Our Logbook » Thinking Archive

The Space Shuttle just launched for the final time. Both an amazing and sad event. We watched it live from the Nasa website at Albion HQ.

However at the same time The Sagan Series posted a new video to commemorate the history of the shuttle and space travel. If you haven’t watched or read up about The Sagan Series and its maker Reid Gower, do so now. Beautiful, poignant and simple. Facebook. YouTube. There are a number of episodes. Below is the End of an Era Space Shuttle Film.

Welcome those of you who, out of curiosity, have clicked the blog button or merely stumbled onto these pages expecting poignant insights into the world of marketing. Or some… Ha… Ha… crazy pictures of us doing crazy stuff like bake sales or something. You’ll get neither! Just a moan, and you’ll be grateful.

I hate dreams.

Yeah, I said it.

Not the “when I grow up…” or “one day I’ll…” or “I’m starting a business making spoons” sort of dreams. The night-time dreams, REM marlarky.

Let’s also not confuse dreams with imagination. Cos I love imagining. Pretending. Playing. Thinking crazy things up. I’d be in the wrong job if I didn’t. Dreams are a different confusing mind-beast.

Maybe it’s because I’ve never been one who has seen something in a dream and gone – “Yes, that’s it”. No flying flaming pies of wisdom for me.

I know what you’re dying to say:

“But like Aaron in like dreams you can like fly and stuff”

And I would retort:

“But then I’d wake up and find out I couldn’t fly and be pissed off. And stop saying “like”, you sound idiotic”.

I’d rather imagine myself flying while awake, then be taken in by such an elaborate deceit.

Y’see, I wake from dreams pissed off at people cos their dream counterpart cheated on me. I wake up feeling sad when a nice adventure isn’t true. Or I wake up more knackered cos of some mental dream spent running from monsters/zombies/aliens. Or having dream-spent a whole day stressed at a job that I haven’t done in years with people I hate, only to realise I’m gonna be late cos I’d left my purple tie at home and there are no buses coming. Or episodic dreams, where you know this has happened before, but you still need to go through the motions of leading that army to the beach to fight lobsters, with the vague hope you might move the story on. Can’t I just have some peace for one night?

And don’t get me started on the whole “they were my friend but not”, “It was my house but upside-down” or the “I just got ready for work didn’t I?” genre of dreams.

I suppose it’s because in a dream everything feels real, even lucid dreaming still leaves a bad taste in my brain. For me it’s not a question of controlling dreams, more that I’d have to. It all takes energy and effort which basically goes toward nothing. Other than messing with me. It doesn’t feel like rest. Which is what sleeping is for right?

Note to Subconcious: To be fair I could do without it.

…………..

UPDATE: I wrote this at 1.30am just before going to bed. I woke up annoyed at my wife for a dream-something she didn’t actually do, and I scowled at her for 5 minutes. Fact.

UPDATE 2: My lawyers are suggesting that I state that in no way do the previous opinions as thus stated in this blography internet letter represent the opinions of other members of Albion and their subsequent love or necessity for dreams. Or any organisation that sells dreams, dream-like holidays or deliciously dreamy products for eating whose business we may want.

The new Memory Stick Adventures are in!

These are our way of making the boring memory stick a bit more fun. For the last few years our sticks have been on a crazy rollercoaster of a journey. Each one has a selection of entries from it’s travel diary. The latest set even has a stamp from all the exotic places its visited. If you get one you’re bloody lucky, even those of us who work here struggle to collect them, for they’ll inevitably be worth a fortune on The Antiques Roadshow 2067.

It’s E3 at the moment and the net is awash with live broadcasts and conversations about a medium that survives by pushing boundaries, has become a bigger industry than films and, to a lot of the audience, is an art form. This gives me a reason to ramble on, with little to no coherent point, about what I do when my wife isn’t watching Eastenders on our TV.

I am a gaming fan. I enjoy how you can be more connected to a game than to a film. I like the fact I can create and play cinematic moments rather than have them play out for me. I like talking in the first person about how I killed a vampire and be shocked as I play out my own death scene. I’ve played games as long as I’ve ridden my bike. It’s just something my brother and I did when we couldn’t go outside. From Spectrum ZX, through Super NES to PS3.

