Same job, different uniform.

Monday, February 26, 2007

"I'm not a theologist. I'm not an archaeologist. I'm a documentary film maker," he said.

Really Mr. Cameron? Since when? Is "documentary" what you mean by that powerful piece of crap that you produced ten years ago?


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As I plan for a move, a move with an air of permenance, I stumble across this little gem in my sister's email signature. I wonder how I missed it the first time.

"To the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other's hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys. We live outside the touch of time."

~ Clara Ortega


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Wednesday, February 21, 2007

What Handymen Do and Do Not Do

They fix broken shower heads.* They repair leaky toilets. They patch flooring.

They do not clean the muddy footprints out of the bathtub. They do not replace things that they moved. They do not pick up their scraps.

*Or they think they do. I wonder if they tried testing it before they called it well done.


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Saturday, February 17, 2007

Simple Human Truths

(It's true you can have it cheaper)

This is what I have been taught should be found in every great ad. As a student preparing to enter the advertising world as a Junior Creative (a copy writer to be exact), I have to believe that I can find the simple human truth in any product. In a sequence of classes that I will be taking until I graduate, I am compiling a student book that will eventually have about 20 ads in it. This will be my portfolio to show to prospective employers, and it's supposed to be filled with ads that are better than anything out there. If I thought that finding these truths was an impossible task, I wouldn't be pursuing advertising as a career.

This is not to say that I don't have my moments when I think, "What have I gotten myself into?" The moments when I think I can't push my creativity any further.

It's a daunting, frustrating process: picking a product, coming up with a campaign, executing that campaign, then constantly figuring out ways to make it better. To make it great. Right now, this all accumulates with a critique at the end of each semester, where copy writers and art directors from advertising firms come and let us know if our ads suck or not. It's daunting now, and I'm dealing with prodcuts that I've chosen, and I don't have my career on the line. Some day the process will accumulate with my ads, hopefully, being put out into the real world. Some day I might actually have to come up with a campaign for a pooper scooper. Or Vagisil. Is it possible to always make great advertising?

If there's anything that I've learned so far, it is that creativity is something that can be disciplined. You can train your creativity, and find your own method of reigning it in. That's been valuable.

And if nothing else, I've seen some really funny ads. Here's one for example.

I don't know what its human truth is, but the woman screaming "BABIES!" makes me laugh every time.

Enjoy.

Oh, yeah, and you're allowed to laugh at the phrase "simple human truth." I have. A lot.

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Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

My sweetheart did not deliver my Valentine's Day gift wrapped in hearts and a pink bow like photographer Jasin Boland. (Am I the only one who thinks this looks like a Dr. Suess book illustration and not a real neighborhood?)*

Mine came wrapped in snow.


Thank you Professor. Happy Valentine's Day.


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Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Darn the luck

This is one of those stories in which the rules make little sense.


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Thursday, February 08, 2007

The Snark Lives

I have had lunch with the dashing and eloquent blogger Himself.

If you're a new reader you don't know much about our resident male contributor.

Remedy this by reading his advice to his daughter (blithly confident that all she had been told about global warming was the gosepl truth) or look for his comments here and there. You'll know them by their force. (You thought I was going to say snarkiness, didn't you?)


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Tuesday, February 06, 2007

The Big Questions

Why does God save us?

What does saving faith produce in us?

Is heaven the aim or is it something more?


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Monday, February 05, 2007

Lewis Roundup

This caught my eye in my weekly Variety Europe Update.

MADRID — Alicia Borrachero has been cast as Prunaprismia, the wife of General Miraz, Narnia's evil king in Andrew Adamson's "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian."

Pic is the second film in the Disney and Walden Media franchise.

Spain's Borrachero previously played Escolastica, a devout aunt, in Mike Newell's "Love in the Time of Cholera." She is repped in Europe by Katrina Bayonas, head of Madrid-based Kuranda.


Liam Neeson will reprise his role as the voice of Aslan. And they have started filming at a $9 mil sound stage that was completed in December.

Oh, and apparently Walden Media is producing a live-screen version of Screwtape Letters. Click here.


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Friday, February 02, 2007

The First Movie I saw with Olympia Dukakis Was Dad

She was brilliant.

The New Heritage Theatre Company is bringing the Academy Award winning actress to Boise for the world premiere of Fault Line.

Ms. Dukakis is a versatile and powerful screen presence. I grant you, hers is of a more subtle nature than, say, Judi Dench or Helen Mirren. We forget she's acting. She knows how to draw viewers in, to create an atmosphere of trust, to (pardon the crudeness) sell us. And when we're sold, it's such a delicious transaction.

This is Boise's chance to see her onstage, courtesy of New Heritage.

We've enjoyed, among other offerings by New Heritage Theatre, School for Scandal, King Lear and the stellar A Christmas Carol. We know we won't be disappointed by Fault Line. Olympia is just a perk.

Please support Idaho's only year-round resident repertory company and theatrical training conservatory.

GO.


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Out with the Old, In with the Passing

I have been trying to write this post for two days. Here's the condensed version.

The good doctor Schaff is reporting that the Mall of America is considering ditching the Peanuts gang for the more relevant and contemporary Nickelodeon fixtures. You know, Dora the Explorer and SpongeBob SquarePants.

The problem: Peanuts doesn't have a marketing strategy that has kept up with the times.

Oh. You mean...they're timeless.

In another five or ten years they'll have to replace the lame-ass Nickelodeon characters with something more relevant and contemporary. It will be hard to keep up.

This is the problem with short-term marketing. It's short-term.


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Thursday, February 01, 2007

Awwww...

It makes me all warm and fuzzy to know they're doing well.


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