I like everything about this. The middle guy’s sweater, the dancing, THE EFFECTS, the song, the skimpy tinfoil costumes. All great. It’s a song with feel-good lyrics, some nice guitar riffs and a catchy beat accompanied by absurdity and a visual delicacy of special effects. It’s great. I’m gonna say it again: it’s great.
This video was part of The New Director’s Showcase put on by Saatchi & Saatchi last week at Cannes. There were some other pretty awesome live performances in the showcase, and other videos but I didn’t watch them. The thing about live performances is that they are better than recorded stuff, but to get it, you really need to have been there. And you know what? I wasn’t there.
Cannes. Most people think of the Cannes film festival held every year during the second week of May in that beautiful town on the French Riviera where films from all over the world are judged and awarded. Directors, movie stars and rich people gather to party and praise one another. The results are given and independent film watchers in America add new titles to their netflix queues. Then, two weeks later, the advertising industry descends upon Cannes and anyone not in advertising probably doesn’t even know this. I mean haven’t we made ourselves pretty clear about how we feel about TV ads with DVR? Yes we have. The ads shown now are not nearly as serious or deep as any of the films show two weeks earlier, but all of these selections represent a lot of hard work and creative thinking done for two reasons: to win business and truly make a difference for the client, or for creative people to win an award and make a name for themselves. The latter is not as honorable, but all the same it’s cool stuff and it’s really too bad that the only people who know about it are advertising people. I know we all hate ads, but these ideas are more than 30 second clips that break up your favorite tv show, or a full page ad between articles. There are a lot of ideas that make a difference for people, and add color to the world.
Still, it’s always seemed weird that the advertising sort of does a copycat on the film industry with the Cannes Festivals. Like, shouldn’t ad people come up with their own thing? It’s weirdly pretentious because I don’t think anyone perceives people in the advertising industry to be on the same level as actors, actresses, writers, and directors.
Someday I’m going to write about seeing this local band called Dali’s Ghost play a show at this bar called Nietzche’s. That day is not today, and it probably isn’t tomorrow. Although it might be.
I’ve been entertaining the idea of going to portfolio school so one night I was on the Creative Circus website. At like 1:03 am on a Friday morning I was filling out my name, address and phone number assuming that in a few days I would receive some superbly designed and interestingly packaged brochures.
Well, the next thing I know it’s 12:59pm the following afternoon, there’s drool hanging out of my mouth and I’m in the middle of a dream where I’m Parker Posey in Dazed and Confused. I’m screaming “AIR RAID” at the top of my hateful lungs to a bunch of girls lying on the ground covered in condiments. All of a sudden the fear of God strikes me when this unbelievably loud ringing comes out of nowhere. It’s unbearable. I crouch down, cover my head and start to think that maybe I should stop being such an evil bitch, but before I’m 100 percent convinced that’s a good idea, I wake up and realize that it was just the phone ringing.
My eyes are not quite yet open so I paw for the phone and hope that my morning voice isn’t too scary. Magically, I open my mouth to say hello and it sounds like songbirds! At first I’m surprised. I must still be dreaming. Then I remember how a person as perfect and awesome as myself doesn’t suffer from the banal affliction of “morning voice”.
The person on the other end of the line greets me politely and introduces himself as Matt from the Creative Circus. I think to myself “I guess they don’t waste any time”. Matt fuels my desire to become the world’s greatest copywriter. He is leading me to believe that I will be able to do this without having to order a hit on Skyler Dobin, which is good because paying the assassin AND tuition would force me to come up with a side hustle while at the Circus. Matt advises against that. I mean, I’m there to focus on building a portfolio. He’s right. Anyways, I hang up the phone and gears are whizzing in my head. I walk over to the refrigerator, start to think about what kind of sandwich to make, while wondering if they’re still going to send me some brochures.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: advertising, Amsterdam, fashion, NYC, photography, Venice
If it weren’t for the StumbleUpon toolbar and my unbelievable boredom I never would have came across Rinze van Brug’s portfolio/website. He’s a photographer now living in NYC, but originally from Amsterdam. Rinze van Brug went to school for art/design and then broke into the advertising world. He worked with several different clients as an art director at Ogilvy. Photography was often part of the client work he produced, and before long he realized that it was his true calling. Browsing his portfolio, there are fashion photography pieces that easily look like they could have come out of an issue of Vogue, and others from a designer’s website or catalogue. I’m dying to know what designers he’s worked with because I really like some of the clothing featured in his work.
I probably wouldn’t be writing about vanBrug if I had not seen the photos at the end of his portfolio. He’s done some really beautiful portraits, and what I think is his best work are the shots taken of cities like Amsterdam, NYC, Florence, and Venice. There are a series images from each city, and what I particularly like is how the images are grouped together. van Brug has done this in a spectacular way, and has created a whole that is greater than the sum if its parts, which is not to say that each individual photo can’t speak for itself. van Brug’s photos truly capture the essence of each different city he photographed. He has managed to do this by using iconic symbols from each city in a subtle way. In the photos of Venice vanBrug skips the gondolas, but rather shows a clothesline hanging across a canal. In Amsterdam you see two people kissing in front of a store window lit up in red.
All images and background information: Rinze van Brug Photography.
