Stirling McLaughlin’s Cabinet of Internet Curiosities

Copywriter Kate Lummus and I (along with invaluable support and insight from Misplaced Planet’s Shaun Boyle and Benni Pierce) created a TV spot that we had hoped would send us off to Southern France for a week of all expense paid, sunburned, glory.

Well, that didn’t happen Continue reading ‘Yes we Cannes? Sadly, no.’

About The Author - My name is Stirling McLaughlin. I am married. I am an Art Director, Designer and Illustrator. The opinions expressed on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my employer. I have lots of ideas. I have a baby girl named Nika Bean. I live in New York City. When I was in college, they put me on TV because I wore a mask and yelled at people. I have a reality show that I wil be starting… any day now. - See My Portfolio

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of once again making the trek out to Metuchen, NJ to participate in a Misplaced Planet production. This was notable for a few reasons. This marked my first time in front of the camera in almost 5 years (that’s me with the astronaut). Also, when its finished, “Security Deposit” will be the first Misplaced Planet production to be shot entirely in High Definition.

When I was in film school, my camera, a Sony TRV900, was the envy of all of my friends. But that was almost a decade ago! I’m talking way back in the day when people rode to the market in their horseless carriages and cameras used things like “video tapes”. Back in the late 90s, if you wanted to transfer your footage to your computer, you first needed to go through and log whatever clips you wanted. Then you had to wait as your computer played through it all in real time. Hell, why do I even bother? Most of you probably weren’t even born yet!

The camera we used this Sunday, a Panasonic AG-HVX200, uses solid state p2 cards, not tape. Every hour or so, we would take a break for a few minutes and they would dump all the footage to a laptop. When our director got home, he didn’t need to sift through hours of tape. He just pulled up the clips and started reviewing them right away. He hopes to have us a rough cut in another day or so. With any luck, we may have a final cut in the same amount of time it used to take us just to capture the footage!

Now, I’m a fairly tech savy person, so its pretty hard to make me feel old. Still, as I watched the director and DP review takes by scrolling through thumbnails on the camera’s LCD screen, I have to admit it made my angina act up.

Such is progress.

About The Author - My name is Stirling McLaughlin. I am married. I am an Art Director, Designer and Illustrator. The opinions expressed on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my employer. I have lots of ideas. I have a baby girl named Nika Bean. I live in New York City. When I was in college, they put me on TV because I wore a mask and yelled at people. I have a reality show that I wil be starting… any day now. - See My Portfolio

When I first came to New York, I spent several years working in “sports promo”. You know those little ads at the top right corner of the USA Today’s sport section? That used to be my job! I would download pictures from a stock photo site, one player from this team and one from the other, and drop them in to ads designed to look like the they where about to eat each other’s spleens.

Unfortunately, any type of conceptual ad or headline was next to impossible to pull off. Usually it would end up being something like “Rumble in the Big Easy” or “Come On, Feel The Heat!” This was because we couldn’t't focus on any particular athlete. If someone became injured, or sucker-punched a fan, or killed a bunch of pit-bulls in a backyard dog fighting ring, we needed to have alternate images to swap out at the last minute. That way we wouldn’t run an ad that would garner bad publicity for the event, or show an athlete who wasn’t actually playing that night. On occasion, these changes would be made several hours after the newspaper’s “drop dead” deadline.During hockey season, we would occasionally have to go to our fourth or fifth alternate.

Fashion runs on a totally different time-line. Back in my sports promo days, I would look at people working on fashion and cosmetic accounts with serious envy. These people might be working four, five, maybe even six months in advance of their deadlines. By the time the fall season was here, the ads for the following spring season where already of being retouched and polished up. For an over worked, ulcered guy like myself, that sounded like a huge improvement!

Now, I’ve never worked for a fashion magazine, but its  easy to imagine that they work on a similar time-line. So I guess it isn’t so surprising that a coked-up jail-bound drunk with her career firmly in the crapper is gracing the cover of one of the nation’s most prestigious fashion magazines.

As I walked to work this morning past the ritzy section surrounding Carnegie Hall, I noticed a phone booth ad proudly displaying the September issue of ELLE magazine. There, in all of her freckled glory, was none other than Ms. Mean Girls herself, Lindsay Lohan. One might think that ELLE is taking risks by placing a human lighting rod like Lindsay on their cover, but I tend to think that decision was made a long time ago. Back before her May drunk driving arrest or her stint in rehab. Before her latest movie tanked or her July re-arrest. I’m talking way back in the salad days when the lovable star of Parent Trap was starting to show herself to be a true movie star.

