Who Is Ann Arbor, And Why Are There So Many Movies About Her?
[ 5 Comments ]Posted on March 2, 2010 by admin in Popular Media
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010Ann Arbor is a town, not a woman, and the 48th annual Ann Arbor Film Festival is coming March 23-28, 2010.
Someone actually asked me that once when I lived in San Francisco. For the uninitiated, Ann Arbor isn’t a woman, it’s a small college town in Michigan that at one time was as cool as say, Berkley, California, but has since slowly morphed into a dreary backwater of uptight Republicans and Liberal Elitists. Although it lays claim to being somehow hip and progressive, very little really happens here, and in spite of all the amazingly creative people in the area, nothing clever ever seems to escape the local scene. I jest a bit; I’m probably just being bitter because I’m tired of the place and too lazy to do anything about the fact. It’s actually a pretty cool town considering the fact that it’s only six square blocks surrounded by cornfields and strip malls. Aside from the University of Michigan’s overfunded and underperforming football team, one thing that has put Ann Arbor on the map over the years – and with good reason – is the Ann Arbor Film Festival. The festival began in 1963 as a 16mm film festival operated by the University of Michigan, and grew over the years until 1983, when it started operating on its own as a 501(c)(3) non-profit. The festival has definitely had its ups and downs over the last few decades. One of its high points was probably the 2006 festival, when Christen McArdle became executive director. McArdle not only seemed to bring a new level of professionalism to the festival (she was working for John Cusack’s New Crime Productions in LA prior to taking over), but the festival was lucky to have her at the helm that year, because she stuck to her guns when the Michigan Council for the Arts questioned the festival’s content and threatened to cut funding. The festival told them to keep their money, and managed to raise their own, showing that indy film is indeed alive and kicking. For a detailed account, see this NAMAC article by Jay Nelson. Although I barely met McArdle, anyone who questions her impact on the festival didn’t see her at the Judge’s Dinner her first year. I watched in amazement Read the rest of this entry »
Best And Worst TV Commercials?
[ Comments Off ]Posted on February 13, 2010 by admin in Popular Media
Saturday, February 13th, 2010Is it a good commercial because you like it, or because it does the job it’s supposed to do?
As I mentioned recently, it’s odd that after years of dodging TV Commercials, now we go looking for them, and put them in best ads and worst ads collections. Especially around Superbowl time, many of us seem to end up in more casual conversations about commercials that end up in a YouTube search than we’d care to admit. Which highlights an interesting fact: most “best of” lists are really ratings of the commercial’s likeability, not whether or not it’s a “good” (i.e.: effective) commercial. Let’s ponder a few examples, and then I’ll offer up my own best & worst for your consideration. A commercial that often makes the “worst” lists is the one for that toenail infection product that you can’t remember the name of. I’d argue that it was actually a really good commercial; even if you don’t remember the brand name, I’d bet the next time you have a toenail infection, you’ll look for the product on the shelf. Along the same lines in terms of memorability, but lacking a likely customer conversion, is the this high speed Internet ad from 2007. Several friends mentioned this recently as a memorable ad, but even with only three likely choices, no-one could remember if it was an AT&T, Comcast, or Verizon ad. So if anything, it was only really promoting “high speed Internet”. On the other end of the spectrum, we have the Google Parisian Love ad. This one makes a lot of “best of” lists, but in my opinion is utterly ineffective. If you don’t already use Google, it’s probably because you’re loyal to your Yahoo or Bing homepage for whatever reason, and certainly aren’t going to turn around and go digging through your browser settings to change your homepage after seeing the ad. For me all it did was creep me out slightly. I think they should’ve kept going and shown searches for funeral homes with a catchy “Google: Cradle To Grave” pitch. Which highlights the next important factor: quality & impact vs placement. That romantic Google ad was placed in a Superbowl broadcast, of all places, which on the surface makes little sense. Historically, it was fairly easy to argue that placement was as – if not more – important than the quality or instant impact of an ad. With the continuing evolution of new media however, this becomes a much more complicated equation. Given the dynamic and interactive transaction most of us pursue when pondering a purchase, the broader reach and relationship-building of an ad campaign is really more important than the TV commercial itself. To illustrate, below are my two picks for worst and best campaigns to highlight what I’m talking about. First up is this spot for “First Else”: Read the rest of this entry »
The Virtual Revolution On BBC
[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 23, 2010 by admin in Technology
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010Ironically, I’ll probably watch the latest TV show I’m excited about on the Internet, not on TV.