However, one genre of game I’ve never been in tune with is the RPG. The role playing game. I’ve just never ‘got’ it. It just took too much time and gave too many options. Why would I be a barman selling flagons of ale and talking, talking, talking, slowly discovering the secrets of the realm, when I can be jumping on Koopas or in the SAS, head-shotting insurgents from behind generic looking crates or barrels?

This includes the whole MMORPGWTF worlds as well. If I can’t drop in and out, or it was not shooty, drivey, jumpy fun I was just not interested. It seemed to be reserved for those who dabble in the Pasty-faced-T-shirts-of-wolves-howling-at-the-moon-wearing-dungeons-and-dragons side of gaming. People who really dedicate time to not seeing real grass or trees. That’s not entirely fair. Let’s not forget that many a boy (my brother included) played Championship Manager to the early hours of the morning – Yes that is an RPG Sean, you were watching numbers change on a screen for chrisakes! Not me, none of it. All those stats. Talking. You hit me. Wait. I hit you. Wait. You hit me. Wai…Boring.

But I’m changing. One thing I have seen in gaming is that RPG elements are making their way into even the most mainstream of games. Not only did we not notice this infiltration into our super cool driving games. We like it. Because it gives our pew, pew games more depth.

Call of Duty. Bioshock. FIFA 11. Red Dead Redemption. Gran Turismo. Assassins Creed. Big popular games, full of RPG parts. Yep. You know it’s true. Levelling up. Crazy customisation. Character creation. Weapon classes. Open worlds to explore. Ambient missions. Multiple endings. Moral choices. Being left on the bench as a season plays out while you watch – damn you FIFA. All things that have made these games last longer and feel more fulfilling, and that I used to avoid like the T-Virus. I now demand them. I feel cheated if I can’t lose myself in these things.

It got me thinking. Am I playing RPG games with great shooting/driving/jumping elements? Or are these jumpy/drivey/shooty games with great added RPG bits? Or is it simply that developers have realised that a world growing up on the internet can handle this added level of choice alongside the shiny graphics? As I type I’m surrounded by buttons and choices every second. In Facebook I create my own character with text, use digital currencies, friend stats and share found treasures everyday. For me, these gaming classifications are becoming more and more redundant as I start to see more immersive entertainment using the best bits from all types of sources. It’s becoming a question of game universe (franchise), rather than game genre.

Charlie Brooker is right, modern games are difficult to describe as anything other than ‘experiences’. And this blurring of the genre lines just emphasises that. One thing I’ve been told is that RPGs are stories you unravel in a way unique to you. But more and more games are letting me do that, without a broad sword in sight.

Most great games are tales that put Hollywood to shame – wrapped up with action, intelligence, subtlety and an even greater ability to make the story your own. I recently played Mass Effect 2… ummm alot. It’s an ‘Action RPG’ and I played it out of morbid curiosity. And got hooked on the amount of subtle things I could do with the game, outside of the ‘action’ bits. I took ownership of my character and defined, in my own mind, what they would and wouldn’t do. It’s big, epic and you still do a fair bit of talking. But it’s also blockbustery, shooty fun.

But back to my main question (I recently posed it to Official PlayStation Magazine. And got a great answer – although I’m not sure my wife would agree) – Am I now an RPG fan? It’s fair to say I am turning into one, but not by choice. I still don’t ‘get’ many ‘pure’ role playing games. Or why I’d sink half my life into them. But I do have a levelled-up appreciation for the RPG. As I said, I’m playing them more and more, without even knowing it. As long as they come packaged with a lot of vroom, screeee, bang, bang, kaplooee, ROONEY!

After a weekend in a conference hall, while the sun shone down from the heavens, I then spent a sunny Tuesday in Olympia judging two briefs for Student D&AD Awards. But I didn’t mind. It was fun. Darkened-square-eyed-screen-watching-form-filling fun.

