singing in the rain shoot

my favourite pic from the shoot

Photographer: Paul Blundell
Art Director/Production & Styling: Lornsadaisy
Hair & Make up Artist: Jay Pinxie Turnbull
Model: Leah Hibbert

Robin Goodchild Memorial Trust

Robin Goodchild Memorial Trust

Statement from Robin’s family;
Dear Friends and Family of Robin Goodchild,

Please accept our heartfelt thanks for your overwhelming support that has sustained us through the tragic loss of our son Robin Goodchild. The incredible number of messages, memories, anecdotes and expressions of love that have been mirrored back to us from those of you who knew Robin has been a revelation. His life and light truly touched a great number of souls. We believe that this shared grief and love can and should be translated into a tangible memory of Robin’s power for the good.

Accordingly, an inner group of friends and family have decided to establish a Robin Goodchild Memorial Trust (aka Robin’s Retreat) to raise funds with the ultimate aim of purchasing a building in a countryside setting to establish a place for young people to visit and escape the pressures of inner city life. Our short term aim would be to involve ourselves with existing charities and organizations working with young people suffering depression and stress. We have already sent an outline proposal to Bristol City Council for the use of a local building as a low-budget hostel for performing arts students. A choice of nurturing and reflective activities would be available, as Robin would have said,to enjoy the cool, calm countryside and find inner peace.

There are many amongst us who have the appropriate skills and vision to make this happen. We have already received practical offers of help, the most touching being a copy of a CD of Robin reading his early poetry, which a group of friends have decided to distribute to raise funds. There is a large corpus of his work which has yet to be seen and edited. Others are already taking practical steps to establish the financial structure to support our aims. Others are arranging fundraising events. We have already invited people to write their fondest/funniest memories of Robin and these are being collected and collated by his sister Rosanna.

If you are interested in joining with us with whatever you may have to offer then you can contact us initially through Robin Goodchild’s Facebook under the title Robin’s Trust of by contacting his sister, Rosie

In the near future we will publish full details of the aims and objectives of the Trust with its own website

the t-mobile dance

I LOVE THIS!

I actually put a casting out for this advert on my group; POUT!

To see the songs in the t-mobile dance viral click here (or scroll to the bottom of the page 🙂

The t-mobile dance advert is one of the best adverts I’ve seen for a long time. I saw it whilst talking to a friend on the phone, whilst celebrity big brother was on TV in the background on friday night and had to stop talking to her, and then describe what I was seeing…. I thought it was something specifically to do with big brother at first and couldn’t believe my eyes. I think this will end up being a top viral video too…..

This clever viral ad for t-mobile as part of the ‘Life’s for Sharing’ campaign was filmed in Liverpool Street Station some 24 hours before its premiere on channel four and took months of planning. I love the element of surprise and seeing the general public’s reactions. The video, just short of three minutes, shows just one person breaking into dance at the start before what seems like a flash mob effect. It’s very well choreographed as the dancers are at all different levels adding to the spontaneous/surprise element. Ordinary people seem to break out into dance too, including old ladies – everyone loves a big song and dance!

Hugely successful viral/you tube videos have often included dance routines, infact for some time the most viewed and favourited video on you tube of all time was the evolution of dance by comedian Judson Laipply. It was added to YouTube on April 06, 2006 and has since gone on to attract millions of viewers (111,051,664 at my last count), even now there is a new comment every couple of minutes. The video condenses pop culture dance crazes of the last 40 or so years into a very funny 6 minutes.

Other hugely successful user generated videos have included dances routines such asbest break dance ever and the thai prisoner’s re-enacting michael jackson’sthriller

Viral hits that contain the same element of surprise as the t-mobile advert are wedding routines which are hugely popular (such as these; Wedding Thriller Dance, cool wedding dance, wedding first dance they almost always appear to be spontaneous much the same way as this t-mobile advert but are of course pre-rehearsed.

The element of surprise in all of these dance routines and also the fact that the viewer can relate to the people dancing (rather than watching a hollywood star) make these videos very watchable and have a certain magic. Check out this video of standers by straight after the t-mobile stunt was pulled;

The fact that the t-mobile dance was also a ‘stunt’ means that many by-standers have also filmed the event which re-enforces it’s viral objectives – guerilla marketing is certainly the way forward it seems!

So were Saatchi and saatchi clever to exploit this viral trend or are they just good at watching what’s hot? You can read what they had to say about it here

Liverpool street was definitely the right location for them to choose as it has been the site for similar events previously (but these were not attached to a brand!) In 2006, a similarly large crown all turned up and danced silently to their walkmans at the same time before disbanding; silent disco. The station also had a large gathering on the last night before the drinking ban on london underground stations; Liverpool street station booze ban

Songs
Songs used in the t-mobile dance viral advert

Shout – Lulu & The Luvvers

The only way is up – Yazz

Don’t Cha – The Pussycat Dolls

Blue Danube Waltz – Strauss.

Get down on it – Blue (I think rather than kool and the gang?)

