Miss Cellania's Blog Posts
(YouTube link)
These cute little hedgehogs are interactive. Select one and it will sing for you! (via Metafilter)
Doesn't this "Rice Krispmas Tree" look great? A tree like that wouldn't last long at my house! But it's only the first of a long list of artful and tasty things people have made out of Rice Krispies Treats. Sculptures, pop culture figures, architecture, see them at at The Desonesto Doctrine. Link
I saw pictures of this place last year and could not find enough information about it to share, so I am delighted to find this article. A neighborhood found in Taichung City in Taiwan, a military dependents village founded over 50 years ago, is one of the most colorful places in the world, thanks to 86-year-old artist Huang Yung-fu.
Huang Yung-fu first picked up a paintbrush about two years ago. He started to paint for his own pleasure using the remains of the equipment from the art classes he attended when he was a child. Students of a university not far from the “painted military dependents’ village” seem to be among the first who discovered this old man’s talent and started to spread the news. Some even took pictures of the paintings and published them online. Information about his paintings went viral, to the point where tourists have flown in from Malaysia, Japan, and Korea to see them. The dull and drab military dependents’ village is now recognized as one of the must-see spots in central Taichung City.
See more pictures at Amusing Planet. Link -via the Presurfer
(Image credit: Flickr user Steve Barringer)
(YouTube link)
Darth Vader directs a flashmob choir at Algonquin College. The Television Broadcasting students organized this with the help of the Ottawa Regional Youth Choir to lighten the mood during finals.
Please note: Lord Vader is not enrolled or on faculty at Algonquin.
-via Buzzfeed
We are awed by special effects in movies; the more destructive, the more exciting. For example, anyone who saw Apocalypse Now in a theater was impressed with at the disturbing opening scene in which an entire Vietnamese forest was set ablaze with napalm.
But that's just the beginning. Read stories of four other disturbing movie shoots at Cracked. Link
Most people are probably too distracted by one of the finest opening shots in film to actually contemplate how it was achieved.
After all, it's an impressive special effect for 1979. How did they go about making it look like a huge section of forest had been burned to the ground?
Surprise! They did it by actually burning a huge section of forest to the ground.
That's pretty much it. Around 1,200 gallons of gasoline were poured over the splendid palm trees and then set alight. Tires were also burned to generate more smoke for the shot, while canisters were dropped onto the area to look like falling napalm. Acres of the forest were destroyed in a matter of seconds. Fitting, for a shot that was supposed to visually demonstrate the mindless, indiscriminate destruction of war.
But that's just the beginning. Read stories of four other disturbing movie shoots at Cracked. Link
(YouTube link)
Are you as surprised as I am at how baby rhinoceroses sound? These were recorded in South Africa. -via Arbroath
I don't know who took the picture of this adorable sign, but I found several references to the sign that identify it as being at the Maori Anglican Church at Raukokore, East Cape, New Zealand. -via Arbroath
Last week, Phil Plait posted his year-end gallery of the best pictures taken from space. Now you can see his picks for the best pictures of deep space, really deep, like these galaxies that are 300 million light years away.
Because they're big, sometimes galaxies get close together. Too close. Close enough that their gravity can affect each other, drawing out long arms of gas and stars, distorting each other into weird and beautiful shapes. It happens a lot.
Such is Arp 273, seen here in a Hubble image taken to celebrate the observatory's 20th anniversary in space. These two big galaxies passed each other in the recent past (like, a few million years ago). Both were probably normal enough before the encounter, but are now twisted and asymmetric.
See the other 23 images at Bad Astronomy. Link
(Image credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team)
It seems like astronomers are finding more and more exoplanets every day -some which might possibly support life, although they are extremely far away. What if we could travel to those distant planets we know a little about? Vincent Vermeij (Chungkong) turned this idea into a series of travel posters, featuring some exoplanets that already have names. See the rest of the series at his site. http://www.chungkong.nl/exoplanet-travel-posters/
TIME magazine has announced their annual Person of the Year, and this year's winner is not a single person, but a group. A very big group. 2011 was the year of The Protester. It began in Tunisia, spread through the Arab Spring in Egypt, Libya, Syria, and elsewhere, and before December, protesting crowds were seen in Greece, England, Wisconsin, New York, and all over. It was the biggest year of citizen demonstrations since at least the fall of European Communism in 1989.
