Idea IS the format

The thing I hate the most about advertising...

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Light) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 07:13:00 +0000

Checking into the Love Hotel

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Light) — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 22:00:00 +0000

Photo reproduced without the kind permission of Steve A. J. Beijer

The building absorbs the force of yet another blast, and the light of the neon flickers back into life. My eyes fall open, as I list like a drunk, soaking up the aftershock. All around me I can see bodies, soft pale bodies, writhing in ecstasy all over the dirty dusty dance-floor. I can see friends, drawn together from across the decades, finding each other just for tonight, and losing it together once again.

For a derelict farm building, the Love Hotel makes one hell of a club. The dance-floor is small enough to fill, large enough to lose yourself on, and has nothing but night sky for a ceiling. Walled in by the hard-working bar and a host of bunker-like boudoirs, each furnished with faux antiquities and decorated with a better class of graffiti, it looks like everybody here is on their honeymoon.

Me, I’m bouncing round the dance-floor like a spaghetti pinball. Looking up, I can see the DJ dropping bombs from atop of his towering scaffold, musical hand grenades for us to jump on as soon as they hit the floor, sending limbs into the dirty air, slamming bodies against the bare concrete walls. I can see one of the 'wasabi peas' up there, bobbing around behind the turntables. There are five of them, at the last count, scattered around the grounds of this 16^th Century Hertfordshire manor. They’re wearing green one-piece speed-skating outfits and scandalising passers-by with the unnatural contours of their drug-addled genitalia. Like the eighteen hundred other people who made it along for the weekend, they’re bringing their own little piece of Japan to the party.

We may be in costume, but this is no dress rehearsal. It’s Standon Calling, one of the smallest most perfectly formed festivals here or hereabouts. By which I mean on this planet, or any that happen to be nearby. Some take the view that it’s nothing more than a glorified birthday party, one that’s spiralled wilfully out of control ever since the young and impetuous Alexander Trenchard Esq. turned twenty one, seven long years ago.

I’m here to tell you that it’s very much under control, executed with the discipline and military precision you’d expect from somebody whose great grandfather founded a little flying outfit some of us know as the RAF. What would the late Viscount Trenchard think, were he here today? Surely he’d like our fighting spirit, we flying aces, who go up tiddly up up, and down diddly down, but never, ever say die.

He wouldn’t have been crazy about Marko. Not because Marko’s housed inside the flame-licked exterior of a Japanese fighter plane, with a Tesco carrier bag tied bandana-style around his head and a yellow kimono hanging from his comically elongated body. Not because Marko’s looking to go kamikaze on some poor unsuspecting Tokyo schoolgirl, with a wildness in his eyes promising dishonour before death. Just because, beneath all the bodywork and bravado, Marko’s French.

He’s just one of the stray dogs, the kind of gifted degenerate it’s good to swim with on days like these. We’ve been mooching around since midday, kicking our heels and catching up with one another, here to meet the people we’ve become. We’ve gotten our bearings, blown away the cobwebs, and charged our glasses with the choice of a thousand poisons.

Now we’re tearing up the script on the dance-floor, scribbling out our own impulsive little libretto, orchestrated in the moment. I can feel the music in my bones, this soundtrack to my life, a roadmap to the memories it recalls. Each song belongs to a time, a place, a person, some of whom are here to share it with me, one of whom has been here for as long as I have, even though I only got to know her ten happy years ago. Every time I look into her eyes I see a kaleidoscope of memories, stretching back over a decade. Deep brown eyes, smiling like rubies, full of light and colour stolen from the lollapalooza of life.

This post was supposed to be about Standon, but really its about her. In a way, they all are. She's the energy and the inspiration, the muse to whatever artistry there is in me, and the colour on my palette. I’ve made my share of mistakes in this life, and I’m sure I’ll make plenty more, but whatever words I found ten years ago to convince her that I was worth being with, worth staying with, were the most important words I’ve ever spoken, or written down. It was the rightest thing I've ever done. It got me a room at the Love Hotel, and I’m never checking out.

Emma and I met ten years ago to the day, and have been married for exactly five. I’m not sure I’ll ever find the words to tell her - or you - what she means to me, but I’ll keep looking.

Life's a beach

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Light) — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 22:13:00 +0000

This picture was taken a couple of weekends ago, when my dad's side of the family got together for a seventieth birthday party in Porlock. We didn't see them as much as my mum's side when we were growing up, and it was great to be reminded what an unusual and interesting group of people they are.