Olympia is an incredible venue for D&AD and it helped highlight the creativity that was around us. For the first time the Student Awards and Professional Awards were being judged at the same time. Which meant, in the 10 minutes between rounds I was able to walk around and see some of the really great work being entered. I hope you win. I thought yours was the best.

The other thing that struck me was the level of quality presentation from the Students. The craft in many pieces blew me away. Some had made whole video case studies, close to anything I’ve seen a professional deliver at a pitch. One person must have Spike Jonze as an uncle because their film was beautiful. However they did raise the question: Are we liking the video case study and nice music and deep emotive VO, or the idea? After a gentle debate this was (usually) easily solved. In the end a fair bit of the work we commended had no case-study-like video, but were simple great ideas, realised with interesting media choices.

All the judges had spent time prior to Judgement Day whittling down the selection via an online process. This was great because it allowed us to get to grips with the work in our own time and properly analyse it. For me, in the pre-judging two things repeated, both about how some students regard integrated solutions. I was either seeing a couple of press ads posted onto everything from banners to bus shelters or I was seeing 50,000 (approx) little ideas with nothing to hold them together – could it be too many students were working together and couldn’t edit or focus, afraid of upsetting each other? It appeared that way. Some ideas that got through were just better focussed and used media (and PR) that suited a smart concept, and helped tell the right story to the right people in the right places.

This was my first year judging D&AD and I was very honoured to be there and mixing with such interesting and talented people. It was also great to debate with them as an equal. I fought for ideas I felt challenged the brief, client and D&AD. Which wasn’t as difficult, or as heroic of me, as I make it sound, as most of the judges in my inflatable Judgaterium immediately felt the same about certain pieces that were just stand-out and scary ideas. Ideas to be jealous of. Yes we argued over the finer details of certain entries – but that was part of the fun.

One thing to note if you’re a student – be more dangerous. C’mon, we need a bit more “you can’t do that” spirit, it makes us remember your work.

Now, I can’t reveal anything about the results. We’ve been warned by the D&AD police. Which makes it difficult for the Content Pimps out there. There’s only so many tweets one can… err… tweet about the space, the coffee, the pigeon or the mounting – some colleagues have even resorted to insulting each other using the #dandad2011. Which seems about right. D&AD are probably monitoring posts about the awards right now, like the FBI scan my emails for words like ‘bobm’. They do I tell you! So I will not take the risk. Sorry, not even for your handsome face.

One other thing I was privy to on Tuesday was the launch of a new pencil. You probably already know what it is as you’re so tuned in, but as a reminder – The White Pencil. An award designed to recognise ideas that make the world a better place. Is D&AD getting moralistic in its Golden age? Ah, who cares, I can’t think of a D&AD pencil I’d rather win.

Good luck to all the students that entered. Hopefully see you on the other side.

Last weekend I went to the launch of Kapow. To ka-what? Kapow. A comic con at – wait, wait don’t click that back button – London’s Business Design Centre in Angel, that plans to be an on-going yearly event.

Kapow aimed to bring some ‘American glamour’ to a UK comic book event. A place where comic fans, top writers and artists, publishers, filmmakers, genre TV shows and games get to meet and talk.

And you know what. I loved it. Even the queuing. Which took up about 50% of the two days I spent there. We queued to get in. We queued to meet comic book legends. We queued to see film exclusives. We queued to get out.

The ambassador and ‘fixer’ for Kapow was Mark Millar, the creator of Kick Ass. A little Scottish guy with a big, honest and playful personality, Millar seems to have cornered the market in “Why hasn’t that been done already?’ ideas. And seems so prolific he must make it hard for others to keep up. At Kapow he even announced a new book called Super Crooks – about criminals who are so sick of being beaten by American super heroes, they move to Spain to start a new crime spree.

Jonathon Ross (a huge comic book fan) was also a key ambassador for Kapow. Kicking off the day with a fun and funny Fans Vs Pros game show. As you can imagine sexual innuendo and obscure characters were in abundance.

Two of the more inspirational panels: Creator Owned comics (Books with original characters put out by creators under their own steam. E.g. Super Crooks) and How to Break into Marvel featured Frank Quitely, Dave Gibbons, John Romita Jr, Andy Diggle, Jock, Leinil Yu, Ian Churchill, Kieron Gillan, Adi Granov as well as Millar. If you don’t know who those people are Google them.