In an extensive article, TIME tells the story of the year in protests. Link
(Image credit: Peter Hapak for TIME)
In short, 2011 was unlike any year since 1989 — but more extraordinary, more global, more democratic, since in '89 the regime disintegrations were all the results of a single disintegration at headquarters, one big switch pulled in Moscow that cut off the power throughout the system. So 2011 was unlike any year since 1968 — but more consequential because more protesters have more skin in the game. Their protests weren't part of a countercultural pageant, as in '68, and rapidly morphed into full-fledged rebellions, bringing down regimes and immediately changing the course of history. It was, in other words, unlike anything in any of our lifetimes, probably unlike any year since 1848, when one street protest in Paris blossomed into a three-day revolution that turned a monarchy into a republican democracy and then — within weeks, thanks in part to new technologies (telegraphy, railroads, rotary printing presses) — inspired an unstoppable cascade of protest and insurrection in Munich, Berlin, Vienna, Milan, Venice and dozens of other places across Europe, as well as a huge peaceful demonstration of democratic solidarity in New York that marched down Broadway and occupied a public park a few blocks north of Wall Street. How perfect that the German word Zeitgeist was transplanted into English in that unprecedented, uncanny year of insurrection.
In an extensive article, TIME tells the story of the year in protests. Link
(Image credit: Peter Hapak for TIME)
(YouTube link)
Lucy Cooke made a video last year at the world's only sloth orphanage, The Sloth Sanctuary of Costa Rica. Her sloth project has expanded into a documentary, Too Cute! Baby Sloths that will air on Animal Planet this Saturday. Meanwhile, enjoy the adorable trailer. Link -via I Am Bored
(YouTube link)
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jeff Gurwood recreated the opening scene in stop-motion animation. Indymation, starring action figures, took six months to complete. -via The Daily What Geek
Each year, America spends about $250 billion on marketing and advertising -- more than the entire GDP of Thailand. Too bad most of that money is a complete waste. For an increasingly savvy, TiVo-equipped public, our brains seem to shut down whenever something registers as "advertising." Which means all those marketing creatives at the big ad firms have had no choice but to, well, get more creative.
Some advertisers have relied on product placement (think James Bond stopping mid-gunfight for a refreshing sip of Heineken). Others have attempted to make their ads so entertaining that people will watch them in spite of the sales pitch. And then there's the more mischievous route -- the grassroots, take-it-to-the-streets method -- and that's where guerrilla marketing comes in.
Dirt-cheap and chock full of trickery, guerrilla marketing is advertising with a wink. The successful campaigns usually corral attention through subversive means before revealing their true purpose, and they distinguish themselves by being so clever that even once the bait and switch is revealed, there's no negative outcry.
In other words, even though consumers know they've been duped, the reaction amounts to nothing more than a bashful, "Oh Pepsi! We can't stay mad at you!"
And it's with that good-humored and awe-inspired mindset that we pay homage to the best "gotcha" moments in advertising.
1. The Blair Witch Project
Arguably the most important aspect of a successful guerrilla campaign is staying one step ahead of the public. As consumers become more attuned to ad agency efforts, marketers have to figure out how to attack the mob from unexpected angles. The brand standard for catching the public off guard? 1999's The Blair Witch Project. With no stars, no script, and a budget of around $50,000, University of Central Florida Film School pals Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez successfully scrubbed out the line between reality and fiction.
The film's tagline set the stage: "In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary. A year later, their footage was found." Audiences were expected to believe what they were watching -- shaky, low-quality videotape of three runny-nosed kids weeping in the woods -- was an edited-down version of real recovered footage. And while it was certainly an inventive way to challenge the boundaries of cinematic storytelling (not to mention justifying the low-budget look of the film), Blair Witch didn't exactly seem poised to rival Titanic. That is, until an inventive guerrilla marketing scheme was devised.