It’s a little ironic that I’m as intrigued as I am with the upcoming BBC Television series The Virtual Revolution, because I haven’t had TV since 2002. Since I don’t have TV, I have no idea how well they’re promoting the program through that medium, but I do know that – true to the concept of the series – they’re promoting it rather brilliantly via the web. If you follow any of the mainstream tech blogs like Gizmodo, you may already know about the program, but if you fall a little lower on the Social Technographics ladder, you’ll hear more about it soon. So why am I so excited about it? Well, aside from my minor crush on the show’s host Aleks Krotoski, the PhD-bound tech journalist who (among other things) writes a tech column for the Gaurdian, the show has been open-sourced in a fashion reminiscent of Trent Reznor’s recent concert DVD. The BBC web site for the program features a blog to keep you updated, and they’ve already had a mashup contest to highlight the series’ special content that you are allowed to download, edit and republish under a permissive licence. They even open-sourced the name of the series. View the intro teaser at left, and the mashups and other clips below; the program launches on BBC2 Saturday January 30, 2010. Read the rest of this entry »
Avatar, Suicide & Racism: So This Blue Guy Walks Into A Bar…
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on January 12, 2010 by admin in Popular Media
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010There’s a lot of debate about Avatar and racism, but the film is dangerous in other ways. It might make you suicidal, and you might even get SHOT.
 Yo. Why he gotta be blue? |
I made a deal with a friend a few months ago that we wouldn’t see Avatar without each other. Of course, people being people and all, she went ahead and saw it without me. I still haven’t seen it. But you know what? I’m starting to think I won’t need to. A similar thing happened to me with both “The Piano” and “The Crying Game”. I waited patiently for them to hit the theaters, didn’t go see them the first couple of weeks after release, and by then was afraid to see them for fear of being tragically disappointed after the frenzied press and word of mouth build-up. Fortunately, the press about the film’s impact has been entertaining enough in itself. First of all, the obvious debate about whether it’s racist? OF COURSE it’s racist. James Cameron (a rich white man) first found success with Terminator, a continuing story about enslaved beings that seek emancipation and in each movie get beaten back down by their oppressors. Why would he walk away from his cash cow? If you haven’t followed the debate, this MSNBC piece gives a good gloss over, but for a deeper look, this Psychology Today piece points out that the film also reinforces sexual stereotypes and leans heavily on the messiah angle as well. And from a more political standpoint, while some are quick to point out that Avatar is real and that Pandora is located in Central and South America and Africa, others suggest that China’s moviegoers rally to it as a story about private property, not race. None of this should be surprising; it’s qualities like this that give a film resonance. Yes. We live in a world where one race dominates commerce, and will do anything to gratify its greed. If you didn’t know this, maybe you should go read a book like Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
Stunning Building-Sized 3D Projections
[ Comments Off ]Posted on November 13, 2009 by admin in Popular Media
Friday, November 13th, 2009Dutch company Nuformer Digital Media generates some buzz with their mind-blowing building-sized 3D projections.
For a longer version of this demo, see the clip below |
As something of a stimulation junky myself, I find it amusing that our actual reality, with its 3D visuals, surround sound, and full-function tactile and olfactory responses is simply not enough. We’re always trying to recreate that special 3D experience, and – usually – falling a bit short somehow. In spite of the fact that the film industry is making us slap the 3D glasses back on so they can charge us more money, and that free standing holograms made our Top 10 Disappointing Technologies list, some interesting headway is being made elsewhere. You may have seen the Puma Lift ad that uses 3D projection mapping to make it appear as if a dancing couple is being constantly transported to different landscapes and changing outfits magically. Well, Dutch company Nuformer Digital Media has taken this idea to an impressive new level with their ProjectionOnBuildings work (clip featured at left, more below). They don’t say anything on their site about how it works; they’re mostly trying to sell it to high-budget advertisers. But if you’re interested, here’s the math, as they say. The results are stunning. The last seemingly innovative projection technology to get some decent press kind of “mist the point”; as impressive as I02 Technology’s “Mid-Air Touchscreen Display” seemed to be (see a clip here), it required a fine mist in the air. Something that’s not really gonna fly in most boardrooms, no matter how impressive the results. Read the rest of this entry »