02 September 2007

Creativity dots

John Gushue maintains one of the most intellectually stimulating blogs on the go anywhere.

Ok.

That is a bit gushy and over-the-top, but check out Dot Dot Dot and you'll be hard-pressed not to agree it is filled with an eclectic mix of...well...just about anything and everything. And it's all intriguing

This past week, John paid tribute to local broadcaster John O'Mara, who passed away at far too early an age. John's post is simple, touching and reflective of the views of anyone who knew John O'Mara even casually.

What really caught the eye this week, though were two posts on commercials produced for Cadbury and Honda. The Cadbury spot is part of a new campaign in the UK and to paraphrase John's description, it features a gorilla, a drum kit and a Phil Collins song just about everyone under the age of 50 can relate to. Rather than embed the video, just follow the link to John's space and read his comments. The vid is embedded there.

Ditto for an inspiring spot for Honda that cost millions, took three months to put together and involved 606 complete takes. 605 were a bust. The last one was a keeper.

As a last bit for this post, we've posted links before to ads for the Sony Bravia built on the tag "Colour like.no.other." The versions in that link are inferior to the Sony websites linked in the paragraphs below.

The first was titled simply "Balls". it involved 250,000 high-bounce balls of various colours unleashed down a set of streets in San Francisco.

The second was "Paint". An abandoned housing project in Glasgow, a few tens of tons of paint of different colours and some carefully timed explosions provide a visually breathtaking spot.

The third, being shot in New York, involves:
2.5 tones of plasticine on set
40 animators
3 weeks
189 2 ft bunnies
150 1 ft cubes
10ft x20 ft purple wave
30ft giant rabbit.
6 cameras.
40 animators working through 4 hours generated 4 seconds of footage.
40 animators working on the same scene had never been attempted before.
The 60 second spot will be constructed of approximately 100,000 stills.
The picture at left shows some of the rabbits under construction.

No video yet but if the "Bunnies" live up to "Paint" and "Balls", then hang on to your eyeballs.

And ya wanna know the really odd thing? The local Sony Store does not have either of these spots in any form or format to show on their Bravias as a way of demonstrating that it is colour like no other.

-srbp-