Brand Noise

The Machine Is Us

We've come a long way from HAL, the machine in Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey that rebels at the plan to disconnect him.  The fear of machines in these films is rooted in the fear of them as a separated and uncontrollable force. They are not us.  But now it seems that we are clearly transitioning into a new period in which machine and human mesh.  The machine is us now.  We mod and mash-up the real and the virtual.  The challenge going forward is to balance the relationship.  To understand and negotiate the layers of real and hyperreal. This is the new narrative that defines us.

An article in Time Magazine this week discusses this fusing of man and machine as  seen in new releases like Iron Man and Speed Racer.  "We live in an age of sophisticated machines. They do much of our work for us; we spend most of our playtime with them. So let's recognize our symbiosis with machines--and celebrate our mastery of them--in movies that couldn't be made without them."  Read more

Building Brands as Character Actors

I am constantly integrating a cinema perspective to the way I plan brands.  In speaking on the topic of brand placement and integration in consumer experience, I described the process of managing these new strategies as similar in how one manages the career/brand of a good character actor.  The example I have used in the past was Christian Bale, but an interview with Alec Baldwin on 60 minutes this Sunday made the connection for me again.  It was something he said.  Good character acting is.. "learning to listen to the other actors".  I think this says a lot.  How often do brands imagine themselves as the leading man - only to realize that this position leaves them looking like a hollow talking head and disconnected from the scenes they wish to live in.  Brands need to channel the authenticity that comes from listening - the art of character acting - and cultivate a meaningful position in the mise-en-scene.  That is the formula for better experiences.

Being Young in China

Young & Restless in China tracks the lives of nine Chinese Gen X'ers over four years as they scramble to keep pace with a society changing faster than any in history. Raised under communism they are now making their way in China's blazing capitalist economy. Their stories of ambition, exuberance, crime and corruption are interwoven with moments of love, heartbreak and passion. Together they capture the changing values, hopes and dreams of a pivotal generation.

Good Placement Fat Boy

I managed to catch the new film by David Schwimmer called Run Fat Boy Run this last week.  Pretty harmless and amusing with some cameos from top Brit comedy folks like David Williams and Stephen Merchant.  Another cameo I didn't expect though was Nike.  The film focuses around the Nike River Run and places the brand rather well in the story.  There is even a scene in which the main character is given a pair of top Nike trainers to motivate him to run.  A small story - but a very simple human story that places the brand in a less "pumped up" context.  This is good - and it left me liking the brand in a different kind of way. 

Elements of Cliche Already Permeating 3-D

While 3-D movies will doubtless impress audiences now seeing the latest generation of the technology for the first time, after a few movies, the novelty will likely wear off. Jeff Bock, a box-office analyst at Exhibitor Relations Co., already sounds jaded talking about the frequent 3-D swings of guitar heads out into the audience in both "Hannah Montana" and "U23D."

The industry is touting 3-D as its best shot at combating increasingly sophisticated home-theater systems...In decades past, old 3-D technology gave many viewers headaches or eyestrain. Now, editors have better postproduction tools, for example enabling them to move between distant and close-up shots more smoothly...At the theater, projection techniques have improved too, allowing the left and right frames needed to create the 3-D effect to run in perfect synchronicity.

Read more.

Worth Watching: Girls Rock! The Movie

Recommenders Weaken Content's Long Tail

In an article from Knowledge@Wharton referencing a new paper titled "Blockbuster Culture's Next Rise or Fall: The Impact of Recommender Systems on Sales Diversity"  by Kartik Hosanagar, Wharton professor of operations and information management, and Dan Fleder, a Wharton doctoral candidate....Recommenders -- (perhaps the best known is Amazon's)  -- tend to drive consumers to concentrate their purchases among popular items rather than allow them to explore and buy whatever piques their curiosity 

The authors argue that online recommenders "reinforce the blockbuster nature of media." And they warn that, by deploying standard designs, online retailers may be recreating the very phenomenon -- circumscribed media purchasing choices -- that some of them have bragged about helping consumers escape. read more

Hollywood's No Longer the Carrot

M dot Strange's berserk and beautiful We Are the Strange is a triptastic triumph of DIY filmmaking...Last December, he went into lockdown mode, working 30-hour shifts to finish in time for Sundance...After 86 brain-melting minutes, viewers may not know what hit them. (The Sundance crowd didn't — there was a minor stampede for the exits long before the closing credits.) Still, Strange has attracted a fierce online fan base — eager acolytes are even learning how to make their own Str8nime via his "Film Skool" clips on YouTube. This fall, he's self- releasing a DVD, with free parking-lot screenings across the country. "People have to stop jumping for the Hollywood carrot," he says.

Read more.

The Joy of Joy Division

Joy Division's Closer was a catalytic event in my Gen X music maturation in the Summer of 1980.  A new film by Anton Corbijn Control details the life of Ian Curtis, the troubled young musician, who forged a new kind of music out of the punk rock scene of 1970s Britain, and the band Joy Division, which he headed from 1977 to 1980 until his suicide.

Anton Corbijn  had been a devout Joy Division fan since the band's early days in the late 1970s. He directed the music video for the 1988 rerelease of "Atmosphere" long after the band's demise, and has since gone on to direct music videos for such bands as Depeche Mode, Nirvana and U2. Control marks Corbijn's debut as a movie director, and he paid half of the €4.5million budget out of his own pocket.

Goodbye Marcel Marceau