Lola and I went down to the beach, with a few others. My sister was there, she took this photo. It reminds me of pictures I've seen of my dad when I was Lola's age. As a family we spent a lot of time at the beach, all along the English coastline, pottering around.

It was somewhere we all seemed to be able to find something to occupy ourselves, but often that would be no more than to sit around together turning over rocks, looking into pools, talking things over.

To a passer-by might have looked as though we were just passing time. But we were in a tidal zone, where the water meets the shore, waves washing over rocks, teeming with life. It was where I saw my family come alive. Now I get to see it all over again.

Death of a door-to-door jumble salesman

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Light) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:44:00 +0000

I started twiddling the idea of anti-social marketing between my proverbial thumbs a week or two ago.

Anti-social marketing is television commercials.

It’s advertising hoardings, bus sides and posters on the underground.

It’s direct mail, leaflets through your letterbox and flyers underneath your windscreen wiper.

It’s banners, overlays and pop-ups.

It’s spam.

Some anti-social marketing thinks that by being creative and clever it can become artistic and intellectual and, ever so occasionally, it’s almost right.

More often anti-social marketing’s about people finding ways to interrupt our sentences in order to tell us about something we weren’t talking about, aren’t interested in and have no pressing need for.

The fact that we’re being interrupted may even predispose us negatively towards something we would have otherwise had a genuine interest in.

Instead we’re subjected to a process that’s as profligate in its indiscrimination as it is prescriptive in its approach, telling us what we should and shouldn’t think about something and why it is or isn’t of interest to us.

Anti-social marketing operates on the basic principle that our time and attention can be bought and sold in the marketplace. It does so with a brazen indifference to the question of how we might feel about that.

It’s a bit like being at a jumble sale.

(I think Americans call it a ‘yard sale’.)

There may be a few items of genuine interest kicking about. Maybe we’ll even buy something (even though it may well turn out that we didn’t really want or need it after all).

Most of the stuff will be junk though, of little more than curiosity value. We’ll peer down our noses at it for a little while then wander on.

Anti-social marketing is actually worse than being at a jumble sale. At least if we're at a jumble sale it's because we probably chose to be there, because we didn’t have anything better to do, and we had some time to kill, and we felt like killing it digging through a huge pile of vinyl on the off-chance of discovering a pristeen signed copy of Pet Sounds.

Anti-social marketing is more like a door-to-door jumble salesman.

He figures just because I have a door that gives him the right to knock on it. He knows that I’ll have to answer the door in order to find out who’s knocking, and that this will create a tiny window of opportunity in which he may be able to seize my attention with some random trinket.

He has to knock on a lot of doors, and he has to drag his box of jumble around with him. It’s hard work, but it’s all he knows, and he can always rely on the fact that if he knocks loud enough and long enough on enough doors sooner or later he’ll sell something to somebody (even though it may well turn out that they didn’t really want or need it after all).

He doesn’t really care how much of everybody’s time he wastes in the process. As far as he’s concerned his time is at a premium, and nobody else’s is. This is anti-social behaviour, and he is an anti-social marketer.

For a long time anti-social marketing was pretty much the only way anybody tended to find out about things they might want or need.

The only other way we’d find out about anything was word-of-mouth. Word-of-mouth was great, in that the person telling us about something was probably a friend of ours, who knew us reasonably well, and had our best interests at heart. The problem with word-of-mouth was that we could only have one conversation at any one time, in the pub, on the telephone or gathered around the office water-cooler.

Then we invented the internet. We invented email. We invented ICQ, and forums and notice-boards. We invented instant messaging, chat rooms, blogs and social networks. We invented a thousand and one ways for us to connect with like-minded people, and to effortlessly express our enthusiasm for something some of those people might want or need. Word-of-mouth became word-of-mouse, and we began to have a thousand conversations at once.

At the same time, the advent of interactive media created a problem for the door-to-door jumble salesman.

We could see him coming.

It became our new surveillance system; a network of platforms and media empowering us to filter out the noise. As we continue to engage with these tools, and the greater control they grant us, our mindsets change. We no longer accept the door-knocking as a fact of life. Some of us don’t even notice it, subconsciously blinding ourselves to banner ads on web pages, or using Sky+ to very deliberately skip the ads every time a commercial break comes on.

