall we put in the microsite? What is the widget going to do? Will it work with Facebook?”.

I believe that in these boom years some digital agencies have become lazy. They’ve focused upon how executions co-operate with the web’s wider real estate at the expense of the former concern that of innovation in the realm of solution itself. The longer we let this go unchecked the harder it will become to rediscover the very innovation credentials with which we built our reputations and carved out our specialist niche. Instead we’ll find ourselves production houses churning out derivative solutions to similar problems…what is more we’ll be prey to traditional creative agencies.

Brave new World

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 22:35:00 +0000

I have some big news. After four fantastic years at Agency Republic I have decided it's my time to move on. From the 1st of April (yes really) I'll be starting in my new position as a Planner at Wieden & Kennedy London. I'm very excited and can't wait to get stuck in.

For me it's an exciting step for lots of reasons. I'll gain experience planning campaigns that run across all media channels, I'll be exposed to strategic brand planning at the highest level, and I'll be working with a whole new bunch of passionate and talented people with myriad different skillsets from whom I hope to learn a great deal. But most of all I'm delighted to be joining an agency with both a reputation for creative excellence AND a fervently strong cultural sense of itself.

My principal client will be Nokia. Which as a brand at the forefront of digital innovation to me represents a massive opportunity for groundbreaking non-traditional advertising activity. After all their simple yet powerful belief in 'Connecting People' seems in my mind at least to be fundamentally rooted in a digital way of thinking.

It'll be a grand adventure.

You Tube delights

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 17:25:00 +0000

In my mind this is how I'd like all clients to respond when I stand up to do a presentation

I don't know how I haven't ever heard of a Tarsier before but they alone make me think a trip to the Philippines would be worthwhile.

New toy

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 19:19:00 +0000

My Christmas present to myself finally arrived last week. It's a new old SX-70 Model 1 and it has been stuck in a warehouse depot for what seemed like an age. On the face of it it's a complete and utter waste of money: over 35 years old, incredibly fragile, prone to mechanical as well as electronic failure, and requiring expensive near obsolete film. Yet I couldn't be more delighted with my purchase!

It represents everything I love in a product. It's humble design is ingenious as it is technically exacting. With the gentlest of tugs this neat rectangular ingot unfolds itself into an angular modern miracle of prismatic lenses and geometric light reflecting mirrors. In a world where product form and function seem so rarely to exist in harmony my aging SX-70 proudly represents a two fingered salute to flawed modern manufacturing-design processes. with it's weighty metallic feeling plastic cleanly offset by immaculate tan leather inserts. It is a beautiful object plain and simple, the fact it also happens to be a supremely sophisticated camera only serves to make it all the more glorious in my eyes.

I realise this post really doesn't warrant being posted in the first place since it is only of interest to me, and certainly offers no commentary of the world of branding and marketing. However I see no distinction between work and life (it's all life after all) so I'm going to leave it up. I do actually have some momentous work related news that I'm very excited about sharing but I'll announce that later in the week.

One of the reasons I can't wait to try out my new camera is because of it's famously short focusing lens. With a deft flick of the index finger I'll be able to snap subjects as close as 20 cm away whilst leaving the mid and background out of focus. In effect instantly making my photos look better than they really are. See below...

In Search of Serendipity

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 09:55:00 +0000

I really enjoyed reading Richard Huntington's latest thought piece over at AdLiterate (always an excellent source of provocative thinking) entitled the 'Death of serendipity'. In it Richard posits the idea that proliferating choice in all aspects goes hand in hand with a desire to simplify and where possible automate our necessary decision making processes. Web 2.0, cookies, pvr's, RSS feeds etc. are all held up as contemporary examples of the tools and techniques we now deploy on a daily basis to sift through the 'noise' in search of the nuggets of gold. However an unfortunate consequence of faster, better, simpler he argues is that it removes the possibility of our making fortuitous unexpected discoveries the likes of which might once have more accurately characterised our past media consumption habits. In essence without random there can be no serendipity.

