Look At Different Things.

So by now, you’re going, what does Shatner, Tattoo and this post have to do with being an art director? It’s just stuff that I notice, stuff that inspires. Do that as well in your work. Look at stuff. Read new things. Watch new movies. You have to, or eventually you don’t improve your visual vocabulary that you use in your work.

So if you’re an AD, (or even if you’re not), see this movie: Hero with Jet Li. (Originally called Ying xiong.) I saw it again on USA or TBS recently, but it was dubbed and they killed it. (Love it when the U.S. changes a name, pans & scans or dubbs a movie.) Watch the original with subtitles on to get the full story – even if you hate them – because the imagery and shots are really just too beautiful to skip. Truly epic. (Yes there are some fight-by-wire sequences, but not as much as Crouching Tiger.)

And, that’s important because there really aren’t any epics being made on the order that they used to. All of our content these days is being compressed to fit onto a cellphone screen or iPod. ‘Epic’ in these formats just looks like, well, ants. And that sucks in one regard: we’re getting tighter, more microscopic and more restrained. We need to expand though, to move beyond limits or format constraints. That’s what creatives do, right?

Tags: advertising, Hero, Jet Li, movies