Instead we’re busier than ever talking to each other, about the things we love, the things we hate, the things we want and need. All around us ‘social marketers’ are igniting conversations, fanning the flames with genuine care and attention, and fuelled them with fresh content and collaborative creativity, growing colourful communities around the campfires of our bright ideas.

Who watches the Watchmen? We do ≠)

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Light) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 15:16:00 +0000

Here it is. It might not be the chock full of content right now, but just look at how many days we've got left to fill it with all manner of Watchmen goodness!

The beautiful word

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Light) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:29:00 +0000

Click on this to enlarge. More info here. Thanks Sizemore.

Starting early

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Light) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 22:36:00 +0000

I spent this morning at the Cast & Crew screening of Angus, Thongs & Perfect Snogging, at the invitation of director Gurinder Chadha (Bend It Like Beckham, Bride & Prejudice). I met her and her husband Paul on Thursday to discuss the forthcoming development of her own website, and she suggested that I toddle along to the screening this morning. So I did.

We've been working hard on the movie's marketing campaign over the past year or so, so I'd already glimpsed quite a lot of the characters in some shape or form. I was even fortunate enough to spend a day on set back in November of last year, filming a selection of original scripted material for use as part of our campaign. I blogged about the experience at the time, acknowledging how unusual it is for marketers to be given this kind of creative latitude so early in the process.

The film's still not out for another three and a half weeks, but we can already see our approach paying off in terms of the momentum the campaign has built up, at a point in the process where some online campaigns are still only just getting going.

Our long lead destination was an official Bebo profile we created for the character of Georgia. Bebo is traditionally very strong for exactly the same demographic as the book's core fans; teen girls, basically. Our intention was to harness Bebo's social networking tools to build a micro-community of fans and early adopters around the original content we'd produced, released over the course of the campaign as webisodes. Last time I looked, six months on, Georgia had over 4,000 friends, and the profile had been viewed almost 60,000 times.

Our strategy for the latter stages of the campaign has been to look at how we can widen this core awareness and anticipation into mainstream appeal. Certainly the official website we developed - one of my favourite examples of PPC's work from the seven years I've been there - is seeing levels of traffic suggesting that we've already succeeded in doing so.

Add to this the official widget (up there at the top of this post), a MySpace page for the band in the movie, The Stiff Dylans, and the forthcoming online advertising campaign (including a direct spend on Bebo) and you have the key constituents of what I immodestly consider to be a hugely progressive online marketing campaign.

What it really reinforces for me, which may seem blindingly obvious but is so often forgotten, is that online isn't something to sit behind the more traditional strands of the marketing process, such as the production of the trailer, or the design of a poster.

As a director who is prepared to entrust her movie into the hands of the distributor - and their agency - at an early stage, Gurinder is in good company; both JJ Abrams and Zack Snyder have shown that this can be an effective approach when applied to major Hollywood releases. As their currency continues to grow, and a generation of more traditional directors fall away, expect more online campaigns to start the moment a movie goes into production, and end only once the last sequel has been made, and the last DVD sold.

The truth is in here...

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Light) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 22:02:00 +0000

So this is new. It's the brainchild of Seesmic, Fox and Gia Milinovich, the latter being a blogger friend and collaborator on the Indy 4 video junket:

The embeddable version of Seesmic is a bit clunky generally, but what does that matter? What's of interest is that this is a smart little mash-up of that stalwart unit of movie marketing currency, the trailer, and the current trend for (pseudo-)threaded video conversations.

From what I understand the plan is to release a series of X-Files video clips and to drive online conversation and community around these through the player. It will be interesting to see how many 'X-philes' feel compelled to join the discussion, but from what Gia says this has already been embedded over 2,000 times, and I know from our own experiences working with movie widgets that this is a very respectable number, especially after such a short space of time.

CORRECTION: This stat actually refers to the text chat widget shown below, and the total figure is 2,300 at present, apparently:

Gia's been doing some very inventive things in the social media movie marketing space for some time, as you can see from her blog; she manages to keep a foot firmly in both camps, which is not always an easy thing to do. I've never been a major X-Files fan, but I still get a major kick out of seeing how the web can bring people together around a common interest, and create a new medium in which for them to share ideas and forge friendships.

That, for me, is what social media is all about.

