A day like yesterday..

Wow, that was a fun shoot! All morning and noon at Film City, and then evening at the Bandra-Kurla Complex.

I was there at the helipad at 8, and the sun was already out with a vengeance. Heh, it's ok, the stars were soon to come out. Bad pun, sorry, but that's what M. S. Dhoni and Narain Karthikeyan are.

We were there under the scorching sun till 2, i believe. But i'm not complaining. I got to observe a shoot up close, and i must say it looks quite chaotic, but most things go as planned. There was a fair bit of improvisation on the shoot, with my CD and the shoot director discussing stuff, and accordingly changing the camera angles, and getting the two sportsmen to act out their parts in as many variations as possible.

Oh, we also got breakfast in thh morning - bread and jam, chocos or cornflakes with hot milk, grapes, pav bhaji and mutton kheema, idli, medu wada, and some sliced cake, supposedly from monginis. Reason alone to keep going to these shoots.

Philips loves us Advertisers

Yes, they like us so much, they've decided that the back-breaking work we do to produce a television commercial should not be wasted. They've patented a television that will prevent viewers from changing the channel when an ad is playing. Wow. I can see hordes of people fighting over a chance to buy this. Fantastic.

They must have been inspired by former television executive Jamie Kellner, who once said that people who went to the bathroom during commercial breaks were "stealing" TV.

Philips has ofcourse mulled this over, and decided that if at all you want to fast forward through the ad, or switch the channel, a nominal payment will give you that option.

Yay, more money in their pockets!

VH1 Headbanger's Ball - False Advertising or Misrepresentation?

April 7th must have been marked on a lot many calenders here in Mumbai. Atleast among all the metalheads who watch VH1. They were premiering Headbanger's Ball at midnight. I'd been waiting for it over a week, and had to miss the last song (had to go to the airport) but for all practical purposes, i could have missed the entire show.

I counted only 3 songs, just 3, that were suited for a show like this. Every other song could have easily been played at primetime or any other time throughout the day.

They started off with a very cliched song for a premiere - Metallica's Enter Sandman. Ok, it's Metallica, but this song has been done to death. They follow this up with Linkin Park. Jeez, what were they thinking? GnR's Sweet Child Of Mine is a great song no doubt, but a headbanging song it aint. Neither is Creed's What If, which if you ask me, sucks anyway.

So the 3 songs - Slipknot's Wait and Bleed, Nine Inch Nails' Pig something, and a song by Death (which incidentally didn't get its song/band/album name displayed).

There was some real bad stuff too. A horrible live performance by Deep Purple, totally destroying Highway Star, and a slow, slow, slow, boring song that I first thought was by Sade, but turned out to be something by Drowning Pool.

So what is this, false advertising? I'd be tempted to call it so, but no, that's a bit too harsh. This seems to be more ofa case trying to please veryone, as wide a demographic as possible. Creed, Linkin Park, Death, and Nine Inch Nails on the same show? That's what they're missing. Focus.

Ok, I think i'm trying a bit too hard. Over-analysing. Lets just say, I'm hoping for a much heavier show next time round.

One Night @ Saatchi & Saatchi

I love work. It gives me purpose. And purpose is what defines us.

So anyway, I just spent 32 hours at work. Wicked, eh? From 9 in the morning yesterday, to 5 in the evening today. With about 2 hours of broken sleep. We wrapped up our session (notice i didn't use the word "work", because we weren't all done) at around 6:30 in the morning, the team left, and I couldn't stay awake for much longer. Ofcourse, the night watchman was winding up his shift, and insisted on sharing some office gossip with me. I would have retained some of it if I was even halfway awake, but I was pretty much lost to the world. Staring at him with blank eyes. He must have gotten the message, I don't know, he left. I slept.

Got back up at 9, even though the team came in only by 11. Finished up work, stumbled through the day, and when I couldn't take it anymore, I left. This was just before the client meeting, but I didn't want to fall asleep in the conference room. Anyway, I hope they like our work, wouldn't wanna redo it all over.

Anti-Maria ads = Anti-sales campaign?

My mom told me about an interesting incident that happened at work. Every evening, the workers are given Marie biscuits and tea. Some days back, they refused to have the biscuits, and were giving people a hard time.

When my mom went to ask them what the problem was, they said they're not going to eat Marie any more, since the people on tv keep telling them not to have it. My mom was taken back. She tried to explain how that is just an ad, and what Marie is trying to say is that there is now a new Marie, much better than the older one.

Uh-huh-huh, they simply refused to listen, and as a result, some other biscuit brand is used.

Sometimes, agencies try too hard. Ads do backfire.