THE LEAD ENTRY IN THIS week’s "The Best Work You May Never See" (p. 16) is a PSA called "If Not Now, When?" Directed by Leslie Dektor of Dektor Film for ad agency Red Ball Tiger, San Francisco, the ad promotes gun control by depicting the tragic death of a teenager.
Red Ball Tiger has taken a strong advocacy position on this issue, seeking corporate sponsorship of the ad in order for it to gain meaningful, widespread exposure. "With the upcoming presidential election, we didn’t want this issue swept under the rug," said Red Ball Tiger managing director Bob Ravasio. "The issue’s on the front page when children are gunned down in their school or community center. We thought there had to be a way to keep the issue top-of-mind that didn’t cost lives."
Agency creative director Greg Wilson cited a Time/CNN Poll which found that some 59 percent of Americans would be more likely to vote for a candidate who favored more strict gun control laws. "Yet nothing changes," observed Wilson. "Unfortunately, there is no one big enough or powerful enough to counterbalance the gun lobby’s efforts."
Ravasio believes, however, that corporate America represents a force "powerful enough to counterbalance" the influential gun lobby which seems to have the ear of many legislators. So instead of soliciting the usual suspects such as special interest groups to gain financial backing for its PSA, Red Ball Tiger is asking corporations to put up money so that the spot can air.
Red Ball Tiger will provide the spot at no charge to the first corporation that agrees to spend $5 million in national airtime to run the spot. The agency will also try to put together a self-coined "Group of Five" advertisers, each kicking in $1 million to underwrite a major TV/cable buy.
"This will [consist of] five corporations that believe their responsibility to the world is not incidental to their responsibility to shareholders," said Ravasio, who added that the nature of this arrangement could be politically influential as well. "Politicians follow the money," contended Ravasio. "Corporations are the largest political contributors in this country. If politicians see a major donor take a stand on one side of the issue, they will be more apt to vote in that direction."
It’s only the latter point that I seriously doubt. It seems that the majority of the legislative body is already unduly influenced. After the Columbine High School tragedy in April, four proposals were introduced as amendments to the juvenile justice bill. The proposals were moderate and reasonable. They would have extended the Brady Law’s background checks to gun purchasers at gun shows; outlawed the importation of ammunition clips with more than 10 bullets; required child safety locks on all new handguns; and barred juveniles from obtaining assault weapons. Initially, it appeared that passage of the amendments was likely, given the outrage over Columbine. The Senate version of the juvenile crime bill—containing all four proposals—passed. But the House version did not.
Now, nearly seven months after Columbine, the four gun provisions have been declared dead for the year. Since the Columbine massacre, we’ve had a day trader kill his wife and children, shoot up two brokerage houses in Atlanta, and then commit suicide. In Southern California, a white supremacist allegedly sprayed a Jewish day school with bullets and then murdered a mailman of Philippine descent. And then we had the workplace shootings in Honolulu and Seattle.
Red Ball Tiger’s PSA is a convincing piece of filmmaking. But sadly, even stark reality doesn’t seem to be convincing enough on Capitol—or is that capital?—Hill. Still, I hope the agency’s effort somehow makes a difference.
"There’s a sense of frustration and helplessness about this issue," said Ravasio, who isn’t against gun ownership but advocates common-sense restrictions and requirements. "This [PSA] is something for people to grab onto. It’s not about the right to own [guns]; it’s about the right to live."
Tim Burton Discusses His Dread Of AI As An Exhibition of His Work Opens In London
The imagination of Tim Burton has produced ghosts and ghouls, Martians, monsters and misfits — all on display at an exhibition that is opening in London just in time for Halloween.
But you know what really scares him? Artificial intelligence.
Burton said Wednesday that seeing a website that had used AI to blend his drawings with Disney characters "really disturbed me."
"It wasn't an intellectual thought — it was just an internal, visceral feeling," Burton told reporters during a preview of "The World of Tim Burton" exhibition at London's Design Museum. "I looked at those things and I thought, 'Some of these are pretty good.' … (But) it gave me a weird sort of scary feeling inside."
Burton said he thinks AI is unstoppable, because "once you can do it, people will do it." But he scoffed when asked if he'd use the technology in this work.
"To take over the world?" he laughed.
The exhibition reveals Burton to be an analogue artist, who started off as a child in the 1960s experimenting with paints and colored pencils in his suburban Californian home.
"I wasn't, early on, a very verbal person," Burton said. "Drawing was a way of expressing myself."
Decades later, after films including "Edward Scissorhands," "Batman," "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Beetlejuice," his ideas still begin with drawing. The exhibition includes 600 items from movie studio collections and Burton's personal archive, and traces those ideas as they advance from sketches through collaboration with set, production and costume designers on the way to the big screen.
London is the exhibition's final stop on a decade-long tour of 14 cities in 11 countries. It has been reconfigured and expanded with 90 new objects for its run in... Read More