Hello!☝🏽 Busy? Lazy? Multitasky? Click play above and let me read this to you.
This week comes, somehow, with a splatter of suitably evocative profanity.
Curated Cuts: Its a Samuel L Jackson double bill- the m***erf***er goes from seaside to studio!
Brand Did Content- a look at some recent content efforts from brands featuring crazy golfers around the world, Singapore via Southeast Asia, Chuck Taylors, F1 in the home of cricket.
They don’t come in a f’n app: Guillermo del Toro snappily weighs in on instant art creation.
Bollywood on Youtube: A big movie skips premium streaming deals for Youtube. What gives?
Cast away: Podcast questions poke their heads as the space continues to evolve.
➕ Australia’s social media ban, Shekar Kapur’s ‘Warlord’, MrBeast Lab and Cool Britannia?
The Colour Bar- a collision of creativity, content, culture, tech and brands.
Pickups
I wrote/spoke last week on micro dramas- thanks for the comments and thoughts on them. It would appear many share the curiosity around how exactly these will scale & work (I’ll stop short of calling it scepticism). The other recurring point was around the creativity or lack thereof, and the appetite for consuming such content on a sustained basis. For that, please peruse the gallery of successful soap operas across continents, eras and demographics. One person’s mindless is another person’s joy.
Alan Wolk wrote on them too, with a specific look at ReelShort in the US.Recently, I spoke of the interplay between long form and short form content. It was spurred by some insights from Tubular labs which showed us how ‘longer’ videos are doing better on different platforms, including Tiktok.
The thoughtful
aka The Honest Broker wrote on durations in culture recently- across music, video and books. There are some interesting data points in here that help him make a case around a steadily increasing appetite for longer ‘content’- from Taylor Swift albums to blockbuster movies, bestselling books, even song durations and yes- those Youtube/Tiktok video durations. His piece (not paywalled) is here.
“The rebirth of longform runs counter to everything media experts are peddling. They are all trying to game the algorithm.”
🎬 Curated/Cuts.
1. Motherf*’n windfarms**
Barely days after Trump, long known to despise windmills, launched a tirade against them during his golf visit to Scotland,
““It destroys the beauty of your fields, your plains and your waterways,” Trump said, denouncing the “ugly monsters all over the place” while advocating for oil and gas power.”
The wind energy company Vattenfall released this spot with Samuel L Jackson. He munches some seaweed snack made on the ‘windfarm’ they speak of, but the snack itself isn’t even for sale. Read more about it here.
PS- though it seems so, the spot is not a ‘reaction’ to the Donald; it has been in the works for some time now.
2. Trending today, tacky tomorrow?
The Superstar shoe is an icon from the brand with the three stripes, maybe the first that went from sports to culture. Now, in their new campaign, Adidas brings “a cast of heroes to show off the magnetism of being an Original Icon”. From sports and music, there’s Missy Elliot, Tony Edwards, JENNIE amongst others.
Have you ever wondered about the pyramids? And why we are so enchanted by them? It’s ok if you haven’t- the reliably profane Samuel L Jackson helps us figure it out, and in doing so, introduces the Superstar.
Then, the theme film ‘Clocks’ takes it a step further.
Brand Did Content
We live in interesting times for content. Many are peeved how everything is ‘content’. Certainly there is an absurd amount of it, and rising up through the sea to be noticed is arguably the most challenging aspect. Most brands need to have some content strategy. The scope, style and editorial can vary wildly. Some simply tick the boxes. Others look to storytell with intent. Some are opportunistic in their collabs. Working with influencers, creators, celebs continues to be a go-to approach. But not always- some are confident enough to do without.
I look around for interesting things that brands are doing beyond advertising, often with a bias to video. Here are a few that caught my eye (for good or not so good) in the last few months.
· Cobra Puma Golf’s ‘Go Chase More’ ·
A legit mini-docu series. Its six parts released on Youtube, profile the six “most obsessed golfers in the world, how they are carving their own paths in the game, and their endless pursuit of more.” Go Chase More ties in with their brand premise, urging golfers to strive, embracing all those who believe that golf is not just a game.
Or, as they put it, “Golfers aren’t just obsessed, they’re f**king nuts”.
Crafted by the Cobra Golf’s creative team and Bold Studios. Credits.
· Changi Airport’s Taste of Asia ·
Targetted to ANZ travellers, pitching Singapore’s airport as a threshold to Southeast Asia. This is a meaningful take for an airport- not really talking about itself, but the launchpad it offers. Three destinations, each in one hyper-packed episode, ~3min long.
Creators Sinead Chabowski and Joshua Shediak zip through Chiang Mai, Phnom Penh, and Da Nang. Interestingly, neither seem to be big creators/influencers of import, at least by their social followings. They make for good travellers, though!
Great energy, slick production, a good flavour of the destinations. Would have loved for it to take a breath every now and then, with slightly longer pieces. These episodes almost seem like trailers for a longer narratives- but I suppose that’s a good thing!
Ep 1: Chiang Mai
Crafted by Connecting Plots · produced by Infinity Squared · director Luna Laure · More credits ·
· Atlassian Williams: a very British afternoon ·
In the leadup to the British GP, the F1 team got their drivers in for a ‘very British afternoon’. Sainz & Albon visited the home of cricket, the Lord’s cricket ground in London, with former England all-rounder Freddie Flintoff. Once they’re warmed up, the boys seem to really enjoy their time.
