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If a 150-million-year-old Brachiosaurus could talk, what would it say?You can find out at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, where many of the exhibits will soon tell their own stories using local voices, thanks to an initiative from local museum advertising specialist Leo Burnett. The agency wrote more than 100 short scripts, each a paragraph or two long, designed to capture the “voice” of various plants, animals and minerals in the museum’s permanent collection. The write-ups combine history and humor. For example, the Brachiosaurus bemoans its girth while also discussing the contributions of paleontologist Elmer Riggs. Everyday Chicagoans are invited to record the first-person monologues in a special pop-up audio booth that is traveling around the city this summer. (It visited Chinatown this weekend.) Ultimately, the best voiceovers will be accessible via smartphone for Field visitors to enjoy on audio tours....
Shield 5 is a captivating new thriller that follows a wrongfully accused man on the run, desperate to clear his name. It has a lot in common with shows like Homeland and 24, except for one tiny thing: Each episode is only 15 seconds long.
Shield 5 is a new dramatic and cinematic series being released on Instagram in installments, just one recent example of what is being labeled as "social cinema." It is the brainchild of British director Anthony Wilcox, who was looking for a quick project to work on while he finished developing a bigger feature. "I’ve done a few short things online as a director-for-hire, and the fast turnaround of those things excited me. I was looking for a way to do that, but telling my own story," Wilcox told Fast Company....
Social media managers pride themselves on coming up with fresh ideas and interesting content. Likewise, business owners and entrepreneurs active in social media need to stay compelling and helpful. It’s how ibusinesses maintain relevance and add value to our social streams.
One of the best places to find inspiration is from other creatives. Reading online marketing quotes from some of the top social media marketers around the globe inspires me to want to work harder, and better. So hopefully these online marketing quotes can have the same effect on you....
About six months ago, Pocket Gems, a mobile game developer, launched a new platform called Episode. It allows writers to script a story and then turn it into an animated interactive mobile story. It combines parts of TV shows, comics, and novels, and provides the unique ability for readers to have some control of how the story goes.
I started writing on the platform almost as soon as it launched and have written three stories to date. My most successful story, Finding Mr. Wright, has built a significant audience in a short time. So far it has an audience of 163,000 readers, who have collectively read over 1,222,000 chapters of my story....
Three unpublished stories by the famously reclusive American writer, J.D. Salinger, have leaked online after appearing on an eBay auction.The auction, which ended Sep. 23, 2013, advertised a book containing three stories, titled "Untitled or Paula," "Birthday Boy," and "The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls". The first two stories are dated 1941 and 1946, respectively, while the third one doesn't have a date....
...These are exciting times. New transmedia projects are cropping up left and right and the debate over ”what the definition of transmedia is?” seems to have taken a bit of a step back. All in all it feels like we’re slowly – or perhaps rapidly; these are things that can better be assessed in hindsight – moving towards a media and content world where there is no need to talk about transmedia, as every project is as transmedia as it needs to be to fulfil any potential that project might have....
When a veteran stand-up comic is also funny on Twitter, it doesn’t exactly come as a shock. When an unknown phenom makes you physically choke on guffaws, though, it’s a revelation and also something of an extended audition. ...After catching the attention of the comedy cognoscenti in 2010, the then recent Harvard graduate soon got jobs writing on the Oscars and Disney’sA.N.T. Farm., before moving to a staff writer position at NBC’s ensemble sitcom Parks and Recreation. (The show was just renewed for a sixth season.) The in-demand writer is also an accomplished poet who’s writing asatirical guide to science for ladies. Megan Amram’s frothy blend of dark humor and smart, surreal silliness has found more than 356,000 followers on Twitter so far. Although not everybody trying to generate laughs online is doing so for the same reasons, or with the same twisted flair, Amram’s consistent comedic quality is enviable for anyone trying to make their mark with brief bursts of humor. The multidiscipline writer recently spoke with Co.Create about puns, poetry, and how to be funny on Twitter altogether....
Our goal as savvy email marketers is to look beyond the lure of the one-time conversion and strive to build an ongoing relationship between consumers and our brands. Why is this goal so important? Because it’s been proven through many a marketing study that engaged customers become loyal customers and loyal customers are the most valuable segment in any list or database. This type of highly engaged, loyal customer typically has higher overall lifetime value than the casual consumer. They’re also more likely to be an evangelist, introducing new customers to your brand in a very personal way and building the next layer of loyal customers. But, how can you help to build a stronger bond with your customer base? In my last article, I outlined ways to stimulate an unengaged audience by increasing the relevancy of your email creative by including more dynamic content. Sharing relevant content demonstrates to customers that we know them as individuals and are dedicated to providing them with useful information, products or services. Using historical and behavior data is a great way to present content that’s tailored to their individual needs and preferences, but you also need to engage with your audience on an emotional level in order to achieve the goal of creating a true brand-loyal customer.... Let’s explore four creative ways in which email marketers have used data as a platform to build creative that forms a bond between their customers and their brand....
