x; The Expendables

Watch this advert:




Please excuse my generalisations... it's all just for argument's sake:

This is a fan-made trailer, but is interesting enough to be worth considering. Were this an official trailer, what would the reaction be? Most likely not positive, but now that it's out there, let's think about its effects. Imagine this was an official trailer:

Is this great advertising, or a big mistake? I think it's good. The women that are isolated by this ad are predominantly girls who would not have wanted to see it in the first place. This ad targets the marketing unsubtly and boldly at a specific audience, and why not? The film is clearly not likely to pretend to be anything other than what it is, with Stallone producing it, and the likes of Schwarzenegger and Willis starring.

There are a lot of girls who do like this sort of film, and they may claim that they resent being excluded from the joke here, but here's the catch: those girls that enjoy this sort of film and who will want to see it already appreciate that it's a "guy's film", and by making it even more of a "guy's film", the advertisers are in fact appealing to those girls even more. They will be all the keener to prove their love of this sort of film now that it has marketed itself as the ultimate "guy film".

Then, does it really appeal to all blokes? I definitely wouldn't particularly class myself as particularly susceptible to this sort of approach to my masculinity. I am proud that my film tastes reach a long way out from the basic love of Rambo. However, I can't pretend that this ad didn't draw me to the film. It reaches at part of what is inside almost every guy, and makes them feel shamed if they aren't excited about it. I can't help but feel obligated to see it now, and to actively enjoy it.

This advert is not an official trailer, and it couldn't be. Internet fan-made trailers for almost everything are almost always utter crap. I just think that this one has a surprisingly effective message. It's not genius or anything incredible, but it does have a bit more ability to influence people than the majority of fan-made trailers of montages of film scenes. Makes me want to blow some stuff up, too.

w; films

Just a quick recommendation of two films I've seen this week.

First, go and see Inception (then read this fairly interesting related article from the New Scientist). It's great to see a large scale big budget blockbuster with this much originality, complexity, sophistication and boldness. It shows what can be gained from letting a proven and successful director off the leash. Great entertainment, and maybe leads the way for more like this.

Then, go see Toy Story 3, just because it's brilliant. Incredible that 3 films in you care more than ever for the characters, when in 99% of sequels (and 99.9% of threequels) you can't help but lose interest and love. Rarely have I been made so genuinely happy by a film. With emotion, humour, and action-film worthy adventure scenes, this is top-notch story telling.

That is all.

20; Lily In Progress

Busy day today, so here's a preview of an illustration for an article about Lily Allen and Philosophy. Still very much in the planning stages, but you can see where it might be going...

v; Stop Motion & idea sex

Thinking of playing around with some plasticine and a camera and have a go at some time-wasting stop motion, in the interests of keeping learning new stuff. With that in mind, on a linked note, this video is great. I love both the perfect execution and the originality and inventiveness of the sequence of images.



Another well worthwhile way to spend time is obviously working through the videos on the TED site. The conference at Oxford is nicely reviewed here, too.

u; Happyness

A while ago, this poster started floating around the internet:

A simple, but fairly thoughtful message, displayed well. But, really, I thought it was all a bit too simple, and although it had a nice idea, I was glad to see this crop up:

Perhaps a slightly more practical approach to the problem...

t; Dulux Ad

I love this advert:


Mostly just for its enjoyability, watchability, and niceness (not sure if any of those are real words). But also, I don't think the fact that it is great because it looks great should be underestimated. Dulux are selling paint to make places look good. Their ad's strongest point is that it is visually delightful. That is no accident.

Great ad.

19; Elephants

Why don't you ever see elephants hiding in trees?

Because they're so good at it.

s; Pictures

Second link in a day, but I missed a few days so this is just making up for it.

I think this post is great. I would rephrase it and steal his idea, but I think that Jack Shedd gets it so right that I'll just paste his post here (sorry if its bad etiquette to copy & paste, but I think this is good):

I guess other people have photo albums.

Lined up on shelves, there are sections of everyone’s life clearly documented, maybe labeled. There are reservoirs of memories just waiting to be have their damns burst. Turn open the spigot and drown in the past.

My generation is living online. Our lives being documented in ever more disparate venues; our devices capturing every inane moment, sharing it, pushing it out and notifying everyone of what just happened, who was there, where it was. When romantic comedies are written about the next decade, endearing scenes of a hero’s family sharing his misadventures with the romantic interest will soon take place huddled around the mother’s Facebook account.

I’ve never had the stomach for it.

I don’t think we capture the right moments. The camera flashes and we pose. Wepose. We create moments as artificial as the memory we want of them. We stare into lenses and lie, if only a little, so that the record shows we were there, enjoying or not enjoying ourselves, in precisely the way we’d prefer it.

But the perfect moments always allude us. The moments when we get the joke; when we decide; when we falter; the moments right before we succeed, right before we fail, before we’re sure. You can’t capture what you don’t expect, and so many of the things we should cherish are precisely the things we wouldn’t want a camera to see.

There is value to photography. Historical, candid, and artistic, they are evidence of what we’ve done, who we’ve known, where we’ve been. They are fragments we can stitch back together to form a narrative of our lives, however shallow and partial.

But I want no part in them. I don’t want to stare at some photo of me at 21 when I’m 50 and contemplate everything I was, or could have been. I don’t want to have to drown in partial truths, grasping at a falling memory to paint in details. I’d rather either remember, or not. Rather know, or forget. I’d rather be able to molt my life as it goes, letting the useless bits drop away as the important becomes more dear.

When I reach backwards into my life, I want to know what I find to have been defining. To have been something I couldn’t shake, couldn’t let go of. I want to forget the pointless birthday parties, and the group shots at the bars where so-and-so is making that face she makes, and I’m half-drunk, and look that’s what’s his face that guy who dated whoever that is. I want to reach and find the things I couldn’t photograph: the moments I knew, the moments we forgot; the street sign all lit up with sun as our car drove towards home; the view of the skyline when I left; the dodge balls as they barreled towards me; the way it felt to run in the rain, drunk and mad, screeching towards the bar like a five-year old on a sugar high.

I’d rather be able to forget, so that I can remember.

I completely agree. I personally have found myself posing for one too many photos with friends while I would much rather be enjoying myself doing the thing I'm trying to remember by taking the photo. I think good photography is great, and I also do think that this sort of photo has a place. Lots of people love a nice graduation photo, or a photo just before a ball, when everyone's all dressed nice. These mementos mean a lot to people, but please, if you're just going to another of Oxford's sticky-floored, bad-music riddled nightclubs, leave the camera at home and actually enjoy the night.

If it's great, you'll remember it. If it's not, seeing a staged, blurry or dull photo on facebook the next morning isn't going to mean that it was great.

r; Hit Print

Been a few days since I got on here. Shameful, I know. Here's a great little youtube video:

q; Cycle Illustration

Just a quick link today, to a gallery of the entries to the London Transport Museum's call for illustrations about cycling in London:

Loads of great images there. Check it out.