Cineworld promotes Disney Pixar’s Up

LONDON – Cinema chain Cineworld has launched a viral game featuring Google Maps, in which people will compete to show how popular they are to promote Disney Pixar’s 3D film ‘Up’.

The aim of the game is to get the most digital balloons attached to your home, seen on Google Maps, by asking friends and family on your online social network to each attach a balloon.

The game can be entered at www.cineworld.com/up and includes integration with Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.

Created by BD-Network, the competition is designed to mirror the film, about an old man who attaches balloons to his house to make it take off from Earth and take him on an adventure.

The top prize is four tickets to Disneyland Paris and two runners-up will get either a private screening of any film or unlimited access to Cineworld for a year.

Jason Waghorn, group account director at BD-Network, said: “This is a huge step forward in a distributor and cinema chain working in partnership to drive awareness of the film, interaction in the subject and of course box office sales.”

All exciting stuff – so get those balloons attached : )

Hep us win …. http://www.cineworld.co.uk/up?nickname=bedroomlondon

Off by Heart

Off By Heart – BBC Education

What a delight to work on something for a really good cause.

Off By Heart was the BBC’s latest education campaign that is driving schools and library’s to encourage children to enter a one off poetry recital competition.
The contest is to be filmed for a one off 90 minute documentary covering the build up to and the event itself.

The print material including 4 meter high-school banners, large scale posters, and pull up banners were not only used to advertise the event nationwide but also acted as a vibrant backdrop and stage set for the filming of the contest.

Its nice to recap back on some projects – especially the wild cards like this one.

Film to premiere on mobile phone …

RAGE is the first feature film to premiere exclusively on mobile phones and even better …. It wont cost you a penny!

This unique mobile premiere links directly to Sally Potter’s vision for the film, as RAGE tells the behind-the scenes story of a crisis at a New York fashion house through a series of intimate interviews, as if shot by a schoolboy on his mobile phone over a seven-day period.

The filmmakers have partnered with Babelgum for this revolutionary release strategy, which sees RAGE simultaneously available on mobile, online, digital screens and DVD.

Check out more information on it here http://ragethemovie.com/

information overload or addiction ?

Paul Hemp has written an essay outlining his concern over the unsettling side effects of our 24-hour, 21st century lives, and specifically the amount of information, emails and facts we are bombarded with.

He writes:

“The flood of information that swamps me daily seems to produce more pain than gain. And it’s not just the incoming tidal wave of email messages and RSS feeds that causes me grief.

It’s also the vast ocean of information I feel compelled to go out and explore in order to keep up in my job.”

In case you got sidetracked and didn’t get a chance to read the rest either so here are the cold, hard facts:

• A study found that once workers were interrupted by an email it took on average 24 minutes to return to the suspended task.

• 2,300 employees judged nearly one third of the emails they receive to be unnecessary, but spend two hours a day processing them.

• Research reported that the IQ scores of people distracted by email and phone calls fell from their normal level by an average of 10 points – twice the decline recorded for those smoking marijuana.

How we get anything done is a miracle.

Before your attention wanders elsewhere, please confess the tendencies you have noticed in yourself that may be symptoms of this very modern malady. Can you remember the last time you finished reading a novel ???

Hemp recommends limiting emails to five sentences, or setting virtual break times to force yourself to step away from the desk, as possible remedies.

But how do you stop yourself from completely drowning now the information floodgates are well and truly open?

Paul Hemp has written an essay outlining his concern over the unsettling side effects of our 24-hour, 21st century lives, and specifically the amount of information, emails and facts we are bombarded with.

He writes:

“The flood of information that swamps me daily seems to produce more pain than gain. And it’s not just the incoming tidal wave of email messages and RSS feeds that causes me grief.

It’s also the vast ocean of information I feel compelled to go out and explore in order to keep up in my job.”

In case you got sidetracked and didn’t get a chance to read the rest either so here are the cold, hard facts:

• A study found that once workers were interrupted by an email it took on average 24 minutes to return to the suspended task.

• 2,300 employees judged nearly one third of the emails they receive to be unnecessary, but spend two hours a day processing them.

• Research reported that the IQ scores of people distracted by email and phone calls fell from their normal level by an average of 10 points – twice the decline recorded for those smoking marijuana.

How we get anything done is a miracle.

Before your attention wanders elsewhere, please confess the tendencies you have noticed in yourself that may be symptoms of this very modern malady. Can you remember the last time you finished reading a novel ???

Hemp recommends limiting emails to five sentences, or setting virtual break times to force yourself to step away from the desk, as possible remedies.

But how do you stop yourself from completely drowning now the information floodgates are well and truly open?

A bit of our work … Sky 1′s Oops TV

Will you pay for a Digital Britain?

This morning, the Digital Minister Stephen Timms confirmed that one of the most controversial measures would go ahead:

a 50p per month tax on landlines to fund superfast broadband.

There had been speculation that it would be shelved because of a convention that any tax introduced shortly before an election should have cross-party support, but Mr Timms said the broadband levy would be in a Finance Bill before Christmas.

Cue another row. The government may have seen this as a sensible way of pump-priming investment in the fibre-optic network that many believe is vital to Britain’s economic future – but it seems nobody is satisfied especially with all the hassles people have been encountering all over the UK.

The lobby which believes we’re already way behind our overseas rivals in building fast broadband says the money is too little too late.

But just about everybody else – including the Conservatives – seems to believe that it will be an unjust tax, hitting elderly people who may have no interest in broadband and poorer people who will pay the same as the rich.

But it’s clear that this tax is going to be a hard sell – after all, the public will start paying for a fast network some time before it’s delivered to homes across the country, and will be cynical about whether the money will really be spent where it’s needed.

Mind you, amid the rage about the telephone tax, its critics also need to address some questions. Do you believe that it is vital for the UK to build a next-generation broadband network? Are you confident that the market alone will deliver that? If not, how do you propose that we fund it?

Your comments are most definitely wanted for this little topic !

… finding a logo for London – what a palaver

The Greater London Authority is understood to have shortlisted Studio Conran and one other group in its tender to find a logo for London.

Outgoing Studio Conran managing director Sebastian Conran says he was expecting to hear whether or not his consultancy had won the Brand for London competition last Thursday, but the GLA failed to get in touch.

The tender has attracted heavy criticism from the design fraternity for asking groups to submit free creative work at the first stage.

Lambie-Nairn announced it would boycott the tender, and other groups expressed disquiet about the way it was being run.

However, Conran claims that Studio Conran merely ‘showed how we would work a concept’, preparing its bid over just three days.

Conran is also advising the Mayor’s office against a ‘splash launch’, and wants to make sure the public see the logo in context. ‘What makes a logo is how it’s implemented,’ he says.

Moving Brands published its rejection letter from the GLA on its blog on 7 September. In addition, The Partners has failed to make the shortlist, according to Conran.

The GLA declined to comment.