Malcolm Gladwell, Daniel H. Pink, David Sedaris and others search for highly-intelligent life in the universe. The MacArthur Geniuses were announced this week, which got us wondering about genius. What is genius? Can it actually be measured? Is it even a real thing? [This is genius writing, selected and shared by Byliner. If you've never tried Byliner, you're in for a treat. It's like having your own literary salon. Well worth the mostly-free subscription ~Jeff]
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Japan prides itself on ludicrous advertising. But every year, a few commercials go beyond—transcending the market’s typical weirdness and reaching a state of truly inspired lunacy. “Gravity Cat,” which won a silver Lion in Cannes, came close, but its oddness was relatively mild—and also wrapped in jaw-dropping craft. But thankfully, another silver Lion winner from Japan has stepped in to take the prize. Check out the spot below, from agency Asatsu-DK and production company Spoon. It would be a spoiler to reveal the advertiser, so just sit back and soak up all the screaming and yelling from actors whose true character reveals itself only at the very end....
On Twitter, Pixar storyboard artist Emma Coats has compiled nuggets of narrative wisdom she's received working for the animation studio over the years. It's some sage stuff, although there's nothing here about defending yourself from your childhood toys when they inevitably come to life with murder in their hearts. A truly glaring ommission.
#1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.
#2: You gotta keep in mind what's interesting to you as an audience, not what's fun to do as a writer. They can be v. different....
...Lens choices, camera angles, color palettes, editing rhythm, and more are all elements in a specific vocabulary created to best express the story.
Here’s the insight for color: instead of trying to map colors back to cultural associations (which are not fixed across all cultures, but change with every micro-culture), it’s better to assign meaning to each color and stick with it.
This trick works perfectly as long as you never break your own rules, unless, of course, the shock itself creates a greater truth....
Once upon the time--1969, to be exact--The Valley of Gwangi (see poster, left) was made. Based on a story concept by stop-motion pioneer Willis O'Brien (King Kong), and employing the stop-motion effects of Ray Harryhausen (former apprentice to O'Brien), it was and is the greatest cowboy-dinosaur movie ever made.
In the summer of 1970, a pencil-necked geek named Matt (see photo, right) discovered Gwangi quite by accident when it was the opening "B-movie" at his local theater with When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth. Matt was all of seven, and he hooted and hollered and cheered throughout the film.
He was all alone that evening ... well, sort of all alone....
"As a writer you should not judge. You should understand."Ernest Hemingway has contributed a great deal to the collected advice of great writers, from his famous admonition against the dangers of ego to his short and stellar Nobel Prize acceptance speech. But some of his finest wisdom springs to life in this excerpt from his 1967 nonfiction piece By-Line, found in the altogether excellent Hemingway on Writing (public library) — a compilation of the celebrated author’s most insightful meditations on the craft, culled from his published works and his private letters. ...
Since launching in private beta last year, Medium has been building up its platform, which aims to offer a simple but 'beautiful' reading and writing experienceIt was one year ago this week when the online publishing world was abuzz with the news that two of Twitter's founders had launched a new platform called Medium, in private beta.In the early days only a select group of people were allowed behind the scenes to contribute content to Medium.
Some details on the platform were made public via an announcement post from Ev Williams, in which he described Medium as "a new place on the Internet where people share ideas and stories that are longer than 140 characters and not just for friends".In the past year the group of people invited to write has grown, and we are told it "should be a short wait from now" when the platform will be available for all to use.
The main aim of Medium is to be "the best place to read and write about things that matter", and this emphasis on both the writing and reading experience has been reflected in its approach over the past 12 months....
The Onion points out how awesome sponsored content is and how there is still an need for print in the digital age. The ad industry tends to talk in ways that baffle civilians. Sometimes it pays to have reminders of that. Thanks to The Onion, we do. The Onion does a great job of spoofing these digital media news stories, and points out what should be pretty obvious. For example, how ridiculous and obnoxious sponsored content can be. See the five great digital media industry spoof articles and click through to The Onion for the full stories....
Unwrapping the history of Mexico's real national snack uncovers classism, dynamite, and shifting definitions of culture. [Jeffrey Pilcher shares the rich history of tacos and how they are woven into culture and history. Just a great read and storytelling at its best. ~ Jeff]
Andy Owen is one of the most skilled copywriters I know. He’s been in the game a long time and this is a short extract from his current “CopyCat” monthly newsletter. I learnt this from the great Bill Bernbach a long time ago, when he said: “It is insight into human nature that is the key to the communicator’s skill. For whereas the writer is concerned with what he puts into his writings, the communicator is concerned with what the reader gets out of it. He therefore becomes a student of how people read or listen.” What a great insight.
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Storytelling on a historic scale for Chicago’s Field Museum.