Sunday, January 13, 2008

Outside the Box

A new trend that arrived in the last 2-3 years is to create ads that will interact with the media they're in. We've seen it done brilliantly by Crispin, Porter & Bogusky on their Mini Cooper ads, where the Mini interacts with other print ads. It seems like the trend is starting to spread to TV Spots. In this one, for the upcoming movie Jumper, the trailer goes into an HP ad, and then returns to finish the trailer. It might seem like an interesting idea, but the end result looks goofy and forced. It also probably doesn't make too much sense in the concept of the movie here. So here's to hoping that future attempts of this kind are better thought through.





Saturday, January 5, 2008

Censorship

I don't want to get political here, because that's not what this blog is about, but when I heard about this, I just had to post it. Regardless of the fact that the poster that I'm going to show you is from a movie that probably has a clear political message, I still don't like to see a good idea shot down by censorship.


Here's the skinny:
The movie "Taxi to the Dark Side" is a so called documentary about torture practices of the US Army while in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo. Obviously the topic is controversial, and in times of war, that is more than enough to make people sensitive to the topic.

The poster depicts two soldiers carrying a prisoner with a hood over his head, and their shadows make the stripes of the American flag. MPAA argues that their problem with the poster is the hood and the insinuation of abuse, which isn't acceptable since the poster would be, theoretically seen by children as well. 

I won't discuss the logic or validity of such argument, but it's a shame that such a beautiful design won't be seen by the general public.