“Déjeuner du Matin” selected for the 41st International Festival in Huesca
This is the 8th selection for Déjeuner du Matin, and it’s a major selection indeed! Our film was chosen for the international short film competition at the International Festival in Huesca, Spain. This historic festival is one of the oldest in Spain (this is its 41st year) and also one of the most well-respected, since it’s one of the only Oscar-qualifying short film festival in Spain.
The festival runs from June 10 to June 16, 2013, and we will most probably be in attendance. Find out more by visiting the festival website.
Don’t forget that the Huesca Festival is also well-known for its… posters, which are designed every year by a major Spanish graphic artist and illustrator. We have included 3 examples below, but you can also explore and admire the complete collection.
“Déjeuner du Matin” selected for the Salón Internacional de la Luz in Colombia
First Europe and India, and now we’re headed to Latin America! We are delighted to announce that Déjeuner du Matin was selected for screening at the Salón Internacional de la Luz in Bogota, the capital of Colombia.
This selection makes us immensely happy because the Salón is a film festival devoted cinematography and to creative use of light and color. Honors go to Director of Photography Richard Spierings in this selection of some 80 short films from almost as many countries. Each and every one of these films is outstanding for its aesthetic power.
Déjeuner du Matin will be screened on Thursday, May 9th at the Cinemateca Distrital in Bogotá. View the festival program here.
Evian-Safia: so who copied whom?
A highly amusing little episode.
Three days ago, Evian’s ad with babies came out and made a huge splash, with more than 11 million views. Great, right? Yes, indeed, this ad is wonderful.
Except…
Our marketing colleague, Sharon Sofer, quickly pointed out to us that she had already seen this video somewhere else. Last summer, Safia, a Tunisian mineral water company had in fact produced a quite similar ad…judge for yourself.
So who copied whom? Some might cry that this is Evian committing plagiarism, and other might say that no, on the contrary, the baby idea came from Evian. Still others will say that Evian took an average ad as its inspiration and turned it into a triumphant idea. Only the ad executives behind these two campaigns know the answer. Who knows, maybe Safia will benefit from the spotlight cast by Evian after all, and then everyone will be happy!
Just a quick note: if this involved the fine arts, inspiration or even homage would have been invoked. So why in the commercial realm do people immediately call out with charges of plagiarism? Maybe ad executives get less leeway because they are paid to come up with ideas? Anyway, we say thank you for a few moments of amusement.
PS: if you haven’t seen the Evian ad, here it is.
Best Google Glass Video Parody
Last February, an amazing Google video was released to promote its new Glass prototype: a wearable computer with a head-mounted display. It can take pictures and videos, search the web, start a Google+ hangout, translate speech, give directions and send messages. At this time it was only a research and development project, but last Wednesday a lucky select group of developers (who had paid $1,500 to receive one) had the chance to test it.
Besides the amazing technological advance, those intelligent glasses are bringing a debate about both privacy and safety issues. What if the person in front of you is secretly recording your private conversations?
Despite the fact that we are curious to see if those glasses would be the future of camera, there is not unanimous approval among our team. What about you? Are you ready to hear “Ok glass” all day long?
Several parodies are circulating on the web, among others this funny one.
A video game selected to a film festival, the silent revolution
The line between films and video games is actually becoming thinner all the time…
On the gaming side, actors are hired and their expressions are captured via Motion Capture, making possible to generate any desired sort of acting. The results are still not completely believable emotions but the engineers and designers, who based their work on the work of Dr Paul Ekman, seem to say that scanning a limited number of facial expressions should allow them to recreate the 3000 expressions Ekman has identified.
On the film side, a few experiments have been conducted, like this horror short film in Germany, where the actor in the film would call somebody in the audience to ask for instructions on which way to go. For Martin Scorcese, directors will in the future become orchestra conductors, bringing films an audience with several scenarios, the audience deciding what comes next.
All this sounds quite promising, and disturbing as well for us filmmakers. Is it good or bad for films as we know them? In any case, a little revolution happened this week, with few people noticing: for the first time, a video game has been selected to a film festival! That’s the case of Beyond, who has been selected to the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival , an important NY independant festival. Beyond casted Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe and will be released in October 2013 on Playstation 3.
First agency representing us!
I am excited to share the news: 2 years after quitting Philips to start my film business, convinced by the fact we can change the way companies communicate with their employees, Studio Tenenbaum has been approached by an agency.
Aquent is a multinational agency providing creatives in Design and Marketing to Fortune 1000 companies. They were impressed by our approach to corporate communications and will represent us among their customers. We are excited about this collaboration and looking forward to future projects with them!
Heineken – The Candidate: is this internal branding or external marketing?
We’ve been very impressed with this video made by Heineken, the famous Dutch beer company.
Is it internal branding or pure marketing? Given the amount of money it must have cost to display this film during the Champion’s League game, and the fact it’s obviously designed to become viral, there is not much doubt. It is a pure brand marketing video, but it differentiates by pointing out how great the Heineken employees are, and how great their HR selection process is. I wonder if it irritated the employees (why do we make such a fuss about an intern?) or if, quite the contrary, they found it really cool. As we already pointed out in the post about great corporate communications, it is probably a fantastic tool for internal branding, as long as the company values truly reflect what is shown in this video.
In short, if Heineken is really a cool company to work for, and if employees feel it everyday, they’re probably going to love this video. But if it’s just something that came out of the creatives of the advertisement agency that works for Heineken, and that life within the company doesn’t reflect this at all, there might be many skeptical employees. and the effect might be counter-productive. So remember, a great internal culture doesn’t come from external marketing.
By the way, can you imagine how it is now for this intern working there?
- Hi, I’m Guy Lu…
- Yes, I know you who are.
- Hemm okaye.
Great interns? Yes, they do exist. Welkom, Alice!
We are happy to introduce you to our new intern, Alice Bonnot.
Alice is studying at Cesem de Reims, and is following a double degree course at Dublin City University. She immediatly convinced us thanks to her passion, her great understanding of all our challenges, and her independance. She’s already working hard on many projects, and will stay for 6 months.
So as they say in the Thalys: Bienvenue, Welkom, Wilkommen!
PS: Contrary to popular opinion, we do not exploit interns. They volunteer to make extra hours.
What happens when Google mixes e-commerce up with real life?
Here’s a wonderful example of humor applied to the corporate world.
These three videos made for Google illustrate the problems with making online purchases. Three situations we have all faced regularly when trying to purchase something on the Internet, applied here to life off-line. The reason it’s funny is because of how absurd it is. Why does it work? The goal of these videos isn’t simply to entertain. They also push Web creators to get some perspective and think about solutions to today’s problems. So when you realize that the current system is absurd, you’ll be motivated to think up new solutions. (By the way, if anyone knows the agency that came up with this campaign, tell us, because we couldn’t find it).
This series of videos reminds me of an older one that uses the same type of humor. This one was about client relations. Do you know of any others? Post them here. We’d love to see them.
“Déjeuner du Matin” selected to Jaipur International Film Festival
Déjeuner du matin travels to the Pink City… We are selected to the Jaipur International Film Festival, in Rajhastan, India!
JIFF continues beeing the fastest growing festival in India, with films selected from 90 different countries. Festival is held from January 30th to 03rd February, 2013.
They say Jaipur is the Paris of India… not bad place for a film about love!
