Loves this: Designer Zef Narkiewiczi

It's not often I am captivated by the sheer spirit and talent of someone, but Zef Narkiewiczi's work is pretty amazing. He is a dab hand at the whole graphic design thing + resides in one of my all time favourite places, Falmouth. Here are some of my favourite examples of his talent:

Angry Note

Food Colouring

Disco Zebra

Zebras have excellent eyesight. from Zef Narkiewicz on Vimeo.

Sex Olympics

His Ceefax CV: Must See!

This is what Zef’s CV looks like.

Nice & Quick: 2011 Content Marketing Grid

The Content Grid v2 (double click for the extra large version) – an Eloqua + JESS3 infographic.  

Robotic-ism

I've invented a new phrase (well I think it's original), probably doomed to only ever to be uttered by myself, Robotic-ism. It's to show love and express a little bit of the thrill that I experience for bio-mechanical engineering, or just Robotics. I distinctly remember my introduction to robotics via the films Metropolis and Aliens, which both featured uber-hot robotic suits. Then this week sees the UK release of epic computer game Deus Ex Human Revolution, of which a central theme is cybernetic limbs and human augmentation. Now this post could easily turn into a whole PhD, and to keep it clean and simple, I am going to show-case five prime Robotic-ism moments:

1. Deus Ex Human Revolution E3 2010 Trailer [HD]

It's 2027 and time of great innovation and technological advancement. It's also a time of chaos and conspiracy..... Check out this trailer for a prequel to what is considered the 'Best PC Game of All Time.'

2. Iron Man Suiting Up

3. 'Get Away From Her You .....' Ripley in her Loader Suit in Aliens

4. Maria's Transformation in Metropolis (filmed in 1927)

5. And then Sometimes They Are Just All Wrong

Finally, the Perfect Woman called Lisa

Okay, then it gets a bit weird. In researching this piece, I discovered the story about two Japanese engineers who have designed the perfect woman, brilliantly named Lisa. Whilst I am more interested in the bio-mechanical side of things, I suppose there is that Bladerunner-esque android market out there. However, I do find it a bit creepy and definitely not Robotic-ism. Check her out. What do you think?

MARVEL STUDIOS: Going Big on Entertaining us Mortals

Marvel on a Superhero roll

It's all about Marvel at the moment; the other day we had a Thor, Iron Man 1 & 2 movie marathon. I really got into the Shakespearian style conflicts, the good old will-or-won't they chemistry between the leads and the pretty amazing soundtracks. Plus, I do enjoy techno-gadget-costume fantasy sequences, apparently the military are actually testing out an Iron Man suit for combat, read here about the XOS2 suit - pronounced 'exo'. With all this in mind, I thought it'd be interesting to take a quick look at Marvel's success and story to date.

Thunderous Box-Office Performance
Thor looks like it will storm the Box-Office and replicate the kind of takings for Marvel Studios, that Iron Man achieved. So far it has collected £6.4 million already in the UK and $93 million in the US. Iron Man 1 & 2 collectively made over a BILLION. It hasn't always been this successful for Marvel comic creations, I took a look over their box-office receipts since the release of their first feature in 1986, the legendary dud, Howard the Duck.

Howard the Duck cost Universal $30 million to produce and took just $37 million worldwide. So the film broke even but the studio took a huge hit financially and critically. It took eleven years before another Marvel creation made it to the multi-plex, this time Sony took the risk. Men in Black, produced for $90million made a staggering $590 million world-wide. Then in the summer of 1996, Marvel Studios was set-up. They re-claimed their comic book creations and produced a mix of high profile, Spider-man, X-Men, and lesser well known comic book hero films, The Punisher, Elektra.

Disney's Epic Strategy
Interesting to note Marvel Studios produced two Hulks, both made with comparable budgets and generating similar Box Office. I'm curious why they re-made it - did they expect a bigger success on second outing? I think Marvel know now to never have a Duck in their movie title, and stick to featuring the words 'Man' and 'Men'.

