Blogbook
The Action Hero’s Guide to Saving Lives is a hilarious short film by Justin Lutsky, highlighting action film tropes. All of them.
About the Director
Based in the Orange County, award-winning director Justin Lutsky has had work screened in over 100 film festivals in the world. Via his vimeo page:
Lutsky graduated from Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts summa cum laude in ’05 where he was mentored by acclaimed directors William Friedkin and Carl Franklin. In 2007, he was hand selected by Steven Spielberg as one of the top 20 filmmakers to take part in the new reality television show “On The Lot” airing on FOX.
More recently, Lutsky’s web-series “Armed Response” launched on Break Media’s new YouTube channel ‘HardCoded’. He worked with Quirk Books to create a series of online book trailers, including the hugely-popular “Night of the Living Trekkies”. He collaborated with acclaimed director Rob Cohen as an editor on several Coca-Cola commercial spots as well as a pilot for the Speed Channel and he served as 2nd unit director on the highly-anticipated web-series “Drone” produced by Justin Linn. Currently, Lutsky is in development on several feature length screenplays and high-concept television and digital series with plans to direct.
The New Zealand flag (may) be getting a redesign. Originally, four designs were shortlisted and were widely panned. Recently, the NZ government bowed to pressure and added a popular fifth design to its list – the Red Peak flag by Aaron Dustin:
The Red Peak flag is not without its controversy – some have said that it looks too similar to Peak Engineering’s logo, a company from North Carolina. Here are the other flags:
The first vote will take place on 20th Nov to 11th Dec 2015, after which a second referendum will take place in March 2016 to decide whether to replace NZ’s current flag with the winner.
… with a second set of hilarious ads for Optus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su6h866DrK4
In which Ricky Gervais questions the meaning of artistic integrity, and:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WViNZSIlxMs
the matter of effort. We love it. Optus previously used Ricky for their Netflix launch, to similar hilarious effect. Via Mumbrella:
While the Netflix launch campaign only played across digital channels the next instalment is set to air on TV as well, and with some out of home elements. Corin Dimopoulos, head of brand and communications at Optus, said: “We took a risk releasing the initial Ricky video earlier this year and it paid off. Ricky clearly resonates with consumers who want a more authentic take on traditional advertising and we’re excited to continue to produce engaging and entertaining content.”
Charlie Leahy, ECD, Emotive added: “Our approach to content creation always starts with the audience. The first Ricky piece released earlier this year delivered over eight million streams with record sharing levels. The audience enjoyed it and wanted more. “This follow up once again allows Ricky to take control of the scripts and deliver it with his globally renowned comedy style. It was a privilege to work in a true collaboration with Ricky and the team at Optus on this content campaign.”
Seriously cool. A Solar System timelapse film by Wylie Overstreet and Alex Gorosh, made to scale, created on a dry lakebed in Nevada.
Here’s the behind the scenes video:
From Scientific American:
Overstreet, Gorosh and their friends used a drone to capture aerial footage of the project. “To Scale: The Solar System” also features stunning timelapse video in which moving lights trace out the orbits of the planets on the playa. This latter footage was shot at night from a nearby mountaintop while a vehicle equipped with a bright light circled the “sun” on the playa below. Well, “equipped” is probably too fancy a word, since team member Ramsey Meyer simply held the light out the window during these long, looping drives.
“It was great fun. It was also hard work at times,” Meyer told Space.com via email. “The shooting schedule was very aggressive — a total of 36 hours in the desert, with only five people there to help — and the weather didn’t fully cooperate, being cloudier and colder than we would have liked.” Meyer said the team hopes “To Scale: The Solar System” leaves an impression beyond the eight circular tracks gouged into the dry lakebed.
Beautiful hand-drawn Honda ad by the illustrator PES. Wow! From Adweek:
Conceptually, “Paper” is about as stripped down as you can get—every complex vehicle, after all, starts with a few sketches on paper. And the details pay off the lofty concept, as we move from the sepia-toned early scenes to modern graph paper by the end. The tagline is, “”You never know where a dream will lead you.”
Also: a Making Of video, also by PES:
Credits:
Client: Honda
Agency: RPA
EVP, CCO: Joe Baratelli
SVP, ECD: Jason Sperling
VP, CD/Art Director: Chuck Blackwell
VP, CD/Copywriter: Ken Pappanduros
Senior Copywriter: Chris Bradford
Art Director: Laura Crigler
Copywriter: Josh Hepburn
SVP, Chief Production Officer: Gary Paticoff
VP, Executive Producer: Isadora Chesler
Producer: Matt Magsaysay
SVP, Group Strategic Planning Director: Christian Cocker
VP, Director of Business Affairs: Maria Del Homme
EVP, Management Account Director: Brett Bender
VP, Group Account Directors: Adam Blankenship & Jeff Moohr
Management Supervisor: Rose McRitchie
Account Executives: Susan Kim & Paul Sulzer
Product Information Manager: Marco Fantone
Production Company: Reset Content
Director: PES
Managing Director: Dave Morrison
Executive Producers: Jen Beitler & Jeff McDougall
Head of Production: Amanda Clune
Producer: Stan Sawicki
DP: Eric Adkins
Production Supervisor: Mario D’Amici
Production Designer: John Joyce
Motion Control Operator: Mark Eifert
Motion Control Assistant: Calvin Frederick
Animation Supervisor: Eileen Kohlhepp
Animators: Amy Adamy, Sihanouk Mariona, David Braun, Julian Petschek, Javan Ivey, Jen Prokopowicz, Brandon Lake, Ranko Tadic & Quique Rivera
Illustrators: Jerrod McIlvain, Nicole Cardiff, Vincent Lucido, Arwen King, Meghan Boehman, Monica Magana, Kei Chong, Trevor Brown & Alex Theodoropulos
Set Dresser/Painter: Veronica Hwang
Illustration Coordinator: Evan Koehne
Art Department: Nate Theis, Ellen Ridgeway, Melissa Quezada
More here.
