art & copy

When I got onto Netflix about two hours ago, I thought I was going to be watching Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. But, the movie gods smiled upon me and granted me a long desired wish via my Instant Queue and made my night. Ask my roommate.

I've been waiting for the documentary for about 6 months, since I first saw the (ironic) ad for it on the internet. I don't even remember how I found it, actually. My English prof assigned a book called Amusing Ourselves to Death by Niel Postman about the proliferation of the image and pictures dominating the written word and how the computer and television are "taking over the world." Pretty grim stuff, but so interesting. Definitely a recommended nonfiction read. Anyway, when I researching for topics that were related to some of the subjects mentioned in the book for a paper, I immediately thought of advertisement. The epitome of the short, image saturated communication media. My art teacher during my senior year worked in advertising before she became a teacher, and we actually did a project that involved making a company identity and making an advertisement for it. And when I stumbled across this documentary, I knew I had to watch it. Unfortunately at the time, it was only screening in certain cities, none of them remotely close to where I get at it. 

Advertising it just one of the most interesting phenomena. It's this message that a bunch of people create, then send out into space, the world, and hope for a response. Too bad a lot the advertising done these days is complete shit, pardon my language. There are really only a few that I like. Those funny Intel commercials, because I can personally relate to that, I think, and those new tampon commercials that point out how stupid tampon commercials can be. That's pretty much it. It's such a shame because an ad can be so much more than that. Think about it. Apple's "Think Different." Nike's "Just Do It." Both of those grew into so much more than an ad. They were revolutionary and became mantras to live by. It's an amazing thing to think about.

"The frightening and most difficult thing about being what somebody calls a creative person is that you have absolutely no idea where any of your thoughts come from, really. And especially you don't have any idea about where they're going to come from tomorrow." - Hal Riney (1932-2008)

You will be enlightened. And if not, at least you will have seen some good ads instead of the crap that's on TV.