Those panels were interesting for me as they drew parallels with how we work at Albion and how we judge people seeking jobs. The digital world makes it so much easier to get known. Don’t wait to see someone. Don’t just email and expect an interview. Start publishing your own comics online. Start your own site. Start your own company. Get friends to draw them. Get weird digital or real life projects going. Make online connections. Build your own network of talent. If enough noise gets made around you then the right people start taking notice. All advice, that for me, rings true.

Adi Granov summed it up in one word: Quality. That’s the linchpin. You can know as many people in the industry as you like. You can blag your way in. But if the quality isn’t there you won’t last two minutes. The others agreed. Stating that they continue, even now, to push the quality of their work. Making it better for themselves, not the money or fame.

In fact, while these people have become so well respected and famous within the comic book (and entertainment) world they’re also incredibly normal, humble and respectful of the people who showed up to see them. Which was great to see.

There’s also a big British contingent in modern American comics and this was on show. And even with the American polish, Kapow had a very British sensibility. Albeit slightly hung-over one, well can you get more British? I felt this was an event put on by friends. Guys who literally go down the pub together, who’re fans themselves that love and talk about each other’s work.

Back to queuing. I waited for an hour and a half to get John Romita Jr to sign my copy of Kick Ass. He’s like The Fonz. When I finally met him, he told me I had to go out shopping with my wife, sit quietly, help carry bags and then take her out for a nice meal, to make up for her having to queue with me to get his signature. Emma liked that. Even when we saw him later on he remembered us and talked to us even more. So… that’s why the wait was long. He actually spent time talking to everyone. And then I suddenly felt the time queuing wasn’t wasted. Which, if you know the moody-glass-half-empty me, is hard to believe.

I managed to get Dave Gibbons to sign my copy of Watchmen. Watched Joe Cornish talk about Attack The Block. I got issue #1 of one of my favourite books Ultimate Wolverine Vs Hulk signed by artist Leinil Yu (written by Damon Lindelof who made Lost and you all watched that). I also saw a great little interview with Frank Quitely which had him talking about how he draws on the bus on the way to his studio. Again, I could relate. Although I’m usually coming up with lines for Cuervo POS.

There were tons of other panels and screenings. I never got into Thor or Green Lantern – the two big films this year. Instead I spent time going round the many stalls of comics, artists and toys. Now, other than a Transformers’ G1 Megatron teasing me, I was drawn to the 2000AD stand. A British magazine going since the 70’s that I’d so far ignored, to the real comic fan’s horror. But I was determined today of all days to be opened up to it.

Never have I met people enjoying the content they put out so much. These weren’t sales people, but fans who were just keen to talk about and recommend stories I would really like. Could I be tempted? After a few page turns it seems I could. Kapow Ka-ching.

So why am I talking about a comic con here? Well, in my mind comics are such an influential, creative medium. Whether digital or printed. And it was great to go to a celebration of that. They are fuelling and have fuelled for many years the ‘more credible’ film industry. Road to Perdition? Comic book, oh yeah. It’s an industry made and upheld by struggling creative people who just want to make high quality, rich and emotive work. And yet it’s still considered niche or silly by many. And ignored by others. At Kapow, I overheard one 10 year old seemingly well-adjusted boy saying “I feel normal for once”. Forgetting the fact he was running about pointing a Green Lantern ring at people, why did it take a Comic Con full of like-minded people to make him feel this?

Comics, whether you’ve notice them or not are a huge part of pop culture. Superman is one of the World’s most well-known brands. The Dark Knight was a huge success story. The Kick Ass film was independently funded and found a big audience. Kapow itself was full of people from all walks of life (and their patient partners), some who were new to comics and curious, not just the typical ‘comicbook guy’.

Yet a lot of people still scoff at the ‘funny pages’ and refuse to read books with pictures. As for me, the ideas that pour out of comics amaze me on a regular basis. What would happen if all the men in the world suddenly died (Y the Last Man)? Or what would happen if Superman landed in Stalin’s Russia (Red Son)? Or what would happen if a preacher, who’d lost his faith, was possessed with the offspring of a demon and an angel and was pissed off at God (Preacher)? And I’ve only been reading for a few years.

