Friday Afternoon Inspiration: Gravity // Un Reve De Demain
Nice find Michelle![vimeo 34896859 w=400 h=225]
GRAVITY // UN RÊVE DE DEMAIN from Filip Piskorzynski on Vimeo.
Insight Into Whether or Not Men & Women Can Be "Just Friends"
What do you think?[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_lh5fR4DMA&w=420&h=315]
Adidas: All In
This video reminds me of what Beth Kaiser from Arnold said in the PSFK series about psychology leading to better advertising, i.e. the video and heart pumping music probably activated certain parts of my brain that got my adrenaline going.This is a kick ass video. You'll watch it and for a moment you'll get pumped. You'll want to go out for a jog - no - sprint, go clubbing, or like me, contemplate getting your 3rd pair of black and white, Gazelle sneakers just to walk around the city. You'll watch it and in the end think, "fuck yeah" and think you're moderately "hard core" for identifying with that feeling of intensity. You'll think back to playing high school sports when your coach made you run suicides until you were beat red, contemplating how this kind of torture could be legal. And you'll think about Adidas as a brand and how you kind of forgot how much you loved them, mainly for the simplistic elegance and symbol of their iconic three stripes, how wearing them made you feel a little bit more European, cool and in the know. And will seriously consider purchasing an Adidas zip-up windbreaker now that you're more inclined to run outside since getting the Nike + app.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A0jVkFs3C4&w=640&h=390]
PSFK Skills of a Rockstar Planner: Communicating Ideas
The second video in the PSFK series published last summer is below. Once again, I looked back on the video with a new perspective and felt it was important to share and summarize their comments with my readers. As account planners, our audience is the creative team. We are essentially making ads to the creatives, hoping that they buy into our findings and ideas. Therefore, it's no surprise that the qualities needed to deliver an effective Creative Brief mimic that of a successful piece of marketing communication. The thread that runs through their responses is that account planners need to simplifying their message and sell the idea in a way that seduces the listener. This thinking can even be extended to the brand. Look at the top three most valuable global brands; Google, IBM and Apple. Can you simplify each brands' message in a few words? Google = internet search, IBM = computer intelligence, Apple = innovative, functional design.Now let's extend this to the interview process. Ada Alpert's coaches her candidates to be able to walk through their case studies during interviews, first mentioning the problem, answer, insight that lead to that answer, strategy then walking the interviewer through how you got there to solve the problem. So in essence, it's your job as a planner not only to sell the strategy and the creative work, but to also sell the idea that you know how to sell ideas. Pick case studies you feel passionate about and believe in without hesitation. I wrote about the first PSFK video in the series here and stay tuned for the rest of the series.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sn40fvPDWeE&w=640&h=390]
Cats of All Sizes
I recently watched a TED talk by Beverly + Dereck Joubert about big cats in Africa. They spent 3 years studying a leopard they named Legadema, Setswana for "light from the sky." How beautiful is that? Perhaps my emotions are running high from all the changes I've been experiencing - mostly overwhelmed with happiness, but I teared up many times during their 20 minute talk. I'm not going to ruin the video for you but I will say it was heartbreaking to learn how these big cats are being decimated by poachers and hunters. According to the Joubert's, over the last 50 years: Lions have gone from 450,000 to only 20,000 today.
Tigers from 45,000 to only 3,000
Cheetahs from 50,000 to 12,000
and Leopards from 700,000 to only 50,000.
From global warming to killing animals needlessly, we have lost touch with nature. But this is something we should easily be able to prevent. How could we, as humans, knownigly be responsible for this type of behavior? In the video, they pointed out that killing one lion disrupts an entire ecosystem. The new lion that enters the pride, kills all the cubs and sometimes even the mothers protecting them in order to establish his power. It's interesting to learn how violent nature is, and in this case - as unnecessary as war itself. But humans are causing that added violence.
Before you lose hope completely, there's a beautiful and bright side to nature - specifically an incident of motherly instincts that we see through Legadema. But I'm not going to tell you what happens. You'll just have to watch for yourself and if you're interested in learning more, you can check out this post via Roar Africa, a company that offers guided tours of Africa.
http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf
Small World
I'm on a video/ photography kick. It's been too cold to go into the city specifically to photograph people and I'm usually lugging my computer so I can send off emails in between advertising interviews. Anyway, I thought this was a super cool story and interesting way to connect with someone. I'm inspired and almost want to create a similar video for the lantern I found in my attic that's dated from 1906 but ha, I'm guessing they wouldn't be alive or checking YouTube. Actually, I've found many more interesting objects in my attic that have inspired me to start writing a book which I've been working on for the last two years. I even managed to find the former owners of our house on Facebook. Weird. When social networks first came around, it was really about finding people online that were in your life. Now, the web is about using the online world to connect to the physical world and this video illustrates that perfectly. The film maker Todd Bieber, found a film canister in the physical world, created an online video about the experience and hopes to connect with the owners of the canister in the physical world again. Because I think what most of us have realized is that nothing beats human contact and real connections.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmop7EAY1Zg&w=640&h=390]
LIfe in a Day: Wallet Full of Dreams
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCTzk140lq4&w=480&h=385]One of my Miami Ad School teammates did this for a project over the summer. Cool stuff and some nice insights. You can see more of his writing here.
iPad vs. The iPhone
Exploring that age old debate that's on everyone's mind...
