watch and learn from the watchmen

A friend sent me this vid promoting Watchmen earlier this week. I'd already seen this one on the origins of Dr Manhattan. I absolutely frickin' love them. Executionally I love the fact there's no super or voiceover to finish them off, they are their own thing. They don't treat you like an idiot. And there are so many sweet touches to make the world of the story part of our own. What a great example of how films can promote themselves, creating content that yields more, making you anticipate more. It's not a first, I know, plenty of others have done it. The Wire's backstory pieces about McNulty, Omar et al spring to mind. And I know from Tash that children's books can also do this. But it did make me think, even if you're not a content brand, how might you spin out the stories about your product or service in a way that interweaves with people's sense of real life? Like Ted says, Howies' Hand-Me-Downs are a good example of backstory being traced into the product. But I'm sure lots more could be done by many others. And what an interesting world it would be.

go do better

For anyone with half an hour to spare, I can't recommend the Do lectures site highly enough. It's an event organised by Howies that gathered a lot of interesting people in one place to explain all about the interesting things they do and the philosophy behind it. All in the hope that it inspires you to go do as well. Featuring everyone's favourite inventor, Trevor Baylis and the always interesting Russell Davies. Do it. Do it. Do it.