“It’s about time for this conference” - Ed Ulbrich, Digital Domain
I totally agree, especially after attending Digital Hollywood and the Clios. In fact, the most interesting components of those conferences revolved around technology, which was the 100% focus of CaT. The 400+ attendance and energy level at the first Creativity and Technology conference proved that people are hungry to better understand the effects of when creativity and digital toolsets collide. Creativity and technology are hand-in-glove components of storytelling. In fact, people like David Fincher (director of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) truly understand that as long as there is a clear vision, passion and creative point of view, anything is possible. It also helps to have absurdly large budgets and seemingly endless timeframes.
Ed’s presentation on making Brad Pitt digital was awesome. Coincidentally, I went outside right afterward and was interested to learn about oddcast, which allows you to upload your own image and incorporate it into videos that have already been completed. It’s not nearly as sharp as Digital Domain’s work, but it shows how great ideas filter down into the community at different levels.
“We’ve moved from having a scarcity of channels and abundance of attention towards a scarcity of attention and abundance of channels” - Kevin Slaven, Area / Code
Kevin provided the most eloquent statement of the most common and resonant them from Digital Hollywood, the Clios and the CAT conference. Another recurring metaphor is that brands are arriving late to a party that has been going on for a long time (i.e. consumer conversations) and are entering awkwardly into said conversations.
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Gogoinflight connection, Batman!
This is my first time using an internet connection at 35,000 feet. It’s a little steep at $12.95 for 3 hours (I watched Grand Torino before logging on), but it’s way cooler than placing $4 phone calls from the plane. Of course, I’m doing this for the novelty, not because I need to, ahem, check Facebook, Twitter, email or IM 
What’s a geek to do with this newfangled technology? First (of course) is the silly “I can’t believe I’m twittering / Facebook-ing at 35,000 feet” messages. Next is firing up the Wiredrive speed test to see what kind of performance we are getting.
Wiredrive LA Server
ping 174mm
download - 1024 Mbps
upload - 231 kpbs
Wiredrive CDN
ping 86ms
download - 1874 kbps
upload - 241 kpbs
Honestly, those are pretty amazing speeds for the first time out. I now need to revise part of my sales pitch, i.e. sending a video presentation to an agency exec before she gets onto the flight. Hmmmm…..
Regards,
Bill
Wiredrive recently flew out to the Windy City to attend the Boards Creative Workshop and to meet attending clients. We were lucky to have beautiful weather and warm sun the whole week, which made for high spirits and cheerful people at the event. The workshop was held at the Park West, a beautiful theater in Lincoln Park that has been in the same spot since the 1920’s.
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Nick Law from R/GA delivered an elegant and concise 30 minute keynote presentation explaining the DNA of a modern agency. I’m a sucker for historical background, so I naturally loved how he described the evolution of agencies. He asked a simple question, “What should we be making?”
At it’s core, advertising delivers basic information about a product. Before TV, print ads were simple explanations of product features. Then along came TV and advertising agencies learned that if you interrupt entertainment, you also need to make the product message entertaining. People viewed TV advertising as having a salesperson in your living room delivering pitches in 30, 60 or 90 second blasts. The goal was to make ads memorable enough so consumers would act on the information when they went to the store. The premise works well If you have someone’s time and attention. If you don’t have their attention, you are talking to yourself . . . expensively.
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If only the Clios had come before Digital Hollywood. On the surface, the Clios event schedule looks incredibly thin (lunch to 4) compared to the 9 to 6 wall-to-wall panels of Digital Hollywood. The Clios provided a missing ingredient to the dialogue of the present and future of advertising - the actual work.
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Day two at the Clios was simply great. It started off with a lifetime achievement award luncheon honoring Dan Wieden of Wieden + Kennedy. It felt like being invited to a family gathering. Dan is incredibly kind, loves what he does and runs a culture that inspires people and makes them feel needed. I learned a lot from Dan’s favorite quote from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest author Ken Kesey:
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