Introducing... Goldberg

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Light) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 14:42:00 +0000

Goldberg looked out from beneath the brow of his denim sunhat and quietly contemplated the Adriatic. In the very periphery of his twenty-twenty vision he saw that the tranny had just arrived for breakfast. Delicately adjusting the low slung hat, pulling the brim a fraction further over deep-set eyes, he had ever more the air of a man entered into a conspiracy with himself.

The dining terrace was already buzzing with activity. Shards of sunlight cut through the blinds and canopies, drawing acute triangles of heat and light across the floors and starched white tablecloths. Olive-skinned staff went to and fro between the tables delivering pots of tea and coffee to the guests, some of whom appeared to be doing a far better job than others of coming to terms with the whole business of being awake, alive, anew, atop the ski-run of yet another day in their many indifferent lives.

Goldberg took up his newspaper and permitted himself another look. She wore a lilac blouse, a white chiffon scarf twirled once around her neck before sweeping down between breasts the ampleness of which she could only imagine. Her skirt, a knee-length number with lace trim, served only to accentuate the workman-like musculature of her legs, stacked on top of some wildly ambitious heels. Where others present looked as though they’d fallen out of bed onto the awaiting chairs, she alone had the appearance of having come direct from yet another gala luncheon.

He found himself wondering why it was that gentlemen drawn to transvestism, however tender their years, felt compelled to dress, decorate and upholster themselves in the style of women with at least three children behind them, and not much to look forward to beyond the next Felicity Cummings novel.

Her make-up was a masterpiece of over-compensation. Alongside lashings of concealer, blusher and eyeshadow, her strawberry red lips were drawn into an exaggerated purse, by which she looked as though she was forever on the brink of taking umbrage at some mischievous remark. In spite of it all, an ominous shadow still fell over the lower portion of her face, the likes of which no razor could remove, nor foundation conceal.

Goldberg had first spied her at dinner the evening he arrived; she was fingering a prawn and dressed for bingo. It was buffet service – Goldberg loathed buffets – and he was already smarting at a reprimand from a Cretan waiter per se the fact that he was wearing a pair of shorts; as if it were possible to apply a dress code to an all-you-can-eat dinner service. It had only exacerbated his indignation to note that the tranny was sporting a pair of chartreuse yellow culottes, apparently without reproach.

At the time she’d been wearing a pair of hoop earrings you could have dunked a basketball through, conceived no doubt to deflect attention away from her broad shoulders and prosaic neckline. Today a pair of tapering silver shards flashed and flickered in the morning sun, in concert with the gentle bobbing of her Adam’s apple as she ordered breakfast.

Methinks, thought Goldberg wryly, the lady doth protest too much.

___

Regular readers of my blog may have noticed that it's been a while since I posted anything of substance, or born of any real endeavour. That's because I've been busy creating Goldberg, who I'd promised to unveil to a few of you once he was ready.

The Learned Mr James Scudamore, a trusted friend and published novelist, advised me against pursuing my plan to publish an entire first chapter, on the basis that any feedback I received - good or bad - would distract me from the more pressing business of writing chapters 2, 3, 12, 19 etc.

As such, I decided to put these opening few paragraphs out there, and will be largely disregarding any feedback I receive, unless it comes in the form of earnest encouragement to press ahead.

Those of you who know me well, among whose ranks I count myself, will now be watching with interest to see if Goldberg ever makes another appearance, or if he becomes yet another casualty of my congenital inability to stick to one particular task.

Whatever the case, he has become another creation of mine of whom I am already peculiarly fond, and, for the time being at least, continues to serve as a very satisfying outlet for my urge to write, and to fantasize.

Kung Fu Panda Widget

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Light) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 12:18:00 +0000

Neil Diamond

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Light) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 15:54:00 +0000

This was taken at the start of the Neil Diamond gig Ems and I went to on Saturday night at the O2 Arena. You should be able to click on it to get the full size photo. It's just a camera phone picture, and you can't really get a sense of the size of the 15,000-strong crowd, but the moment was electric, and I think that comes across somehow.

At 67 it's just incredible how well-preserved Diamond's voice is, and how energised a performance he gives. Ems and I have also seen both Elton John and Brian Wilson perform live in the last couple of years, but this was the stand-out gig for us. We both grew up listening to Neil Diamond, but neither of us had realised what an incredible showman he is.

The O2 Arena itself (formerly the Millenium Dome) is a great venue for live music, although maybe it's testimony to Diamond that he managed to make such a huge space feel so intimate. The concert area is encircled by a complex of bars, clubs, restaurants, shops and even a cinema, all of which looks slightly like something out of crap seventies sci-fi, especially when its populated by 15,000 Neil Diamond fans all trying to roll back the years.