TWEET IT - iPads vs iPhones (Michael Jackson "Beat It" spoof)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNf9_0w5qzw&w=540&h=285]
P.S. I like, know some one who, like.. knows someone.. who's in this video via Miami Ad School. That should give you a tiny idea of the amount of talent, creativity and originality that I'm surrounded by. Via Seedwell productions.
A Quick Post
I've been in San Francisco for the last week and just started the Miami Ad School Account Planning Boot Camp. So I've been M.I.A. in the blog world. In a nut shell, San Francisco is amazing. I guess since I'm actually living here and it's my currently reality, I'm looking at it with new eyes then when I've visited in the past. I'm strongly considering moving here but since it's only been a week, I haven't made any decisions yet. The main obvious factor drawing me back to NY would be my family and friends, although I've met some awesome people here as well. Pictures and more observations to follow eventually. But I will say that San Franciscians are way more laid back than New Yorkers and believe it or not, crazier. Then again, my main SF experience so far has been the free Bluegrass festival in Golden Gate Park. I've never seen so many white, stoned, dreadlocked people in my entire life. And wonder what kind of effect contact highs have on children.
It's fantastic being with so many like-minded people in my program despite the fact that my fellow classmates are from all around the world. We all have an insatiable curiosity about people, are outgoing, creative and fun. It reminds me of when I studied abroad my Junior year, except everyone is mature, friendly and not at all clicky. I'm looking forward to learning a TON and getting put to work.
In lieu of giving ya'll an actual long posted update, I'm posting a "music video" I made last year just for shits and giggles. The footage was shot at Webster Hall at a concert using my iPhone and photographs were either taken by me, or are of me as a child. The music is Zero 7, Mr. McGee. Enjoy!
Social Network
This weekend I had the pleasure of seeing two awesome movies, Inception and Salt. The trailers looked just as good. Especially this one - maybe it's the music but it totally gave me the chills. Yeah, it's probably the music which I'm downloading as we speak - Creep (live) by Scala & Kolacny Brother. Enjoy.
Happy Monday!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8WiyX21A1c&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xd0d0d0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1&w=640&h=385]
Music Mondays
Happy Monday! I finally sent off an application that's been taking up loads of my time so I'll have more time to post. I'll let ya'll know what it is when I (hopefully) get in. I also got my lease extended another month which is a huge relief. Otherwise I would have had to look for a place not knowing if I got into this program that starts in October. So I've learned to take things one day at a time (again) because you never know what the next day may bring. And in this case, things actually went my way.
Saturday evening I went to my spin class, then sat around Union Square killing time before seeing Eclipse (!!!!!!) with my roommate. Wow, maybe I shouldn't have admitted that. But it was entertaining non the less. I took this fairly crappy video of this entertaining street performer. His best line was that we should give him lots of dough because his mom thinks he's a lawyer. In an effort to showcase some of my favorite music, I decided to make a very quick video. To my surprise, they synced up perfectly. Check it. It's set to "The Hustle" by Night at the Box.
Union Square Street Performer from Molly A on Vimeo.
Music and Images
For the last few days, I've been trying to find the right music to put in the background of a photo slide show I made for this application. One of the biggest struggles is to prevent myself from choosing the music just because I like it. Or the music makes me happy.. motivated, etc. So I thought - hey, why not make a slide show with music I like on my blog. Here it goes. This first video was made sometime during the winter (wow - feels so far away) using video I shot on my iPhone at a Body & Soul party. The song is Mr. McGee by Zero 7 off of their latest album. I kind of lucked out in that the flashing lights matched the music.
Music Video from Molly A on Vimeo.
Pay Attention - This Is Important
Targeted Ads
The Buzz on the series finale of Lost is all about the Target ads.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dffVeozsjsI&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xd0d0d0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1&w=640&h=385]
Quick Video Link
Oscar's Surprised Kitten Video
I would post about other things besides Oscar like how the New York Times declared professional assignment photography dead, but for obvious reasons this is way more fun.
Oscar Meets Thomas