In 2009, Disney bought Marvel Studios for $4billion, so that kind of explains their strategy for releasing in quick succession Thor, Captain America, Iron Man over the last few years. They are acquiring and building audiences for this EPIC outing: 

All-Star Superhero Film 'The Avengers'
I am really late on this, however Marvel studios announced at the 2010 at Comic-Con how they are putting all of their top heroes into one movie, The Avengers. 'That's the most ambitious movie ever seen', quipped Robert Downey Jnr at the all-star press announcement. See the press call video, it's quite exciting.

It's going to be HUGE. Then again, I have been writing lately about giving fans too much of what they want, which is not a bad thing, but the danger of over-kill. I really hope this is not a super-hero packed nightmare of s competing stories and OTT marketing. It will be really interesting to see how they integrate the different worlds of the heroes. In the meanwhile, check out this fan-made poster, I mean look at it, I am already picking on being on the Hulk's side.

Where New TV is At: YouTube's Next New Networks

YouTube's Investment in User Generated Content

Exciting news about YouTube's acquisition of Next New Networks and creation of YouTube Next, a team that will focus on 'supercharging content creator development on YouTube, driving deeper expertise in partner audience development, and incubating new ideas that can be shared with the broader community.'

One of Next New Networks' projects is Beyond the Trailer which is a YouTube movie review channel fronted by Grace Randolph (in the video above) because she says 'Movie Critics Can't be Trusted'. She is very funny and her channel shows what a little bit of marketing and investment can do. Apparently since signing with Next New Networks, she has developed her show and built up a strong audience (in September 2010 alone, BTT racked up 2.8 million views).

Essentially, it seems that Next New Networks is YouTube's plan to help amateurs/or online producers take it to the next level. What I find personally exciting this this invitation from Next New Networks:

So what's your specific interest? Is there a community you're a part of that lacks, wants or needs shows that only the Internet can provide? Let us know. And if you're a writer, producer, or creator who's passionate about your community, then maybe you should join Next New Creators and be a crucial part of our next new network.

What does this mean for broadcasters/production companies?
Mike Henry at Ad Age Digital writes about the impact of this acquisition and investment in YouTube talent, and sees it as a red flag to traditional producers and production companies. Henry says they need to get more serious about their Multi-Platform strategies and investment, and offers these 5 tips if the want they want to be well positioned to compete with the the going-Pro YouTube creators:

5 Useful Guidelines to Producing Online Content:

1. Start with great characters and stories
2. Consider not the just age/gender/psychographic of their audience, but where and how this audience will likely consume the content
3. Carefully develop production strategies and cycles to deliver assets that can be packaged in different ways for various platforms, audience and markets
4. Consider and explore international markets from project inception
5. Place a high value on the social networks attached to talent with whom they work

My Dream Road Trip and App to Make it Possible

I've always thought how great it would be to mash up the IMDB film location page with Google Maps. About a year ago, I researched locations to my favorite movies and created my dream road-trip via Google Maps, plus tagged where I would visit my friends  Have a look below, I have plotted to visit the backdrops for many a road-movie or seminal film for me (it's a work in progress) ranging from Into the Wild to True Romance.

                                     View Lisa US Road Trip in a larger map

The point is, I only ever used IMDB to research locations and some other random sites, then I would tag the locations on my map. It was a fairly laborious process. Then I found this site today: Filmaps. It's a Film & Tv location Wiki using Google Maps, people are posting up their own tags to filming locations. You can search by film/TV series, check out the Goonies breakdown, or Into the Wild. It is pretty amazing. The only negative thing about the site, is it still doesn't get around the problem of being able to help you map out your own personal trip or plan a schedule (it doesn't let you extract the information, all the maps are locked).