Hmmm… I had no real point to make when I started writing this. I had some time to kill and wanted to share. Is this a review of Kapow? Is it a discussion on how most creative industries seem really similar in practice and process, no matter what their creative output? Is it my not-so-subtle way of twisting the arms of the people who read this blog to like comics? Or is it just a proclamation of how geeky I really am? I don’t know. As you’ve seen I have no answers or conclusions as is customary.

But one clear message I will finish on is this: Read Ultimate Wolverine Vs Hulk. It’s frackin’ awesome.

So if you don’t know the story, here it is:

26th April. FIBA announced that, unlike the rest of Team GB, the British Basketball team had to win a series of games to earn their spot at the 2012 Olympics. Even though we’re the host nation!

We’ve got the best team in years. So with Sam Neter of Hoopsfix and Sillky Slim, hype-man, Albion are on a mission to fill those games with the biggest, loudest crowds ever. To inspire and give GB the boost they need to qualify for the Olympics.

It’s been a busy couple of weeks with British basketball. Sam and Sillky are running around the country. Meeting people, charming the public and going to games. Whatever they can. And people are starting to get behind the campaign. Including Lenny Henry, Keith Lemon and Jamelia!

Crowds at the game are growing steadily and are getting louder. People are joining the Facebook group. We’ve sold out of T-shirts – but are ordering more. The website backbritishbasketball.com is going strong, There are loads of interviews and videos and more importantly people are buying tickets.

And it’s working.

GB are 5 wins for 5! And it really feels like the fans are the one’s giving them that extra boost to win, what are very close games. The pride, energy and GB love is electric. Especially from Sam and Sillky. We have one final home game left in Liverpool. Thurs 26th August. Not long to go. But GB are playing better than they ever have. They’re the underdog team and they’re showing their worth.

We’ve created a film about the exploits leading up to the first game. And to introduce you to the players – they are top blokes, who clearly love representing the country. For anyone out there with a cinema we’d love for you to screen it.

We’ve started our own noise-makers with the Balldogs. People who receive free tickets to home games in return for creating an atmosphere. Something GB games have always sorely lacked. They even reside in the Dog Pound. And you can clearly hear them during the highlights, led by Sillky on his trusty megaphone.

Channel 4 even interviewed Sam and Sillky and it was broadcast on Sunday. Against the backdrop of a great win by GB against the Ukraine. With Deng pulling out all the stops during the final quarter. You can clearly hear the Dog Pound shouting the “Deng” chant, created during our campaign. And for eagle eyed amongst you, this handsome writer even pops up in the crowd. Skip to 25:48 for the BBB interview and 43:50 for Luol Deng’s clutch performance.

Also, Sam and Albion’s Creative Director Andre Moreira even got a mention in the Wall St Journal. Exciting. In an interesting article about the state of the British game. “British stink at basketball”? Well, we’ll show you. You big American journal of Wall. “Balls St” to that! Ha ha hum.

What we are seeing is that there are very passionate fans out there for British basketball. And people that are simply passionate about our nation and want British sports people to do well. Even President Obama is a fan of Britain’s Deng. Why isn’t our Prime Minister getting behind our team? Or the Olympic committee? Or even the UK press? Basketball could be the next rowing or cycling if we get into the Olympics.

So if you still have time after reading all that. Watch the film or buy some tickets. Or just click “like” on the Facebook page. After all, with our football teams cocking it up over the summer we should at least show some respect for the underdog GB team who are battling their way to an Olympics they should by rights already be in.

Our Team. In our Olympics. By any means necessary.

Our Lily’s Kitchen packaging has been spotted by the people over at The Sunday Telegraph’s Stella Magazine. Good stuff. Go on, treat that other member of the family. The magazine thinks it’s wise to.

“It’s not often you’ll find us cooing over a tin of pet food, but Lily’s Kitchen has packaging to challenge many an posh organic brand.”