Drench Cubehead Ad

The new spot by Ed Edwards & Dave Masterman, creative directors at CHI&Partners,for Drench kinda freaks me out a bit. But I like it. Directed by Ulf Johansson through production company Smith & Jones with post at MPC.

Adidas Ad

Like a lot of people my age, I've watched Star Wars IV in excess of a thousand times and all three films from the 70s and 80s hold a special place in my heart. It was appalling when they added in the extra scenes with the crass special effects for the DVD release of the original trilogy.
I'm by no means a Star Wars geek, but I just couldn't help my chin hitting the floor when I saw it, shortly followed by some totally irrational but well deserved screaming.
There are some things that should just not be messed with. That said, I actually enjoyed this spot for Adidas Originals. The quality of the post production and the humour spot on, as well as a good mix of people from different worlds which is perfectly fitting. But you still shouldn't have messed with it and for that I want to slap you all in the face. Really hard.

Audi R8 Ad

I've just seen the new Audi R8 ad from BBH, directed by Sam Brown. There's a behind the scenes making of short film as well which is worth a look. Pretty much everything was shot in camera with virtually no CGI.

Animated Print

Totally bonkers. This is an example of a flyer printed with photosensitive inks which uses an embedded microchip to control the ink and actually animate the flyer. This is something I want to see in the flesh...

Keith Schofield

Keith Schofield will be an event speaker at Semi-Permanent Melbourne at the start of October. He's made some brilliant work which which tends to be based around an idea, as opposed to a technique, which is a winner every time for me. His most well known work has been out there for a while now - notably this Toejam music vid for BPA and the massive Diesel birthday viral (which has had over 15 million hits on YouTube) as well as the excellent vid for Supergrass which, like a lot of the stuff on his site, I find myself cursing inside, saying "I wish I'd made that."

The Gents

The Crown Inn, Roecliffe is a very nice, posh country pub in the middle of nowhere in Yorkshire, the loos are adorned with old pages from old school Playboy magazines. Tastefully done, with Honda logos and the like covering anything which may cause offense, there have been a few attempts to expose the ladies, alas to no avail. In the words of Jake Blues, "This is glue. Strong stuff."

The Making of Electrabel

A bit of a late spot, but this animation for Electrabel's Happy New Year ad is stunningly simple and beautiful. After 4 weeks of testing, it took director Raf Wathion 5 days to shoot 1600 photographs with the help of 20 animators using 288 thousand tealight candles.

John Wringe

John Wringe is a thoroughly nice and very talented advertising and marketing chap. We worked with him recently on Winergy and, after knowing him since I was in short trousers, I can't believe I've only just found out something about him.

Barry Norman (yes, of "Film 80-something-or-other" fame) says John is "...very possibly the world’s leading aficionado of pickled onions."

I hope someone says something like that about me one day.