Film & TV Location Tourism on the Rise

After watching surf movie Blue Crush, I went off to Oahu's North Shore (I should really post about my surf-girl culture immersion for a month there, surreal) to explore and live in the film's beautiful setting. As Filmaps' puts it:

'Sometimes the charm of the places where the films have been filmed wakes up you adventure soul and you would like to discover even visit the exactly place where the scene is taking place'.

I think there could be a market for an online service such as this, the Telegraph writes about the surge in visits to British TV locations last year.

Iconic Sights App Idea

I want to develop an online service in which people can entirely self-plan an iconic sights trip. This service is about really personalizing it; creating one seamless visit and saves you researching and flicking between a thousand screens all the info. Here's how the App would work:

• Get given a blank map of the country or area you want to visit
• Tick the iconic/film/tv-sets/books/events/areas you like to visit by country - a plot would be worked out for you by Google Directions/Mapquest. It can go from big road-trips to a day-out in London.
• A complete road-trip is produced for you, including ideas for lodging, costs, suggested activities, movie/book/music fun facts- just basically make it an amazing foolproof schedule and very easy to book stuff.

You are just integrating google-maps+iconic sights+tourist operator service= How brilliant would that be?

Random

The one thing with funny thing with google maps earlier, is I typed in Thelma and Louise, and I found this. Look closely, yes they live on as Louise Drive and Thelma Avenue in Ohio....

                                       View Larger Map...

HBO: Epic Marketing and Game of Thrones

HBO Branches Out Into More Fantasy, But Is Their Marketing Turning Off US fans?

I just posted up my Red Sonja piece yesterday, when I received at tweet from HBO promoting the trailer to their new medieval fantasy series The Game of Thrones. Have a look for yourself, as usual they take it to the next level, and it's pure cinema. Sean Bean and Lena Headey were the only faces I recognized amongst the cast, lending it that Lord of the Rings and 300 feel. The show debuted in the US on Sunday 17th April and on the UK's Sky Atlantic on Monday 18th April. What is interesting is that the show scored 2.2 million viewers in the US, and a record-breaking 743,000 viewers for Sky Atlantic. Dan's Media Digest has written an article about the show's ratings, questioning why it has done so well in the UK compared to the US  Her theory is that the show's US marketing has turned off potential viewers.

Could the usually highly tuned and progressive marketing for HBO, really have backfired? I really loved all the work they did for True Blood, it was just so imaginative, see this fantastic case-study from agency Campfire on how they used ground-breaking marketing techniques and Transmedia storytelling to get True Blood audiences looking and then hooked.

Perhaps it is going back to what I was writing about yesterday and the impact of Comic-Con, and the danger of:

a) giving fans too much of they want
b) giving away too much plot and content in advance of the show/during the show

Dan suggests this is the case, and that there was an over-kill of content, messaging, behind the scenes of the scenes, almost so fans got bored of the show before it aired. I went to look online myself, and there is masses of content, mostly for the US audiences, and across all platforms. Plus there has been a long lead time in this campaign, the show was announced back in 2009. I couldn't even get to the bottom of HBO's Game of Thrones Official Fan page on Facebook, it is absolutely epic. I have not seen much in way of marketing for the show in the UK, so perhaps part of its success here, is that it is still bit of a mystery.

Out of interest, I checked out the HBO site for Game of Thrones, to see what they are creating for the fans and it is a total treasure trove of content, from avatars, facebook apps (it can even remix your FB page), images, forums and opportunities to create stories. This content also sits in the Sky Atlantic web-pages. The thing that stood out, was this Tolkein-esque interactive map, in which you can literally journey across the show's locations. So you no longer have to go off trawling through fan-sites for created material, almost fan-fiction, without the fans.

For me, as these huge shows put together their campaigns (including trying to emulate/feed the fan-fiction world) is they need to think about restraint. I remember reading marketing communications expert Martin Hayward article earlier this year, about how marketing must align with three ‘r’s – relevance, response and restraint.

On a different note, I did snigger a bit when reading someplace it was pitched as 'Soprano's meets Middle Earth'. Is that the way to pitch HBO nowadays?