Perhaps ELLE could learn something from the USA Today sports section.

About The Author - My name is Stirling McLaughlin. I am married. I am an Art Director, Designer and Illustrator. The opinions expressed on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my employer. I have lots of ideas. I have a baby girl named Nika Bean. I live in New York City. When I was in college, they put me on TV because I wore a mask and yelled at people. I have a reality show that I wil be starting… any day now. - See My Portfolio

Widgets are starting to show their potential as an effective form of interactive advertising. Widgets allow for a deeper level of interaction as apposed to traditional banner ads, by the fact that they are meant to be shared. Also, brands can endear themselves to influential blogger by allowing them to wear these widgets as a sort of badge of honor, or by providing them with a useful tool. Companies and websites are learning that providing widgets to bloggers and social networking sites can turn their fans into a sales force, or at least a media department. Seth Godin would be proud.

If you are looking for effective widgets, check out the one below from the Superbad site. Or check out that funky clock in my sidebar. Both are good examples. More companies are going to catch on, and then you can expect a flood of this kind of advertising. Most of them will be awful, but hopefully a few will be truly remarkable. Enjoy.

P.s. Sites that have widgets on facebook are seeing huge increases in traffic. Check out Quantcast’s recent report on the facebook effect.

About The Author - My name is Stirling McLaughlin. I am married. I am an Art Director, Designer and Illustrator. The opinions expressed on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my employer. I have lots of ideas. I have a baby girl named Nika Bean. I live in New York City. When I was in college, they put me on TV because I wore a mask and yelled at people. I have a reality show that I wil be starting… any day now. - See My Portfolio

Misplaced Planet has been enjoying a little e-fame since their video “Brains!” showed up on the main page over at Myspace a couple of weeks back.

I could go on and on about what I think about the movie, but it would be easier to just quote the filmmakers themselves…

Despite a running time of less than three minutes, Brains!!! is perhaps the most horrifying film of all time. It is a thousand times more frightening than most pop songs twice its length.

Enjoy!

About The Author - My name is Stirling McLaughlin. I am married. I am an Art Director, Designer and Illustrator. The opinions expressed on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my employer. I have lots of ideas. I have a baby girl named Nika Bean. I live in New York City. When I was in college, they put me on TV because I wore a mask and yelled at people. I have a reality show that I wil be starting… any day now. - See My Portfolio

From Misplaced Planet comes another short featuring music by yours truly. I think you will notice a considerable improvement over my music for Just Us League.

This video is currently up against tons of other videos in a head to head competition over at Ourstage. Can Misplaced Planet sweep the competition two months in a row? All signs point to maybe!

About The Author - My name is Stirling McLaughlin. I am married. I am an Art Director, Designer and Illustrator. The opinions expressed on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my employer. I have lots of ideas. I have a baby girl named Nika Bean. I live in New York City. When I was in college, they put me on TV because I wore a mask and yelled at people. I have a reality show that I wil be starting… any day now. - See My Portfolio

Inspired by the Flux’s 3 word movie reviews, I decided to try the far wordier, albeit far less ambitious, 5 word movie review. Originally I set out to review every movie I had ever seen. This proved to be, quite frankly, impossible. I’ve got 50 so far. Many of these where originally posted on my old wordpress.com blog, but I thought they’d be worth revisiting here. Enjoy.

Citizen Kane (1941)
Alright. I could do better.

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)
Didn’t see it. Sounds Awesome!

Chinatown (1974)
Roman Polanski: Genius, Child F***er

Jaws (1975)
Family man fights shark, wins.

Mad Max (1979)
Rockatansky? Sounds Jewish to me…

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Archeologist fights the Nazis, wins.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Alien fights family man, wins.

Blade Runner (1982)
I dream of electric sheep… :-0

Yentl (1983)
Guessing Mel didn’t see it.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
Archeologist fights Kali devotees, wins.

Splash (1984)
Hannah as manatee. Comic gold.

Volunteers (1985)
Move over “the River Kwai”!

The Man with One Red Shoe (1985)
Greatest spy film ever made?

Pretty in Pink (1986)
Andie’s black. Think about it.

Above the Law (1988)
Good Seagal. Only happened once.

Big (1988)
Captures my imagination every time

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
Archeologist fights Nazis again, wins.

The ‘burbs (1989)
“Satan is your pal.” priceless

Joe Versus the Volcano (1990)
Better than half this crap.

