Fran's Blog

I prefer not to use this blog as a way of showing the latest work I have worked on, or even as a platform to show you all what my agency, whoever it is, has worked on. It can be a little “I’m just posting this to get more hits”. But I really liked the video for White Knight Chronicles created by Agency Republic. The idea came from the video from years back with a guy called Leeroy Jenkins. It was a brilliant video.

So a full on hardcore gamer here (and a Project Manager) decided to take that and add to it. He wanted it to be aimed at gamers, rather than everyone else. I like it because it hits the boundary between gamers but should still make some sense to everyone else. See what you think anyway:

I’ve just seen something wonderful. For anyone not au fait with unboxings, they are usually a video or sequence of photographs showing the packaging of a product, for example, an ipod. It’s usually done by Apple fans as Apple’s product wrapping is great. This one’s, erm… quite different.

Ok, I’ll try not to post too many Youtube videos, but this tickes me every time. I think it’s the calm press conference that turns into a free for all that does it:

Anyone who reads tech blogs will probably have not missed that it was the CES show this week. A big event full of consumer electronics of all shapes and sizes, both useful and useless, it all gets showcased here. In fact the whole HD-DVD and Blu-ray battle has been raging at this event since warner dropped HD-DVD to make Blu-ray take a very nice lead.

But enough of that, this year is Bill Gates’ last year at Microsoft. What a man! Seriously, he’s never got the respect he deserves, he has rescued Apple several times since the start, like an older brother. He gives a vast sum of money to charity, he is one of the only big bosses who knows the very core of a computer, and yet still people lay into him when they delete their own documents, or their PC crashes and they haven’t saved for 3 hours. Well, I have to say, he is a hero of mine, he is the father of software, and I respect him hugely.

Anyway, his keynote speech at CES 2008 was a light hearted look at what his last day at microsoft might be like, it’s not laugh out loud funny, but light hearted, and shows that he’s got a sense of humour, in fact, if you see the interviews on Gizmodo, he’s really quite fun. So, here it is:

This morning I was listening to the radio, and they were talking about injuries happening at Christmas time. One guy wrote in saying he blacked out after not being able to breathe laughing so much while watching the Nutty Professor meal scene.

I actually think this is a really funny scene, ok, maybe not black out funny, but the conversation, if you can work out the fast paced talking, is fantastic, not to mention the fact all the cast, apart from the boy is Eddie Murphy. I think it’s the funniest thing he’s done this side of the 80s.

There was a time, believe it or not, before youtube. A dark time that was, but there was video about. Anyway. One video viral I saw a few years back and could never find has appeared on youtube. It was from Best Buy in the States. It just works so well.

If you watch DVDs, most nowadays have an anti-piracy warning saying stuff like “you would steal a video”, “you wouldn’t steal a car”. I always like those because I think if people could download a car, they probably would.

I’ve just read something beautiful. Carlsberg have had a great advertising campaign since starting to do “Carlsberg don’t do [insert here], but if they did, they would probably be the best in the world”. If you aren’t familiar, here is a clip

Today they have taken it a step further and into the real world by dropping money (a total of £5000 in £10 and £20 notes) in the streets of London with a label like in this photo attached.

Fantastic idea, crack heads over London are probably on the hunt though.

So, Sony did an amazing display with paint around buildings, but at what cost?

I saw this on a tech blog recently, while this guy is incredible, I fear that pop idol will say “no” because he doesn’t sing, an unsung talent I say.