Pay Attention!
this is good. this is real. *maybe.
Pay attention. Or not. Because storytellers will hold your hand and guide you. Or will they? Though cuss words sure can grab attention- but of what kind? And how long will we believe our eyes anyway?
Ah- questions, questions- The Colour Bar is here with the answers. Or not!
Profane Coffee: How much do you like your hit?
▶️ Curated/Cuts: Is that AI, or is that real? And Happy 10th, Netflix India!
Attention matters: Or does it, as storytelling spoonfeeds us.
➕ BTS on Netflix, song notes in Spotify, AI streamers, Content Chiefs.
1. Flat White or F**k Off
Don’t be rude, now.
Ok- maybe just a bit?
A recent pop up in London was cheeky, fun, and worth pausing over.
A few months ago, British ad man Rory Sutherland lobbed one of his trademark grenades on the Great Company podcast: the idea of a café called “Flat White or F*ck Off.”
Now turn down your nose and unfrown your brow, if you are allergic to profanity. This came from the frustration of high-traffic, low-time places like railway stations and airports. Rory figures these are not places for self-expression- you know, matcha oat milk or chai tea lattes; these caffeine consumers want speed and quality. That’s it.
It’s a fair point. So in these transitional zones, eliminate friction- this place will have one drink. A flat white. Pick it up. Pay. Leave. (For Russel Peters fans, that’s “Take it, and go”).
Want anything else? Read the sign.
The possibly clever(er) bit? When a casual consumer sees a place that does only one thing, they’re likely to think that place is very, very good at it.
Graphic designer Charlie Hurst loved the idea enough to design it, on a lark. He says he “couldn’t stop thinking about how much fun you could have with the concept,” so well- he went ahead and had some fun.
His mockups were great- channeling the hurried scrawl of a rushed barista. Inspiring enough for entrepreneur Tom Noble to not just tap ‘like’, but say, “Lets do this”*
So some time in Jan, ‘Flat White or F*ck Off’ popped up outside Tottenham Court Road station. Real coffee. Real queue. Real people smiling at a joke that also happens to work.
I wish I was there to taste it. With that sort of name- man, that had better be some seriously good coffee.
How much does this work beyond a stunt or experiment? Ah well, we can have that debate some other time. And I’ll need a coffee.
PS- a Sydney trip many moons ago converted me to flat whites (though nothing since came close to Aussie flat whites). But in recent years, I am more likely to gravitate to a place called ‘Black or Bust’. No? Maybe ‘Espresso & Exit’? ‘Black Coffee or Bye Bye’?
They sound slightly friendlier, at any rate.
*they got Sutherland’s blessing first.
2. Curated/Cuts
That’s AI, man!
We are in a park. It is cold. There is a bench.
Two men sit. They watch a young man doing backflips.
One believes he is AI. The other scoffs.
A crowd gathers. They agree with one man.
The other is indignant. What have we come to, he asks.
What indeed, you might agree.
If you were to watch this video.
In the barrage of Super Bowl ads likely infesting your feeds, and in the spirit of the first piece in this dispatch, sc***w all that and watch this instead.
What does it say? Do you care? Did you smile?
Yeah, I thought so.
No AI was harmed in the making of this film, which was filmed on film.
Also, I have NO IDEA who maximise is or what they do, or why they made this film. Not complaining!
· Written & Directed by Sebastian Lopez · EP: Maximise · Producer: Hervé Butoyi ·
10 Years of Netflix
This spot from the Tudum team celebrating 10 years in India finds the sweet spot between celebratory and cheeky, smiley and sassy, indulgent and intelligent. It gladly goes back to some solid fundamentals- wide and deep scouring of footage, a painstaking edit, and, wonderfully, a script that at different points is either clever or cute, or both.
Helps to have it narrated by King Khan himself.
Crafted by Toaster
*Pretty much works for Indian viewers only.
4. Storytelling, (dis)engaged.
Signposting. Mindless? Harmless?
The debate continues… kinda.
The tendency of modern storytelling on TV and film to spoonfeed the viewer has been a topic of repeated discussion over the last few years. The most egregious (or the most accused) in this is Netflix. With its love for data- and tailoring its stories accordingly- it is the most prone to such accusations. Essentially, it is said they encourage creative partners to cater for viewers’ assumed second-screening, by ensuring character beats and plotlines are repeated during a movie or show often enough to ensure attention-deficit watchers won’t lose the, erm, plot.
This “relentless sign posting of meaning & intent” seems to be often treated as an open secret that not many choose to engage with. I wrote a long piece on this last year- how formulas are spanning Europe, India and the US- and someone or the other brings it up every few months.
When that ‘someone or the other’, is Matt Damon, it opens up new chances for the drum to be beaten again (to be clear, it’s a drum worth beating). During a junket around the recent Netflix original film, The Rip, Damon said “now streamers are like, ‘Can we get a big [action set piece] in the first five minutes? We want people to stay. And it wouldn’t be terrible if you reiterated the plot three or four times in the dialogue because people are on their phones while they’re watching.”
Coleman Splide was inspired enough to rip into this creative approach, and you’d be hard-pressed to deny many of the points he raises. Unless, of course, you were on your phone while watching. Or reading. Or something.
5. About Songs
I can’t say I’ve been a fan of all the new(ish) Spotify features rolling about since last year- too many are too ‘social’ for my liking- they want us to message, have groups, post stuff, watch videos, all within the app. Music is a very communal and shared experience (or can be), so I know this is the right instinct- maybe I am just jaded from all the ‘social’ in our lives.
This new feature, though- I like the sound of it. I have literally had this conversation- how it would be cool to be able to tap into a little trivia, or a nugget or three about a song, as I listened to it. And here we are, “Spotify is rolling out a new ‘About the Song’ feature that lets users explore the stories behind the music they’re listening to.”
➕ Quick Hits
This is pretty big, Netflix. If you hadn’t heard, BTS is coming back. The biggest band in the world has been away for over three years, and will return with a new album in March. BUT, they will also be Live on Netflix. ‘BTS THE COMEBACK LIVE | ARIRANG’ will stream exclusively on Netflix on March 21.
An AI storytelling platform has launched an app for Connected TVs. Escape.ai describes itself as “a curated destination for what it calls ‘Neo Cinema’, a mix of short form films, episodic series, animation, and genre experiments created using generative AI tools alongside traditional filmmaking workflow”. Anything AI, then.
Forbes tries to explore Why You Should Hire A Chief Content Officer. Well, should you? “In essence, they are transforming their brands into media entities in their own right.”
