"I fully intend to dress like Diane Keaton"
This week's most interesting videos, made by and for organisations.
In most presentations, the first and last slides are on show the longest. And yet, as Waze co-founder Uri Levine points out in this interview, these most important slides are usually given the least attention.
The first tends to be a welcome or intro slide, the last often says "thank you," perhaps with some contact details (I'm very guilty of this).
Why not, Levine asks, use this prime attention real estate to make your most compelling point?
It's a great reminder of the mechanics of storytelling, and the way we should interrogate every part of an audience's interaction with the things we share.
Now to paraphrase Olivia Newtown-John, let's get video (video).
An animated anthropomorphic treat from Aussie mobile network Telstra (7 mins)
Behold this supercut of 26 stop-motion spots from Australia's biggest mobile network, Telstra.
Made by longtime Wes Anderson collaborator, the animation director Tobias Fouracre, the creatures have incredible personality, but it's the scripts that dazzle here, painting funny and sometimes poignant pen portraits in a matter of seconds. (Watch on Vimeo)
Jansport has fun with its deliberately different backpack campaign (30s)
Lots of apparel brands make inspiring videos with soaring vistas and overcoming-adversity parables. Jansport has gone in a very different direction with this silly series of spots, positioning itself as the everyday backpack.
Using incredibly clunky songs, they play with a range of scenarios, from the surreal (buying 200 eggs, battling a crow attack) to the relatable, like this story of a regret-laden hike. It draws an obvious contrast with its competitors' sometimes po-faced paeans to the Great Outdoors. (Watch on YouTube)
The New York Times thinks it’s time we talked about periods (3m 30s)
My wife and her friends once played a game, asking their male partners how many tampons they thought were used during a period, and compared the answers. The mind boggling range of answers highlighted the ignorance and misunderstanding that stems from our collective weirdness about menstruation.
This New York Times film aims to address that, with ten people speaking very directly about their periods and their feelings towards them. It's a simple idea that feels novel because we're so unused to hearing these experiences talked about. (Watch on YouTube)
AI models pick random numbers like us, and why that matters (1 min)
When it comes to picking random numbers, human beings are incredibly predictable. And so, it turns out, are the large language models that power AI.
This is a short, smart explainer from TechCrunch, which uses a vivid and specific example to make a wider point about how AI thinks. Spoiler alert, it doesn't – it creates patterns. (Watch on Instagram)
A charming celebration of airline sick bags, and those who collect them (13 mins)
To borrow a football cliché, this is a film of two halves. It starts out as a fascinating short doc about airline sick bags, a curious and charming story that touches on design, the philosophy of collecting, and introduces us to the "barf bag community."
Then it switches, weaving in the story of, and people from, Dramamine, an anti-travel sickness medicine who commissioned the film. I found the second half a bit confusing, as I couldn't quite work out how tongue-in-cheek the brand stuff was. To be honest, I really wanted more of the sick bag collectors.
It's still worth watching though, if only for the terrific on-screen caption, "Barf Bag Collector's Wife." (Watch on YouTube)
Ann Summers thinks laterally with its sex toy melon spot (13s)
I thought this was a clever way around creative restraints. Ann Summers wanted to show off its new Massage Wand, but obviously can't show it in use without creating something the social algorithms have to pretend to disapprove of.
So why not just use a melon, which somehow gets the product's key benefits across in a family-friendly, fruit-based way. (Watch on TikTok)
Newcastle unveils its new kit with a gloriously OTT roar (1m 40s)
Football teams unveiling their new kit used to be a low-key affair – a couple of players on the pitch, some quotes explaining why this year's combination of the same colours was actually very radical and interesting and just enter your card details here please. No longer.
This is where video comes into its own, taking a simple announcement and blowing it up into something that feels momentous. This Newcastle United film is joyously, knowingly absurd, stirring the senses using every trick in the book, and soundtracked with an ominous choral cover of the club anthem. (Watch on YouTube)
Variety digs deep into Baby Reindeer’s artistic choices (15 mins)
I really enjoyed this detailed discussion of Baby Reindeer, which brings genuine nuance and insight to an artwork that's been flattened into a cultural phenomenon.
It's also a good reminder that organisations can do very similar formats, if they find ways to differentiate. The New York Times owns Anatomy Of A Scene, but Variety's version works in its own right as a longer, TV-focused spin on the same idea. (Watch on YouTube)
Paul Smith takes in Thailand in this gorgeous and unusual short film (2 mins)
This is an interesting little film, as fashion designer Paul Smith talks about his morning routine paired with visuals of his recent trip to Bangkok. He talks about Thailand right at the end, but this is an interesting coming-together of two things whose overlap isn't immediately obvious.
It's beautiful too, capturing the city in what feels like a fresh way. TBF, would 10/10 watch a Paul Smith travelogue. (Watch on YouTube)
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