To ease the suspension of disbelief and stir up some buzz, Sánchez created a Web site devoted to the Blair Witch -- a fictitious, woods-based specter who'd been snapping up Maryland kids for the last century. Although the legend was created out of whole cloth, it was soon snapped up by gullible Interneters everywhere, and a first-ballot hall of fame urban legend was born. Pretty soon, thousands of people were terrified of the Blair Witch. Even when the actors who played the "film students" started showing up (alive) doing interviews about the movie, many across the country refused to believe the Blair Witch wasn't real.
From that point, the "I've got to see for myself" effect took over, and Blair Witch dominated at the box office. Considered the most effective horror hoax since Orson Welles' The War Of The Worlds broadcast, the film grossed $250 million worldwide. Not a bad return for Artisan Entertainment, which paid only $1 million for the flick after its Sundance screening.
2. Acclaim Entertainment
Nowhere are the semi-criminal aspects of guerrilla marketing more important than in pitching to video gamers. Regular folks might occasionally enjoy being duped by an unusually clever campaign, but gamers seem to suck down daring and deception like a Big Gulp of Mountain Dew. The more the stunts flaunt the law, the more the gaming demographic seems to like them.
The undisputed high-score holder in this renegade arena is Acclaim Entertainment, a plucky little company that began as a one-room outfit in Oyster Bay, New York, and bloomed into a multinational juggernaut. Eschewing artistry in favor of an "all publicity is good publicity" philosophy, Acclaim stirs up the stuffy types -- and then laughs all the way to the bank. One of its bedrock tactics is to offer people money for performing some insane stunt on behalf of its upcoming game. Prior to the release of "Turok: Evolution," for instance, the company offered £500 to the first five U.K. citizens who'd legally change their names to Turok. (Almost 3,000 people tried to claim the prize.) Later, promoting the release of "Shadow Man 2," Acclaim announced it would pay the relatives of the recently deceased to place promotional ads on the headstones of their dearly departed. The company said the promotional fee might "particularly interest poorer families."
The latter campaign was, of course, shouted down. But Acclaim blew it off and said the whole thing was a joke -- right after its name had been conveniently plastered all over the headlines. In fact, many of the company's schemes are designed to die on the vine that way. Acclaim actually counts on law enforcement and city officials to shut down their antics -- preferably as publicly as possible. In 2002, the company announced its plans to promote "Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance" using something called "bloodvertising." Touting it as the bloodiest game of all time, Acclaim said it was developing bus shelter ads that would seep a red, blood-like substance onto city sidewalks throughout the course of seven days. Officials thought that might not be in the best taste, so the campaign was aborted, as the world looked on. Also in 2002, Acclaim offered to pay all speeding tickets incurred in the U.K. on the day its racing game "Burnout 2" was released. Naturally, the bobbies balked, feeling that removing the consequences for speeding might encourage people to speed. Acclaim judiciously rescinded the offer, but, yet again, not before the name "Burnout 2" was burned into the public consciousness.
3. Half.com
Continue reading
Some advertisers have relied on product placement (think James Bond stopping mid-gunfight for a refreshing sip of Heineken). Others have attempted to make their ads so entertaining that people will watch them in spite of the sales pitch. And then there's the more mischievous route -- the grassroots, take-it-to-the-streets method -- and that's where guerrilla marketing comes in.
Dirt-cheap and chock full of trickery, guerrilla marketing is advertising with a wink. The successful campaigns usually corral attention through subversive means before revealing their true purpose, and they distinguish themselves by being so clever that even once the bait and switch is revealed, there's no negative outcry.
In other words, even though consumers know they've been duped, the reaction amounts to nothing more than a bashful, "Oh Pepsi! We can't stay mad at you!"