Illustrator Lehel Kovacs loved Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days as a boy, a book where the protagonist, Phileas Fogg, makes a £20,000 bet that he could travel around the world in 80 days – from London to New York, across the US, then Asia and back. Now as an adult, whose work has appeared in publications like the Guardian and the New York Times, Kovacs has used Google Street View to create a modern twist on the book, with great results. Some of our favourites:
Now Kovacs wants to make his illustrations into postcards. You can fund his Kickstarter here.
From Ukraine with Love – ‘LOVE’ is a sculpture by Alexandr “Mel” Milov, the first Ukrainian art sculpture to be featured in the official program of the Burning Man 2015 Art Festival. From its description:
It demonstrates a conflict between a man and a woman as well as the outer and inner expression of human nature. The figures of the protagonists are made in the form of big metal cages, where their inner selves are captivated. Their inner selves are executed in the form of transparent children , who are holding out their hands through the grating. As it’s getting dark (night falls) the children chart to shine. This shining is a symbol of purity and sincerity that brings people together and gives a chance of making up when the dark time arrives.
About the artist
Alexandr Milov was born in the USSR and is now based in Odessa. His works include, famously, transforming a sculpture of Lenin into Darth Vader, including a wifi router within the head. From the BBC:
“I was born in the USSR, and I am a child of a country that doesn’t exist any more,” Ukrainian sculptor Alexander Milov tells BBC Culture over the phone from Odessa, via his English-speaking wife Margaret. “I wish to save the monuments of history. I’m trying to clean up the operating system and keep them on the hard drive of memory.” Margaret laughs at the metaphor.
image source: Getty/Wired
This weekend in advertising: a great deal has been made out of iOS9’s support of ad blocking software. Recently, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, ad blocking has become so popular that it’s damaging content creators. As Matt Yglesias notes on Vox:
The dispute is about software. Specifically about “extensions” that can be added to (some) web browsers and about JavaScript that runs as part of (some) web ads. It’s a discussion that’s been running for a long time, but has kicked into overdrive because of Apple’s release of a new operating system for iPhones and the launch of new services like Facebook Instant Articles and Apple News. And it’s something you’ll be hearing more and more about if you read things online, because it touches on something very near and dear to every online writer’s heart — whether we can make money publishing on the internet, and the sneaking suspicion that the reasonably journalist-friendly economic climate of the past two or three years may be a mirage.
As increasing numbers of internet users access the internet with ad blockers installed, dealing with this trend is a new challenge for ad creators and hosts. For more articles and commentary for and against blocking, check out Vox’s article.
Here’s something cool to start off your Monday – NASA has released a free pdf of its 1976 graphics standard manual.
Blast to the past! From the guide:
“A driving force and the use of innovative techniques and ideas have brought NASA the image of a get-it-done agency, and the record backs up the reputation. As we move ahead to an even more exciting era in aeronautical research and space exploration, we have added a new tool to enhance and symbolize the progressive path we have always followed. Not as suspenseful as a Command and Service Module splashdown nor as dramatic as a Mariner flyby, it is nonetheless of major importance because it is designed to achieve maximum communication of the agency’s program objectives, both internally and externally. We have adopted a new system of graphics-the visual communications system by which we are known to those who read our publications, see our vehicle markings and signboards and the logotype that unmistakably brands them as NASA’s.”
According to Verge, the timing of the NASA release could’ve been aimed at New York-based designers Jesse Reed’s and Hamish Smyth’s Kickstarter campaign, that was focused on reissuing the manual. If you don’t want to pay for a high quality copy, downloading the PDF is the way to go.
Real or Photoshopped? Here’s a fun quiz from Adobe for a Friday. Adobe is celebrating 25 years of Photoshop, and the little quiz is part of its campaign: some of the ‘real’ photographs are unbelievable. Near the end, a lot of us were just guessing.
About the 25th Anniversary
As part of the campaign, Adobe also released an ad. Edited by Goodby Silverstein & Partners (GS&P) produced and Rock Paper Scissors, it’s a montage of artistic works from around the world created with Photoshop, airing during the 2015 Academy Awards and has been watched nearly 1.9 million times on YouTube. The commercial won two AICP awards, a D&AD Graphite Pencil, and two Cannes Cyber Lions. Contributors to the project included Alex Amado, Senior Director, Creative & Media, Adobe; Timothy Plain, Producer, and Tod Puckett, Director of Broadcast Production, GS&P; and Grant Surmi, Video Editor, Rock Paper Scissors.
Client: Adobe
Project: Photoshop 25th Anniversary – “Dream On”
Length: 60 seconds
Product: Adobe Photoshop
Agency: Goodby, Silverstein & Partners
Co-Chairman, Creative Director: Rich Silverstein
Creative Directors: Adam Reeves, Patrick Knowlton, Will Elliott
Associate Creative Directors: Sam Luchini, Roger Baran
Executive Producer: Tod Puckett
Producer: Timothy Plain
Director of Graphic Services: Jim King
Business Affairs Manager: Heidi Killeen
Account Director: Joel Giullian
Account Managers: Cassi Norman, Chelsea Bruzzone
Brand Strategy Director: Anne Faricy