The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990)
Could’ve been worse… Just kidding…

Hook (1991)
Peter Pan fights Hook, wins.

A League of Their Own (1992)
Women playing baseball? What’s Next??

Jurassic Park (1993)
palaeontologist fights modern dinosaurs, wins

Philadelphia (1993)
Flawless. Need… four… more… words…

Sleepless in Seattle (1993)
Ian’s favorite movie. OOOH BURN!

Harrison Ford is The Fugitive (1993)
Best movie ever! No, seriously

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
FRESH FISH! FRESH FISH! Yikes.

Forrest Gump (1994)
Creates new genre: “Lovable ‘tards”

Braveheart (1995)
Wasn’t William Wallace a jew?

Toy Story (1995)
Pixar’s greatest film? Maybe Tom’s?

Apollo 13 (1995)
Too serious. I blame Philadelphia.

Breaking the Waves (1996)
“Golden Heart” trilogy causes vomiting

Titanic (1997)
Birthed “synthespians”. Drowned them all.

Conspiracy Theory (1997)
Amazingly, not about the jews!

The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
chaotitian fights modern dinosaurs, wins

Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Extreme Makeover: Greatest Generation Edition

You’ve Got Mail (1998)
Didn’t I just see this?

The Green Mile (1999)
Save time. Read six volumes…

Cast Away (2000)
Joe minus Volcano. Wilson dominates.

Dancer in the Dark (2000)
Breaking the Waves: The Musical

American Psycho (2000)
I can relate… Just kidding…

Minority Report (2002)
Man fights his destiny, wins

Catch Me If You Can (2002)
Tom brilliant as charming putz.

Ghost Ship (2002)
Ghosts on Ship. Zanyness ensues

Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)
Face It. Michael was right.

The Passion of the Christ (2004)
I know he was jewish.

The Ladykillers (2004)
Yeah Tom! Stick with funny!

The Terminal (2004)
No Tom. I said funny.

War of the Worlds (2005)
Family man fights aliens, wins.

Derailed (2005)
Tell Hafstrom “Rape’s not cool”!!

Check out The Flux to see their three word reviews.

About The Author - My name is Stirling McLaughlin. I am married. I am an Art Director, Designer and Illustrator. The opinions expressed on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my employer. I have lots of ideas. I have a baby girl named Nika Bean. I live in New York City. When I was in college, they put me on TV because I wore a mask and yelled at people. I have a reality show that I wil be starting… any day now. - See My Portfolio

Just Us League, a short film written and produced by my buddies at Misplaced Planet has won the monthly $5,000 grand prize for video at Ourstage. The video contains music which I composed with my considerable talent.

In truth, I don’t know that my music had anything to do with the films success. It may even be the weakest part. Still, the thrill of victory is enough to drown out my own self doubt.

I expect great things from Misplaced Planet in the future. Enjoy.

About The Author - My name is Stirling McLaughlin. I am married. I am an Art Director, Designer and Illustrator. The opinions expressed on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my employer. I have lots of ideas. I have a baby girl named Nika Bean. I live in New York City. When I was in college, they put me on TV because I wore a mask and yelled at people. I have a reality show that I wil be starting… any day now. - See My Portfolio

Here is another one from my buddies at Misplaced Planet. Kind of like “The Office” meets “The Office, only IN SPACE”!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoD0M91W7Vk]

Enjoy,
-stirling

About The Author - My name is Stirling McLaughlin. I am married. I am an Art Director, Designer and Illustrator. The opinions expressed on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my employer. I have lots of ideas. I have a baby girl named Nika Bean. I live in New York City. When I was in college, they put me on TV because I wore a mask and yelled at people. I have a reality show that I wil be starting… any day now. - See My Portfolio

My buddies at Misplaced Planet have been enjoying a little e-fame  since their video “Brains!” showed up on the main page over at Myspace. I could go on and on about what I think about the movie, but it would be easier to just quote the filmmakers themselves…

Despite a running time of less than three minutes, Brains!!! is perhaps the most horrifying film of all time. It is a thousand times more frightening than most pop songs twice its length.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wYkWuv-4Lg]

Enjoy!

-stirling

About The Author - My name is Stirling McLaughlin. I am married. I am an Art Director, Designer and Illustrator. The opinions expressed on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my employer. I have lots of ideas. I have a baby girl named Nika Bean. I live in New York City. When I was in college, they put me on TV because I wore a mask and yelled at people. I have a reality show that I wil be starting… any day now. - See My Portfolio