And it's with that good-humored and awe-inspired mindset that we pay homage to the best "gotcha" moments in advertising.
1. The Blair Witch Project
Arguably the most important aspect of a successful guerrilla campaign is staying one step ahead of the public. As consumers become more attuned to ad agency efforts, marketers have to figure out how to attack the mob from unexpected angles. The brand standard for catching the public off guard? 1999's The Blair Witch Project. With no stars, no script, and a budget of around $50,000, University of Central Florida Film School pals Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez successfully scrubbed out the line between reality and fiction.
The film's tagline set the stage: "In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary. A year later, their footage was found." Audiences were expected to believe what they were watching -- shaky, low-quality videotape of three runny-nosed kids weeping in the woods -- was an edited-down version of real recovered footage. And while it was certainly an inventive way to challenge the boundaries of cinematic storytelling (not to mention justifying the low-budget look of the film), Blair Witch didn't exactly seem poised to rival Titanic. That is, until an inventive guerrilla marketing scheme was devised.
To ease the suspension of disbelief and stir up some buzz, Sánchez created a Web site devoted to the Blair Witch -- a fictitious, woods-based specter who'd been snapping up Maryland kids for the last century. Although the legend was created out of whole cloth, it was soon snapped up by gullible Interneters everywhere, and a first-ballot hall of fame urban legend was born. Pretty soon, thousands of people were terrified of the Blair Witch. Even when the actors who played the "film students" started showing up (alive) doing interviews about the movie, many across the country refused to believe the Blair Witch wasn't real.
From that point, the "I've got to see for myself" effect took over, and Blair Witch dominated at the box office. Considered the most effective horror hoax since Orson Welles' The War Of The Worlds broadcast, the film grossed $250 million worldwide. Not a bad return for Artisan Entertainment, which paid only $1 million for the flick after its Sundance screening.
2. Acclaim Entertainment
Nowhere are the semi-criminal aspects of guerrilla marketing more important than in pitching to video gamers. Regular folks might occasionally enjoy being duped by an unusually clever campaign, but gamers seem to suck down daring and deception like a Big Gulp of Mountain Dew. The more the stunts flaunt the law, the more the gaming demographic seems to like them.
The undisputed high-score holder in this renegade arena is Acclaim Entertainment, a plucky little company that began as a one-room outfit in Oyster Bay, New York, and bloomed into a multinational juggernaut. Eschewing artistry in favor of an "all publicity is good publicity" philosophy, Acclaim stirs up the stuffy types -- and then laughs all the way to the bank. One of its bedrock tactics is to offer people money for performing some insane stunt on behalf of its upcoming game. Prior to the release of "Turok: Evolution," for instance, the company offered £500 to the first five U.K. citizens who'd legally change their names to Turok. (Almost 3,000 people tried to claim the prize.) Later, promoting the release of "Shadow Man 2," Acclaim announced it would pay the relatives of the recently deceased to place promotional ads on the headstones of their dearly departed. The company said the promotional fee might "particularly interest poorer families."
The latter campaign was, of course, shouted down. But Acclaim blew it off and said the whole thing was a joke -- right after its name had been conveniently plastered all over the headlines. In fact, many of the company's schemes are designed to die on the vine that way. Acclaim actually counts on law enforcement and city officials to shut down their antics -- preferably as publicly as possible. In 2002, the company announced its plans to promote "Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance" using something called "bloodvertising." Touting it as the bloodiest game of all time, Acclaim said it was developing bus shelter ads that would seep a red, blood-like substance onto city sidewalks throughout the course of seven days. Officials thought that might not be in the best taste, so the campaign was aborted, as the world looked on. Also in 2002, Acclaim offered to pay all speeding tickets incurred in the U.K. on the day its racing game "Burnout 2" was released. Naturally, the bobbies balked, feeling that removing the consequences for speeding might encourage people to speed. Acclaim judiciously rescinded the offer, but, yet again, not before the name "Burnout 2" was burned into the public consciousness.
3. Half.com
Email This Post to a Friend