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The last couple of months.

So, it’s obviously been awhile since I last blogged — it may be fitting to do a little recap so we can all catch up and get cozy with each other once again. Let’s see… Since May 29th:

• I moved. Well, I may have moved just a few days before but I hadn’t blogged about it. I’m now in a tiny 415 sq. ft. studio in hipster central NW Portland. Actually, it’s more of a training grounds for the novice hipster. Fully matured hipsters move to the Hawthorne neighborhood and watch movies at Cine Magic (more on that later).
• I turned 24. On May 31st, in fact.
• I finally relocated my two cats to my tiny studio apartment. That’s all fine and well, but the girthier of the two struggles to fit her whole body into the litter box when she goes to the bathroom. As you might assume, that poses some serious problems. Thank God for linoleum.
• I became an uncle again. My niece, Jayda Jolie Vitellaro (J.J. for short) was born at Good Samaritan, just two blocks from my apartment.
• I went to Europe for two weeks. Flew to London, hopped down to Rome, slid on up to Florence, then over to the Italian Riviera in the Cinque Terre region where I got stuck for an extra two days because the trains went on strike. Next was Milan for a few hours, then Paris for a few days, back to London and then back to the states. Quite the whirlwind tour. I’ll make sure to write a blog post all about it.
• I read 3.5 books. I finished “Water for Elephants” just before I left for Europe, then Dan Brown’s “Angel’s and Demons” while I was in Rome (fitting, I know), “Tuesday’s with Morrie” in Vernazza (found it sitting on a shelf in our hostel), then half of “The Beach” at the train station in Milan and during the nine-hour train ride to Paris.
• I bought a mop. Considering the fat-cat/little-litter box debacle, this was entirely necessary.
• I rounded out my killer studio with a flat screen HDTV and a PS3 that I finagled off my younger brother for a pretty decent price. Now I’m hooked on movies and NCAA 2009.

A little chemistry lesson

High school chemistry class had a larger influence on your social life than you ever could have imagined.

Client: Marie Curie Action, European Union

Agency: Media Consulta, Berlin

Doritos’ new agency: us

Bravo to the folks running the Doritos campaign in the UK — they successfully lent their brand out to the Web 2.0 public and scored approximately 875 spots for practically nothing. They hosted a video contest that gave filmmakers the chance to win £20,000 by making their own Doritos commercials. There are some surprisingly awesome spots too. Check out the Doritos “You Make It, We Play It” YouTube page. Here are two of my favs:

In other news, Flava Flav proposed to the mother of his youngest son. What a champ.

Italian Spiderman

Here’s an awesome trailer that’s been floating around the web (Woah there — I almost used the term “the net,” but quickly recoiled when it bought back memories of a 1995 cyber-thriller starring Sandra Bullock).

“Italian Spiderman” is the best thing to come out of Italy since, well, the graffiti artist I wrote about a few days ago. It’s a YouTube series (it began yesterday, in fact) that satirizes action-adventure TV shows from the 1960s-1970s — think “Batman” starring Adam West. If you don’t laugh, you don’t know how, and we clearly don’t have anything in common.

Watch now:

K-Y Yours + Mine

Simple, funny ads that present a problem and provide a solution. I love those, and that formula works great for something like K-Y Yours + Mine because there’s an inferred emotion surrounding the product — the only thing you need to sell is, well, the K-Y.

Alright, all ye brand-advertising purists, you may want to sit down for this one: these are DRTV spots. Infomercials. Yes, indeed, infomercials. But! These are examples of how direct-response advertising doesn’t have to suck.

What you could have expected if it were a stereotypical infomercial:

“Is your love-life getting boring? Need a little spice? Well, K-Y Yours + Mine is all you need. Give hers a squirt and yours a dab and feel like you’re back on your honeymoon! Only $19.99 PLUS, if you order today we’ll even throw in an 8oz. tube of K-Y Warming Gel.”

Instead, you get these, compliments of Mother, NY:

The same as the example of a stereotypical infomercial, these spots point out a problem, provide the solution, outline the benefits and ask you to respond directly by visiting www.keeplifesexy.com, a landing page where you can order the gel (probably discreetly). The difference is that it’s done in an entertaining way, similar to a lot of the big budget, cool, entertaining brand spots. Welcome to the world of effective DR.

Amazing street art animation by Blu

My apologies for the lack of content over the past 2 weeks — it’s been a bit crazy in my world, between work and moving into my new apartment. For about a week there I had to hunch over a makeshift desk that was one-foot off the ground, which effectively killed all blog-inspiration.

But thanks to “Muto,” a time-lapse street art animation by Italian artist Blu, I’m compelled to write again (plus, I have a 3-foot-tall desk now. That’s another two feet of inspiration).

The animation was painted onto walls in Buenos Aires, videotaped and edited to run like a flip-book of images. Awesome use of space and incorporation of environmental elements. I can’t imagine how much time this project must have taken, especially considering it’s about six and a half minutes long. The art itself isn’t that complicated, but considering how many different images Blu had to paint to make the animation run smoothly, it’s really impressive.

Of course, I have to give credit to Sibe who assisted Blu, as well as Andrea Martignoni and Mercurio Film who did the music and production, respectively.

Addendum: I also need to give credit to my friend Carly who shared the video with me in the first place. Here’s her website www.carlyheims.com. Hire her.

Barack Obama encounter, part 2

Well, my dumb luck led me to my second encounter with Barack Obama in as many months. On my walk to work this morning, I happened to walk by the Benson Hotel just as he was walking out. About two months ago I saw him at the same place, around the exact same time but this time I got to shake his hand. Pretty exciting. Here are a couple of pics that I snapped really quick with my iPhone.

The Battle at Kruger

I came across this video a couple of months ago on YouTube — apparently, about 26 million others did too, making the “Battle at Kruger” the winner of the 2007 YouTube Video Awards. Honestly, it’s an 8-minute long real-life Universal Studios ride. A buffalo strays from the herd and is dragged off by a couple of lions, then plays the part of the rope in a game of tug-of-war between the lions and a freakin’ crocodile, then manages to get away after the herd returns to mount the “mutiny on the savanna” against the lions. It’s pretty intense.

After the video became so popular, the filmmakers, David Budzinski and Jason Schlosberg, were sent back to South Africa to film a documentary about it, and on National Geographic’s dime. Not a bad gig. So, while your scrubbing the kitchen floor and making an attempt at cooking dinner for your mom this Sunday, tune in to the National Geographic Channel at 9pm EST.

Radiohead “All I Need” music video

I was really moved by Radiohead’s new music video for “All I Need” from their In Rainbows album. It’s not the most impressively produced piece of work that I’ve seen, but it has such a powerful message. We take so much for granted, but we can’t blame ourselves. The idea that kids make our shoes in sweatshops overseas is so abstract because we’re not exposed to it. We can’t witness it ourselves so we can’t sympathize. Well, it’s real, and that’s what the video is trying to show us.

Will the video make a difference? Doubt it, but it definitely has gotten me involved. I’m spending some time tonight looking to see how I can make a difference toward ending exploitation and trafficking of children. If you wanna learn more about how you can help, I added a link in my sidebar to MTV Exit, the organization that sponsored the video above.

Wahl’s rogue mustache

This spot for Wahl hair trimmers is definitely a bit strange, but pretty funny. Comes from Leo Burnett, the very agency who grew manly ’staches of their own to raise money for prostate cancer research.