A nice mix of easy fun, banter and getting to see the relaxed side to the drivers (+ a cricketing great), at Lord’s.
· Converse’s Chuckmates ·
Converse hired creator Amelia Dimoldenberg- popular purveyor of awkwardly witty diner dates- to host a show called Chuckmates. I say ‘hired’, even though you usually ‘collaborate’ with a creator these days, because, well- it feels like they just hired a show host.
Comes across like any blind dating show, not uniquely ‘that one with the celebrity flirter from Chicken Shop Dates’. Even the trailer felt like a TV promo, maybe on MTV. (Also, I say ‘show’, but it just the two lonely episodes).
Coming on from their Love Chuck campaign earlier this year, which was rooted in ‘making things’ and oozing creator vibe, this felt like a misstep.
· Red Bull’s Batting Challenge ·
Red Bull is the OG when it comes to content. In May, it dropped a video featuring English cricket captain Ben Stokes and Indian batter KL Rahul, leading up to the big England vs India Test series (which just came to a climactic end this week).
It features the unlikely duo in a series of ‘batting challenges’ that feel ‘Red Bull’ but maybe not quite Red Bull enough?
“They don’t come in a f*n app.”
Do you think the act and effort of creation has intrinsic value? Not just to the beholder, but the creator too?
Filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro’s little nugget at an SDCC panel makes for a good one minute watch. Could make you think, should make you chuckle, at least!
He doesn’t like the idea of merely pressing a button to ‘get to the middle’ of creating something, because you, the creator, will then not know the beginning and end of that idea, for yourself. He raises a distinction between eye-candy- an ornament- and what he called eye protein- nutrition, a story.
“The difference between them is personality, knowledge and emotion, and I am sorry- they don’t come in a f*’n app”.
This is not unsurprising, coming from the same gentleman who quipped last year, "AI has demonstrated that it can do semi-compelling screensavers", and stated, "The value of art is not in how much it costs and how little effort it requires. It's how much would you risk to be in its presence."
He was on a panel with George Lucas and concept artist Doug Chiang discussing the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art set to open next year.
Bollywood on Youtube
Skipping a premium streaming deal, for any major film, means sacrificing significant upfront dollars. If done, its for a longer term play, you would think.
One of India’s most reliable actors chose to release his film on Youtube as TVOD (transactional), for any of the nearly half a billion Youtube users in India to watch for ₹100 (about $1.1). Aamir Khan Productions’ Sitaare Zameen Par finished its theatrical run- just about six weeks- and jumped straight onto the streaming platform on August 1.
Is there a potential to reach an incredibly wide audience in a very real, easy, accessible way? Yes. Does this devalue theatricals? Arguably no less than premium streaming? Yet we have seen how habits and expectations are built with streaming, contributing in varying levels to theatrical struggles in different regions.
Of course, this has been called "democratising Indian film distribution at a global scale", by Youtube.
Aamir Khan stated he has been “struggling with the challenge” of reaching audiences without easy access to theatres. “we can finally reach vast sections of people in India, and a significant part of the world.” Whether the numbers will add up remains to be seen.
» At the other end of the globe and spectrum, Youtube creators Dude Perfect are taking their live show to cinemas in the US.
Cast away.
The podcast landscape has been reimagining itself a lot in the last couple of years. It is still vibrant, yet increasingly crowded, becoming ever more complex. With the pre-eminence of video (and Youtube) in podcast consumption, many feel the essentials of an audio-only format are giving way to a more ‘TV’ format. Many big-ticket podcasts are increasingly becoming video shows that can be consumed as audio, increasing the need (and burden) of video personalities, video production and multi-pronged approaches.
Some of these questions come to the fore when you have bigger shifts like this week- when Amazon announced it is shutting down Wondery, letting go of over a 100 from the team. Circa 2020, with the podcast scene booming, they purchased Wondery for ~$300 million.
Ashely Carman broke it down here.
➕
It looks like one of countless AI-generated movie trailers/demos we have grown accustomed to in the last 12-15months. And it kinda is. Except- this is Shekar Kapur’s ‘Warlord’, an entirely AI generated series from a veteran filmmaker of some stature. I’ll be honest- I dont know what to make of this story.
“Kapur plans to make the series’ production design and characters available for others to use, creating what he calls “a rainforest of ideas.” Users can adapt elements from “Warlord” for their own projects, with the stipulation that they pay one cent per use and make their creations open source for others to build upon.”
Australia’s social media ban for those under 16 comes into effect in December. Youtube, previously excluded, has now been brough into the mix. Continues to spark debate, with many struggling to find the balance between protection and isolation. An overview here.
The Indian streaming space or ‘OTT’ is vibrant yet complex. This comprehensive piece looks at the players and the economics they juggle with.
The UK’s resurgent pop culture moment has coincided with a 1990s renaissance that has swept across music, film and fashion. Call it Cool Britannia 25?
Mr Beast & Moose Toys have launched a new animation series called MrBeast Lab. “When Jimmy and his MrBeast crew discovered weird shadow monsters attacking Earth, he did what any YouTuber would - built a high-tech science lab underneath his studio. But 100 levels of insane experiments and creating all kinds of weird beasts to battle the shadowy invaders, unfortunately didn’t prevent him getting kidnapped!”
