I'm an award winning multimedia producer with a background, and it turns out a foreground in print, radio, television, and advertising. A sound engineer, producer, writer and voice-over artist. You've heard my work in many radio and TV spots, documentaries, corporate videos, audio walking tours and on-line. I've been an instructor at the British Columbia Institute of Technology, an instructor at Langara Community College. These days, I teach creative multimedia production to young people at the Wachiay Friendship Centre ( WaMM - www.wachiaymultimedia.com ) Along with all that other stuff, I live happily with my wife Shelley McGaw and our dog, Molly in the little community of Courtenay on Vancouver Island.
My passions lie in high-end audio, deep in the heart of the Hi-Fi jungle and I care about music, recording, film, fiction and art. I'm fascinated by architecture, design, technology and their impact on our society and our culture.
But Wait, There's More!
Posted by Rob Crowston on Wednesday, September 29, 2010 Under: Advertising
My friend Jonathan Stanley works with a group of people that develop entertaining content in combination with amazing technology for the tourism trade. They build systems that enable visitors of major tourist attractions to experience the attraction through GPS driven technology and dynamic story telling . Better still, they offer their entertainment in as many languages as the operator might like to service.
The other day, Jonathan turned me on to a video that had impressed him with its compelling subject matter and great story telling. Story matters to J, he's learned to believe in story and he now urges his clients to believe in their stories. I searched out the work and found 'Up There' an intimate look at a dying American art form. J's right, nice work, well shot and well told.
There's more though to this video than a quiet story about a disappearing art form. There's a deeper mission and conquest beyond good story telling. There's what can only be described as masterful advertising. Effective, targeted and utterly brilliant advertising. Better still, the advertiser never once mention their product, their 'slogan', their location or even what they sell.
How can that be? How can an advertiser claim a quarter of an hour of our attention and never mention his product? Never sing the song or scroll the catch phrase? How can an advertiser invest the serious and considerable sum of money to build his ad and never once blurt out his name or what he's selling?
They didn't have to. The 'sell' is so subtly built into the experience that we as viewers aren't even aware that we're being sold. Nicely sold to be sure, but sold nonetheless. Better still, we give the advertiser our permission to sell to us because he offers to entertain us, inform us and enrich us and for all those minutes we are fascinated by the story. The story, not the advertising.
'Up There' takes a look at a unique art form, an art form that was once hugely popular as an advertising medium in the US. It used to be common for a broad wall space, measuring many floors tall and many, many meters wide to be dedicated as a canvas for advertisers to paint their product awareness campaigns on. To accomplish this, skilled artisans toiled in often horrible weather conditions at considerable height and on very small platforms to duplicate on a grand scale the images of Coca-Cola, Quaker Oats and any number of laundry detergents. 'Up There' focuses on the artists, the pioneers in the field and the fading limelight of this colossal form of art. The film documents one of the last such installations as it develops on a massive wall in New York city. The characters are real, the story is real, the art form is real and the Director, DP and Editor – Malcolm Murray, invites us inside a world that seems both dangerous and magical. Messy too. A place where the last of a breed, always a compelling storyline, face the fierce elements of a changing landscape to take one last kick at the cat.
There's a link to 'Up There' at the end of this bit and it's worth the quarter hour investment to view. Both the subject and the sponsor deserve your few minutes of attention. The subject because it's a compelling story well told, and the sponsor because they let a compelling story be told, and what's more, they recognized that not every story had to be about them. Even though it was. Well played Stella Artios, well played.
http://vimeo.com/11175747
The other day, Jonathan turned me on to a video that had impressed him with its compelling subject matter and great story telling. Story matters to J, he's learned to believe in story and he now urges his clients to believe in their stories. I searched out the work and found 'Up There' an intimate look at a dying American art form. J's right, nice work, well shot and well told.
There's more though to this video than a quiet story about a disappearing art form. There's a deeper mission and conquest beyond good story telling. There's what can only be described as masterful advertising. Effective, targeted and utterly brilliant advertising. Better still, the advertiser never once mention their product, their 'slogan', their location or even what they sell.
How can that be? How can an advertiser claim a quarter of an hour of our attention and never mention his product? Never sing the song or scroll the catch phrase? How can an advertiser invest the serious and considerable sum of money to build his ad and never once blurt out his name or what he's selling?
They didn't have to. The 'sell' is so subtly built into the experience that we as viewers aren't even aware that we're being sold. Nicely sold to be sure, but sold nonetheless. Better still, we give the advertiser our permission to sell to us because he offers to entertain us, inform us and enrich us and for all those minutes we are fascinated by the story. The story, not the advertising.
'Up There' takes a look at a unique art form, an art form that was once hugely popular as an advertising medium in the US. It used to be common for a broad wall space, measuring many floors tall and many, many meters wide to be dedicated as a canvas for advertisers to paint their product awareness campaigns on. To accomplish this, skilled artisans toiled in often horrible weather conditions at considerable height and on very small platforms to duplicate on a grand scale the images of Coca-Cola, Quaker Oats and any number of laundry detergents. 'Up There' focuses on the artists, the pioneers in the field and the fading limelight of this colossal form of art. The film documents one of the last such installations as it develops on a massive wall in New York city. The characters are real, the story is real, the art form is real and the Director, DP and Editor – Malcolm Murray, invites us inside a world that seems both dangerous and magical. Messy too. A place where the last of a breed, always a compelling storyline, face the fierce elements of a changing landscape to take one last kick at the cat.
There's a link to 'Up There' at the end of this bit and it's worth the quarter hour investment to view. Both the subject and the sponsor deserve your few minutes of attention. The subject because it's a compelling story well told, and the sponsor because they let a compelling story be told, and what's more, they recognized that not every story had to be about them. Even though it was. Well played Stella Artios, well played.
http://vimeo.com/11175747
In : Advertising
Tags: advertising art video "up there"
