Christmas is a time to get new stuff. New clothes, new bikes, new gadgets. But this year, the ad industry decided to give us something new and something old. Aw shucks, you shouldn’t have. I’m a firm believer in the saying, "If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it" and nothing can be more true in case of Amazon.com’s holiday campaign out of FCB, San Francisco. When I was growing up, we had only had two Christmas albums in our house (yes, it’s sad, I know). The first was Alvin & The Chipmunks and the second was Holiday Sing Along With Mitch. No Christmas was complete without listening to Mitch Miller singing "Frosty The Snowman" in unison with 20 other men. So you can imagine my excitement when Amazon.com rolled out a second year’s worth of sweatered men singing together like well-trained boy scouts. This year the guys are a little spunkier. They dance a bit more, change wardrobe from spot to spot and the sets add extra meaning to the songs. My favorite in the package is "Feel Like A Kid" where the singing troupe, dressed in shorts and knee socks, sing juvenile lyrics such as, "Stop copying me" and "Say it, don’t spray it." On the what’s new front, the Gap played a little trick on us. Did anyone notice? Its ads have a slightly different feel to them this year. That’s because for the first time in a long time the company didn’t conceive its holiday campaign in-house. Modernista!, Boston, did. Pretty sneaky sis. I didn’t think it was possible to beat the Gap holiday ads from years past with all the colorful, kaleidoscopic images and happy sleigh bell sounds. They just made me want to run out and buy a multi-colored sweater and scarf and start dancing around. But Modernista! succeeded in maintaining Gap’s brand identity while giving the ads a sensibility that’s smarter, more mature and in general kick ass. My favorite is "Snowflakes." It features people slowly free-falling backwards (the camera angle is from above, as if perched on a cloud). The look on their faces is bliss as they float down through the air to an undetermined place. The tag is: "No two are alike." People as snowflakes. Brilliant. But Christmas isn’t all about books and clothes. What about those essential office supplies? Yeah, I’m talking about Staples. The thing that I enjoy about Staples’ advertising is that the spots often take place in the store’s environment and show lots of product, yet they’re still interesting and funny. Its latest :30 out of Cliff Freeman and Partners, New York, called "Sno-Bot" debuts a robot who can help customers learn about Staples’ technology products. But the robot nearly short circuits when it falls in love with a printer that someone is trying to buy. Every time the lovesick tin can intones, "You-can’t-take-her-I-love-her," I just crack up. Yup, I love the holidays and working at SHOOT is like celebrating Christmas every day. We get lots of brown paper packages and FedEx envelopes and boxes all filled with reels, reels, reels. Something tasty would be nice.
Oscar Nominees Delve Into The Art Of Editing At ACE Session
You couldn’t miss Sean Baker at this past Sunday’s Oscar ceremony where he won for Best Picture, Directing, Original Screenplay and Editing on the strength of Anora. However, earlier that weekend he was in transit from the Cesar Awards in Paris and thus couldn’t attend the American Cinema Editors (ACE) 25th annual panel of Academy Award-nominated film editors held at the Regal LA Live Auditorium on Saturday (3/1) in Los Angeles. While the eventual Oscar winner in the editing category was missed by those who turned out for the ACE “Invisible Art, Visible Artists” session, three of Baker’s fellow nominees were on hand--Dávid Jancsó, HSE for The Brutalist; Nick Emerson for Conclave; and Myron Kerstein, ACE for Wicked. Additionally, Juliette Welfling, who couldn’t appear in person due to the Cesar Awards, was present via an earlier recorded video interview to discuss her work on Emilia Pérez. The interview was conducted by ACE president and editor Sabrina Plisco, ACE who also moderated the live panel discussion. Kerstein said that he was the beneficiary of brilliant and generous collaborators, citing, among others, director Jon M. Chu, cinematographer Alice Brooks, and visual effects supervisor Pablo Helman. The editor added it always helps to have stellar acting performances, noting that hearing Cynthia Erivo, for example, sing live was a revelation. Kerstein recalled meeting Chu some eight years ago on a “blind Skype date” and it was an instant “bromance”--which began on Crazy Rich Asians, and then continued on such projects as the streaming series Home Before Dark and the feature In The Heights. Kerstein observed that Chu is expert in providing collaborators with... Read More