The article goes on to make a further point about the advantages of media targeting blur on the basis that a little sloppy targeting may not in fact be a bad thing because it's a way to create the possibility of serendipitous audience discoveries, albeit artificially. However my interest really lies with the principal contention above. From a digital perspective I've learned to love the choice that the web affords. Web 2.0 is embraced because the human participatory dimension and network effects mean that my content preferences are filtered on the basis of mass collective experience rather than mathematical algorithms as was once the case with search engines alone. So because I know where all my information and thus the basis for my casual decision making is drawn from am I indeed in danger of closing the door to random?

It is fascinating to me the idea that if we follow the current trend for more accurate and automated digital technology to its logical conclusion we'll reach a point in the not too distant future where some decisions are made on the basis of anticipatory learned responses to past activity. I recognise that we're getting into the realms of 'Semantic Web' territory here but imagine you are running late for the airport. Not only would your iPhone know this and so automatically rebook you a ticket on the next available flight, but it may even be able to pro-actively tell you where the best sushi restaurant is located in the departures lounge and reserve you a seat - after all you'll need something to do to kill time whilst you wait! This will of course been possible because your iPhone elected to search your Outlook Calendar and seeing that 64% of your past work lunches had been at Japanese restaurants it makes the decision that you must be a California rolls addict. The point is that organisational decisions like this could all be taken care of based upon artificially intelligent crunching of data and meta-data from one's past activity/inputs. It might therefore be legitimately argued that in our digital world if serendipity isn't dead it is certianly on a doomed trajectory.

Of course I don't believe this to be true. Instead I feel random and order can and do co-exist quite happily. Moreover I feel people are perfectly adept at juggling both facets in their lives. Take music for instance; we happily flit between the find and seek mentality of iTunes and the chaotic discovered delights of Last FM, or the Hype Machine. Why can't this exist across the board? Well I think it probably does, it's just that the idea of consciously having to create new technologically advanced ways of introducing random back into our lives tickles me somewhat.

Bizarrely this idea of constantly being in search of serendipity has I think helped shed light on my own experience. I think like so many other people working in digital (or maybe this has nothing to do with it at all) I've come to delight in analog too. For every faster, better, simpler advance we make I also savor the slower, worser and more complex things in my life. I think that's why I love SX-70 Polaroid and Holga photography so much. For all the wonder of multi giga-pixel SLR cameras there is equal delight to be had in accidental, unexpected, light streaked, vignetted, colour shifted photography too! For me at least the darkroom remains the perfect place to find my serendipity.

Merry Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 10:30:00 +0000

Knowing my love for all things Chaplin a friend just passed on this great clip of another brilliant clown Willie Hall. Physical performance comedy at its very finest. The clip gets better as it goes on and ends with the classic finish!
Wishing all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Christmas cards

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 23:07:00 +0000

Now that I'm home I'm enjoying slowly getting my head back into business mode again. I'm doing my best to catch up with all things 'recent' both digitally and culturally speaking. Junk emails, forwards, links and general inbox clutter aside there are always a few nice Christmas gems to be had like this seasonal idea by friends over at Work Club.

For my time at Crispin, Porter + Bogusky I always felt that one of the most impressive things about their campaign work was the frequency with which it sought to bring about a physical world consumer reaction. Their ambition is always to engage consumers with an appealing idea first and foremost knowing that the 'message takeout' and ultimately 'product purchase' will likely follow second.

It's for this reason that campaigns like Army on Everest remain among my all time favorites. They represent shining examples of how to use digital media alongside traditional media in ways that maximise the power of both channels equally. In Army on Everest the TV ad did a superb job of making a life in the British Army seem at the very least 'cool and exhilarating' (and in so doing did all that could be hoped for from this channel). Crucially however at the same time the ad dramatised the vital online component of the campaign- namely a richly engaging website where sufficiently interested members of the public could immediately go to follow the event and interact with the soldiers climbing Everest in real time. Naturally through this deeper DIY process of engaging with 'the idea' one can only imagine that users developed a higher propensity than they would otherwise have done for 'product purchase' which in this case is application.

With all that in mind I like Work Club's Christmas videos because they engage me with an appealing seasonal idea 'the spirit of giving' whilst also, in a small way, offering a physical world resolution i.e. in the course of normal behaviour (shopping at Borough market) by namedropping I'll/you'll get some extra tasty free stuff...I'd argue this is always going to be more satisfying than a crappy online animation or game. Naturally the tone and subtlety of the humour are also spot on. I hope it helps lead to increased 'product purchase' for all concerned.