The Future of Digital AdverFilms

shepperton studios, originally uploaded by donshades.

Last week I spent a long day doing an interactive Ad shoot for one of our clients at Dare. In order to get the required assets, we had to hire a very tall studio. Infact the only place with a studio big enough was London's famous Shepperton Studios.

“Great!” I thought. This is is. We're here! A digital agency shooting an ad in the same studio they used to shoot Harry Potter's Cribbage game. We've made it. We've grown up....

Then I realised. We were shooting a fucking banner Ad.

Indeed things are beginning to change. Clients are starting to trust us more frequently with budgets which extend to more than your best mate with a DV camera shooting in an empty meeting room. But where's the story? Flo's point on the creative social blog is an interesting one and something that has bothered me from day I checked out of the film world and into the land of Digital.

"Why are we trying to do everything our own way?".

It seems that we spend too much of the time getting excited by interesting interactive technology, and not enough time worrying about story, meaning, narrative. I'm just as guilty of this as everyone, by the way.

I am a bit of a film geek however and for me that makes a good story paramount. TV script writers have been bothered about this since the days of the Bulova Watch Company (obviously they fuck it up a lot..); so why do we think needn't bother?

This is something that I feel very strongly about. There is some great work about of late; but all too often an interesting understated story is left high and dry - out gunned by the technology which is packaging it up. Digital agencies are full of copy writers, not script writers and this is evident from the output of their more narrative ideas. I keep banging on about the novelty factor of youTube slowly wearing off and suddenly we're left swimming in shit... well I think this is most definitely starting to happen. Things move with sound on the interweb - great. Now tell me a story, and tell it fucking well or I'm clicking onward. I was at a lecture the other day where the speaker mused over the next layer of the web being the Visual Web. If he's right (and I don't see anything to make me think he's wrong); then surely the champion players of this visual web will be those who know how to tell a story, how to write a good story to be told in spoken words, sound and moving pictures.

For me we've got a lot of growing up to do before we can move in and start our own digital production office at Shepperton.

Analogue In, Digital Out

Analogue In, Digital Out, originally uploaded by donshades.

Went to see my good friends Star Chamber, at one of their band rehearsals last night. I felt privileged to be watching them write a song together. It's always an amazing thing to watch synergy in happen around you; watching their creative process was a most inspiring thing.

Incidentally I noticed that while they use digital distribution channels to get their music and merchandise out to their fan base in a very 2.0 kind of way; they're all well into analogue effects for their instruments.

A Photo Of The Professor

young donshades, originally uploaded by donshades.

... he still has these glasses...

Tonight I am Mainly Painting

Painting part 3, originally uploaded by donshades.

.... I'll let you know how it goes.

Rock and Fk'in Roll

_MG_3155, originally uploaded by donshades.

Last Friday I proudly attended another star chamber gig. This time it was a Bar Fly. What a night. Completely packed out with fans old and new screaming for more at the end of the set. These guys are a fantastic example of how all things ‘2.0’, allow creativity to flurish without all the ballshit. They advertise their gigs on facebook; myspace and with a select email list. No record company bollocks, just a promoter who takes some of the door takings and the rest is cutting straight to the chase. You can see one them on Tube and Flickr, listen to them on iTunes and even buy the T-Shirt with a simple paypal transaction. Great.

They are Watching

A while ago Ade pointed out his (in my opinion) well deserved anger at the Met Police coming out with this bullshit:



I know... I know... it's in our best interest. But what happens when you want to take nice photos of architecture in London and find yourself carted away by a SWAT team?

Well... here's a response, right near Dare, our friend Banksy has deposited this little gem, near the Post Office on Newman Street.




I'm wondering.... are we racing towards:

facebook

facebook, originally uploaded by donshades.

Well... I'm used to facebook recommending me "hot singles", sites since I changed my status... but this is the first time I've been shown a way out of my hairloss hell...

Have they gone completely bonkers? ....

...then I realised according to facebook I'm 109 years old this week. Nice try guys.

Bonkers Interactive Video Thing

more over at t-immersion

Ok... I know I haven't written a proper post in a while; but I've been busy.. and in Amsterdam.