I have some other photos, but I need to get them into Photoshop before I post them. I'll try and add them as an update over the next day or two.

Requiem for a Day Off

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Light) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 06:18:00 +0000

Two great movies. One of my favourite mash-ups:

Jesus and the Dinosaurs

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Light) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:32:00 +0000

There are many things to enjoy here, but I think the thing I love the most is how beautifully coloured-in it is.

Saturday

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Light) — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 09:40:00 +0000

These two photos ought to tell the story of a pretty perfect Saturday. An afternoon at the Natural History Museum...

...followed by an evening in the garden preparing lovely fresh mackerel, barbecued and served up with some of that pak choi you can see growing in the background, seasoned thai-style and wok-fried by the infinitely versatile Mrs Light.

I love days like these, full of things that come naturally. I hope I can raise my kids to appreciate them as much as I do, and I hope they have the opportunity.

WIDGET DO AGENTE 86

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Light) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 15:37:00 +0000

This is taken from the Brazilian version of the Quest for Global Domination, created for Warner Bros International to promote the forthcoming release of GET SMART (to be released in Brazil under the name "Agente 86").

I created this agent ID for little Rubes, who is a KAOS agent. When I get the chance I'll sign Lola up to CONTROL, and they can have their own little Quest for Parental Domination.

Radishes

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Light) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 19:59:00 +0000

These are just some of the lovely flavoursome beauties I plucked from my patch last night, mixed up into a wonderful salad along with thinning from five varieties of lettuce and served within thirty minutes of leaving the ground.

Cracking episode of Hackney Garden on the way, showing the extent of my kitchen garden goodness, just as soon as I manage to find one of the several hundred firewire cables currently hidden around our home.

The Choice Is Yours

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Light) — Fri, 23 May 2008 17:33:00 +0000

The first of five great little mini-games we're producing to promote WANTED, a new movie by Timur Bekmambetov starring James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman and loosely based on the excellent graphic novel by Mark Millar:

Han & Dan

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Light) — Wed, 21 May 2008 14:11:00 +0000

Another bit of multimedia memorabilia from the Indy junket, courtesy of Mike:

Seesmic du jour 149: Indiana Jones 4 in Seesmic

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Light) — Wed, 21 May 2008 01:26:00 +0000

Seriously doubt I'll be able to improve on this, however long I spend in Windows Movie Maker - Vinvin from Seesmic on the Indiana Jones gig:

Indiana Jones and the Online Video Junket

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Light) — Mon, 19 May 2008 11:22:00 +0000

Much to report on the Indiana Jones film-maker interviews we posted to Seesmic from Cannes on Saturday, and not much time to do it.

Want to post some of my favourite bits of video from the event, at the very least:

Steven Spielberg rules out ever making an Indiana Jones movie without Harrison Ford:

George Lucas talks about the breadth of the franchise's appeal:

Harrison Ford talks about his favourite stunts:

Karen Allen talks about her favourite movie soundtracks:

Shia LaBoeuf talks about his favourite Indiana Jones movie:

Cate Blanchett talks about being a baddie:

Everyone involved seems to agree that this last question represents the real high-point of the event, insofar as we succeeded in taking a question from a Seesmic user via Twitter during the course of the event and putting it to a film-maker - much harder than you'd think when you consider that we only had ten minutes with each of them.

This has already been picked up by a number of pretty high profile blogs, the pick of which I'll post here (if you find anything that I've missed pls post it in a comment):

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/digitalcontent/2008/05/spielberg_pops_up_on_seesmic.html

http://scobleizer.com/2008/05/17/celebrity-tipping-point-on-seesmic/

http://mashable.com/2008/05/17/indiana-jones-goes-seesmic/

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/17/dont-screw-your-partners-over-a-marketing-promotion/

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/seesmic_goes_hollywood.php

http://www.behindthebuzz.com/indiana-jones-on-seesmic/

http://www.techmeme.com/080517/p14

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2008/05/spielberg_on_seesmic.html

http://bernardmoon.blogspot.com/2008/05/seesmic-spielberg-and-ford.html

http://www.loiclemeur.com/english/2008/05/steven-spielber.html

http://www.thebillblog.com/billblog/index.php/2008/05/17/steven-spielberg-interviewed-on-seesmic/

http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/news/indiana-jones-and-friends-take-to-the-web-on-seesmic.php

I'll post more fully on this at some point, and hopefully address some of the considerable amount of misinformation kicking around about this event (not least the suggestion that it was initiated by Seesmic themselves, or that money changed hands between Seesmic and Paramount), and why it played out the way it did.

