Modern day VHS

Love these pixel perfect retro VHS front covers of some very cool films and TV shows. Great little details too: Dexter and The Walking Dead's VHS have just two episodes on them.

In keeping with the retro trend, is this 1995 trailer for 'Avengers: Age of Ultron'. A remarkable amount of work to do this, and very reminiscent of T2 and The Fugitive (in terms of typography/animation of type) and of course the style of trailer construction in the mid Nineties. 

Coming soon to VHS: the hottest, edgiest, explosion-iest action hit of 1995, "Avengers: Age of Ultron." Check out this retro remix courtesy of Louis Plamondon, aka Sleepy Skunk. Follow us: http://vulture.com http://twitter.com/vulture http://youtube.com/newyorkmagazine http://twitter.com/nymag http://twitter.com/thescienceofus http://twitter.com/grubstreet http://twitter.com/thecut http://twitter.com/intelligencer

Via Kottke & Boing Boing respectively

'I am your father' (in 20 languages)

Fun to see this in all these different languages, there is something fascinating around the world of dubbing different language versions. I love the fact there are assigned actors in countries who are the only people used for certain Hollywood actors. Must be a doc about this - would be great to see.

Anyway, German wins for me.

La version Je suis ton pere de dark Vador à été Adopté en : English (Original) - James Earl Jones Spanish (1980) - Isidro Olace Spanish (1997) - Frederico Romano Portuguese - Renato Cardoso Brazillians - Silvio Navas German - Heinz Petruo French - George Aminel Italian - Massimo Foschi

Great planners are schizo

I admit, like many, to suffering from imposter syndrome at times (most of the time in my case). I never trained or worked 'properly' as a planner or strategist at an established creative agency, so I have this constant battle going on in my head, especially when the actual word 'strategy' is in my job title (!).

I have been lucky enough to work closely enough with some very talented people at our own agency, the Google Creative Lab and with strategists in agencies we sometimes partner with on projects. This has given me great insight into how to approach a brief and an audience, especially when combined with my own experience in the industry.

I do take comfort reading things which resonate with how I work, or at least want to work. The fact that 'content' is where I ply my trade gives me confidence though, something quite fun in reading articles or tweets from more established agency strategy people dissing it, or the way the word 'content' is used as this blanket term which covers such a wide range of executions. It makes me feel it's still an undiscovered little gem in the great scheme of marketing and brand strategies.

Anyway, coming back to the point about reading interesting things about what makes a good planner or strategist, I came across this great deck on SlideShare from Heidi Hackemer. It was good to see that many of the observations in the deck resonated with how I seem to work.

I really enjoyed the way the deck was presented, and the points made really spoke to the challenge I sometimes face when you do seem to suffer from spells of split personality on projects. It also highlighted something we are all guilty of which is pigeonholing. We all do it, but if you are what this deck says you are how on earth can people pigeonhole you?

Maybe that’s the point, and that’s the point of a strategist/planner - to be the guy or girl who can’t be pigeonholed, so they made a role which suits them down to the ground. They cover lots of different roles and look at things in lots of different ways. In doing so they are the ones who are able to make something make sense to everyone.

I know many roles I've done in my career never really grabbed me the way this does. It’s a role that is so varied in the way your mind has to work, it really suits a mind that is a little bit schizo.

HBO Now's promo

As HBO finally announced its own stream only service (no cable package required), to really ramp up its battle with Netflix, it took a really fun and off-beat way to promote it with this video. Part tipping its hat at how long it’s taken to get this off the ground, and by featuring Jake Caputo who launched takemymoneyhbo.com, to see how much people would pay for a stream only version of HBO in 2012, would’ve been one cool way to announce this. But also including and referencing one of its own heavyweight shows with the inclusion of Walnuts and Pussy from The Soprano’s was inspired.

Yeah, it’s nowhere near as well executed as an episode of The Soprano’s, but what a thrill to see two favourites back on screen, they’re looking a little older, but still got the magnetic mix of humour, real life struggle with modern life (‘tweeter’, ‘spin class’) and violence. Miss those guys and that show.

In 2012, Jake Caputo launched takemymoneyhbo.com, asking fans to tweet the price they'd pay for a standalone HBO streaming service. With the help of The Sopranos' Paulie "Walnuts" Gualtieri and Salvatore "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero, HBO introduces Jake to HBO NOW, the new standalone streaming service. Now all you need is the internet.





How to Structure a Video Essay

A lovely meta look into his own work, from Tony Zhou. I love his effortless and informative style and this film makes me kick myself that I never got round to watching F for Fake from Orson Welles. Going to right that wrong as soon as possible. 

If you want to make video essays, there's no better film to study than Orson Welles' 1973 masterpiece, F for Fake. There are a million lessons to take away from it, but today, let's see what it has to teach us about structure. NO SPOILERS. For educational purposes only.

Surprised that Zhou has only been doing this a year, he feels so established already. Looking forward to him continuing his work with these type of videos. So informative, entertaining and you really feel an affinity for him through his films. What more can you ask for?