Sherry

I’ve never liked the circus until last night when I when to see Traces at the Peacock Theatre.

Traces is a brilliant mixture of dance, circus and high-risk sports. They are five really talented youngsters that can skateboard at the same time as bouncing a basketball with one hand and play the piano with the other, and all this to the rhythm of the music.

I really recommend you to see it, and quick, because the last show is the 30th of October!!

Today it’s not easy to get a message across. So many campaigns end up lost in a sea of ads, viral emails or social media campaigns. If you want to get your message through, you need to surprise and get people’s attention. That’s how this action street marketing campaign (sorry is in Spanish) has captivated my attention.

A bunch of actors stop random people in the street and pretend to know them, asking things like ‘Hello! What are the chances! How are you? I didn’t know you lived here’. People react with ‘Sorry, I can’t remember you’. Then the actors say tell them not to worry, and hands a card over that says ‘This is how a person with Alzheimer feels’. I love seeing brilliant street marketing ideas, well done to Tiempo BBDO in Madrid for this fantastic work.

Designing the opening credits for a TV show is clearly no easy task. You have a short defined period of time in which to communicate the essence of a series that will have many different story lines, characters and tones. While some shows go topped and tailed with credits that simply pass you by unaffected there are others which really capture you. My favorite is the credits for Dexter (which you can view here) which uses all the subtlety and visual metaphor that you may expect to see in a Jean Cocteau film from the 1930′s, but is shot with the polished, over saturated styling that we have become accustomed to. I have always had a fascination with moving image as a medium to communicate the subtleties of parallel lives/worlds and these credits demonstrate exactly how that can come to fruition in an original and striking way. The art of designing and producing credits is loaded with potential, and when it is got right it becomes as magical as short film in itself.

The website Art of the Title is a fantastic collection of the most innovative and exciting title sequences, where the artists and designers who create them get the recognition they deserve. Well worth a look if you ask me.

Carousel is an award-winning short film advertising a Philips cinematic sized television set. One frame is frozen in time with a tracking shot that lasts 2 minutes 19 seconds. Click here to see how this effect was created – Clever stuff.

Continuing the theme of spinning wheels, check out this excellent video by Clemens Kogler. Produced using two turntables, a bit of cardboard and some rather adept handiwork, the visual performance has been created entirely sans computer. It is a stunning example of what can be achieved with simple animation techniques and a bit of nouse. Can I get a rewiiiiiind!