Since you’ve been gone – Rainbow

My boy Lollipop – Millie

Do you love me – The contours

CHOREOGRAPHER was ASHLEY WALLEN
Credits include – Kylie Minogue, Will Young, Jamelia, McCain’s Chips TVC & Alesha Dixon
DIRECTOR: MICHAEL GRACEY

Links:
See some more wedding dances here; top ten wedding dance videos

Viral Marketing Definition in wikipedia

Top 20 viral videos

VIRAL SOCIAL MARKETING IDEAS FOR BORING INDUSTRIES

What makes an idea viral? (Seth’s Blog)

Wiki Viral Video

viral marketing blog (plus cupcakes, photography and funny nights out)

Adver Box advertsing blog

cupcake studio

coming soon…

CUPCAKE represents some of the UKs freshest creative talent – photographers, art directors, set builders, make up artists, illustrators, graphic designers and web site designers.

CUPCAKE studios offers photo production services – such as casting, location scouting, on-site co-ordination, studios, lights and digital postproduction.

CUPCAKE are also pleased to offer Internet, social and viral marketing services.

We are able to offer all of these services now – but our website is being built at the moment – however please get in contact with Lorna on 07825 448 803 for further assistance.

Photo Shoot Production in the UK; London, Bristol, Cardiff, Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle.

chocolate cherry cupcakes

the results from yesterday

chocolate cherry cupcakes

chocolate hedgehog

and they did

chocolate cupcakes

In view of the funny horrible day i’ve had i am researching the best chocolate cupcake recipe….
when times get really tough there is something cathartic about cooking or cleaning i think! So these may end up tasting a tiny bit tearful but cupcakes and chocolate are definitely good for the soul!

Anyways, I’ve googled “chocolate cupcakes nigella” and got this recipe;
Nigella’s chocolate fudge cupcakes…with Williams Sonoma’s chocolate buttercream

Also remembered this recipe from flicking through the book at a friends;
Chocolate cherry cupcakes

update:
wow, just found these too; mexican hot chocolate cupcakes

these ones aren’t chocolate but are a definate must bake; margarita cupcakes

robin goodchild

I found out a very good old friend passed away yesterday. I will miss you more than you could ever know. My silly, lovely, fantastic friend, rest in peace.

UPDATE: Jan 13th 2009
have noticed an extraordinary amount of hits coming to this post as people must be googling robin’s name and for some reason this blog comes up. If there is anyone who is not already in the loop – the funeral is going to be held on Friday 23rd or saturday 24th Janurary 2009 in Bristol – More details to follow (Contact His sister Rosie: Rosie_Rose_21@hotmail.com)

UPDATE: Jan 19th 2009 (again as this post is getting lot’s of hits at the moment I thought I’d add another update, just in case people are not yet in contact with Robin’s family) 

The funeral will be held on the 24th January 2009 in Bristol at 2pm – please contact his sister Rosie for more details and address etc (Rosie: Rosie_Rose_21@hotmail.com)

There will also be a  Celebration of Robin’s Life, all are welcome but again please contact Rosie for details (rather than me posting them here)

There also looks like there will be a THE ROBIN GOODCHILD MEMORIAL FUND – I will create a new post when I have more information.

pooh and duck

happy new year

new year cup cakes

viral movie marketing

did a little research for a friend today…. really interesting subject!

Several of the most famous low budget movies of the last decade have been a phenomenal sucess due to their marketing campaigns… predominatly The Blair Witch project, but also cloverfield and snakes on a plane.

Would they have been such a sucess without the pre-production planned viral/internet campaigns? There’s a great article here;

The guerrilla campaign in 1999’s The Blair Witch Project has been well talked about. With no stars, no script, simple locations and a budget of around $50,000, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez – University of Central Florida Film School pals successfully scrubbed out the line between reality and fiction.

The film’s tagline set the stage: “In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary. A year later, their footage was found.” Audiences were expected to believe what they were watching — shaky, low-quality videotape of three runny-nosed kids weeping in the woods — was an edited-down version of real recovered footage. And while it was certainly an inventive way to challenge the boundaries of cinematic storytelling (not to mention justifying the low-budget look of the film), Blair Witch didn’t exactly seem poised to rival Titanic. That is, until an inventive guerrilla marketing scheme was devised.

To add to the hype, Sánchez created a Web site devoted to the Blair Witch – a fictitious, woods-based specter who’d been snapping up Maryland kids for the last century. Although the legend was created out of whole cloth, it was soon snapped up by gullible Interneters everywhere, and a first-ballot hall of fame urban legend was born. Pretty soon, thousands of people were terrified of the Blair Witch. Even when the actors who played the “film students” started showing up (alive) doing interviews about the movie, many across the country refused to believe the Blair Witch wasn’t real.

From that point, the “I’ve got to see for myself” effect took over, and Blair Witch dominated at the box office. Considered the most effective horror hoax since Orson Welles’ The War Of The Worlds broadcast, the film grossed $250 million worldwide. Not a bad return for Artisan Entertainment, which paid only $1 million for the flick after its Sundance screening.

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/11/13/guerrilla.marketing/

Did Blair Witch really suceed on the efforts of its internet marketing campaign alone? Many others have tried since… Check out what Fortune magazine had to say here

LINKS:

Why The Dark Knight’s Viral Marketing is Absolutely Brilliant

Dark Knight Viral Campaign

Ten ways to hype your way to a hit movie

Top ten viral internet campaigns

http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/the-top-10-viral-marketing-campaigns-of-all-time/654/