In the mean time I have to thank Dom, Gia, Saf and Mike for each having crucial input into the planning and execution of this; Vinvin at Seesmic for fighting our corner at his end on this and other projects; and Heath at Paramount Pictures International for giving it the green light in the first place.

(updated 19/06/08 - I realise this isn't the bloody Oscars, but it would be remiss of me not to add in a little big up to John, who met us at the eleventh hour in the foyer of the Carleton, and was bloody marvellous, and found us a great little bar, and fed us beer, and told us exactly how we should do things, and was completely right.)

Finally, a little excerpt from the preparations on the morning of the event, courtesy of Mike:

Start getting ready for WALL:E

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Light) — Wed, 14 May 2008 22:27:00 +0000

We've been preparing for the arrival of WALL:E for a while, and I know Pixar are second to none in terms of bringing non-human characters to life, but I still wasn't ready for this:

If seen a little bit of WALL:E so far and he looks like a lot of fun - I can't wait to see the little guy working the red carpet.

The Dark Knight: 40 hi-res stills

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Light) — Mon, 12 May 2008 02:15:00 +0000

Just two of forty hi-res stills on slashfilm. None of them are spoilers as far as I can see.

Alan Moore reads Rorschach's Journal

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Light) — Sat, 10 May 2008 20:51:00 +0000

For anybody wondering what to expect from WATCHMEN (recently wrapped by Zack Snyder and co. and due out on March 6 2009) here's a glimpse of where it begins; with the unfathomable mind of writer Alan Moore; with the classic style of illustrator Dave Gibbons; and with the initial unravelling of a mystery pursued to it's epochal conclusion by the disturbed and poetic vigilante Rorschach:

The Dark Knight returns

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Light) — Fri, 09 May 2008 06:47:00 +0000

I'm about a week late with these, but hell, I can't be everywhere at once.

I love the way the fire brings a warmth to this piece of artwork, writing destruction upon Gotham in Batman's own motif, supplemented by a pleasingly unostentatious copy line. There's a real ambiguity here - the bat-sign feels like an open wound in a city where true heroism sometimes requires you to amputate a limb in order to preserve the body.
___

Batman almost looks as though he is on horseback here, reminiscent of the original American vigilantes, bringing rough justice to a wild, lawless and amoral west. This one-sheet is also scarred with a little heat and warmth, emphasising it's otherwise gothic feel.
___

Here they are - the triumvirate of moral misdirection. I love the way we're seeing them like this, shoulder to shoulder, each with something to hide. Each character has been so strongly developed through the campaign, I'm already seeing past the players who portray them, and into the world they inhabit.
___

This echoes one of the earlier teasers in terms of how it situates Batman. It's a strange, bold piece of artwork, seeming to capture a moment in isolation, putting Batman at odds with Gotham itself.
_ _ _

Disclosure: there are a lot of big movies coming out this summer, and I'm lucky enough to be working on most of them, including this one. However, as I've said before, if anybody thinks I'm blogging this for any other reason than because I'm childishly excited about The Dark Knight, they should come say it to my face. Between The Dark Knight and Watchmen, now is the time for the genre of comics in film to mature in the same way the printed equivalents did back in the early eighties. That's what I'm gunning for. And it has fuck all to do with marketing.

Another brick in the wall

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Light) — Thu, 08 May 2008 08:10:00 +0000

I first heard that Lego were creating a virtual world of their own - Lego Universe - about six months ago, and I knew then that it had MASSIVE potential.

Now I see this concept art on the blog of friend and collaborator Annie Ok, originating from an article on Reuters announcing that Lego Universe will be launching next year, letting players 'create online versions of themselves and interact with each other'.

I often cite Lego as the point of origin for my career as a web develop and interactive marketer. Even as a child I had an innate appreciation of its integral fusion of aesthetics and narrative, and the freedom this gave me to unleash my imagination in colourful and compelling ways. Truth be told, my inner child is pretty damn excited about Lego Universe, and can't wait to introduce my actual kids to what I hope will be a world of consumate creativity and user-generated story-telling.