Wednesday, 20 November 2002

On The Train Today. I was on the way to an appointment in the portside city, and I was taking the train.       I entered the last carriage, claimed a spot next to the door, leaned against the wall, and whipped out my current while-the-time-away novel within a matter of seconds. A mass of bodies of all shapes and sizes fell into the carriage, filling it. I glanced at the opposite wall of the carriage, and could not see it for flesh.       Feet shuffled, the train came to a jerking start and moved off. The crowd murmured, then silence. Suddenly, a massive voice boomed into action.       “Ooh, what are you reading?” it asked. The voice was neither strictly male nor female, a little bit of both. “Jack-er-leen Soo-zan? That’sss nye-issssss!!!”       Nobody else in the carriage spoke. The people in front of me were so densely packed together that I could not see where or who the voice was coming from.       The mystery voice ended every second sentence with the phrase “Izz-n’t iiit???” as it chatted away to itself about the weather, the book it was reading, and the pictures it had drawn in the margins. “Oooh, aren’t I a good draw-er? That’sss nye-issssss!!!” it said.       The voice finally found a partner, whom it began asking about local customs, and where the young people went to for fun. Several people got off, and the crowd parted a little.       The booming voice was emanating from a huge, homely teenage boy dressed in the male equivalent of a junior high school gymslip, all floppy and black. He had a bulbous nose, a large cleft chin and a dainty hairstyle. An odd fit for the sounds that were coming out of him as he began chatting loudly to a passenger on his other side now.       Then I pinpointed the accent underneath all the hissing. Leeds. A Northern Queen on a holiday jaunt in the Great Downunder. And like all good Northern Queens he already had a catch-phrase of his very own. “That’sss nye-issssss!!!” Jimmy Saville Junior, come on down! 6:16:04 PM    Add a comment.

How The Douglas Brothers Became Directors. Karl: How did you find your way into directing? Stuart: That arose out of shooting the Adidas campaign. We worked with them for a year, then the agency said, “Wouldn't it be great if some of your images were moving?” Adidas at that point was just breaking into being trendy fashionwear.       We said, “Look at those little 10-second idents they have on MTV about themselves. They’re the best thing on there, better than all the ads and the music promos. Take the gamble on us, and we’ll come back with 10 10-seconders, little 10-second versions of our pictures that will move.”       As it was, we came back with 12 or 13, some at 10 seconds and some at 20. They still run them now on MTV in Europe. they definitely got their money’s worth.       The Douglas Brothers, real life brothers Andrew and Stuart, are no longer working as a unit. However, here is some recent TVC work by Andrew: Ford in the Arctic. Jeep Wrangler. 5:27:04 PM    Add a comment.

Apple Poster Advertising Appears In Perth. The first Apple outdoor advertisement has appeared in Perth, an Adshel bus shelter poster on the edge of a park just near here. The ad features a 17-inch iMac.       No TV yet. Apple Australia tends to re-use American TVCs when it does book television advertising. If they plan on doing so again, there is plenty of good material to draw on at the Apple Switch web pages. 10:01:03 AM    Add a comment.