We take great pride at Red C in being able to turn round some great work to tight deadlines for our clients, which was the case when we received the brief to create a viral video for our client GFI’s Vipre Internet Security product. Essentially, we wrote the script, filmed, edited and uploaded in a week… and we’re really chuffed with the end result.

The actual filming day was one of the most enjoyable shoots I’ve ever been on, I mean it’s not every day that you get to shoot people with a huge high powered air cannon (which when operated by a professional is completely safe).

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Last week I was one of several people who have a passion for Direct Marketing who were asked to do a talk on behalf of TNT about direct marketing in the digital age. One of my fellow speakers certainly won the prize for the brightest pants… bright red… and with his boundless energy and positivity you’d be forgiven for thinking he was a children’s entertainer!

As well as winning the prize for the brightest pants on the day, Stephen Shaw from BlippAR also won the prize for totally exciting me creatively with the BlippAR iPhone app which takes Augmented Reality to a whole new level. Launched in the summer of 2011, BlippAR is a free smartphone app that uses the in-built camera to recognise things in the real world and instantaneously provides you with digital connections, information or interactive entertainment on your phone screen.

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When Stuart and I were developing the film competition for Jessops and The Mob Films that would eventually become The Shot we had three strong looks that we wanted to explore… top of our list of the three was a Saul Bass type feel that would really make this campaign stand apart from any other work Jessops had done before.

We’d also been inspired as well by seeing some quite retro interpretations of some modern film posters by such designers as Olly Moss who had created some minimalist posters for The Alamo Drafthouse. Luckily for us, we had a designer on board who really loved our initial thoughts and took them on and created some fantastic poster designs.

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Olympic Dreams Book Cover by James Dodd

Having realised that most of my ‘we like’ articles are about photography, I started work on a lovely little article about illustration. But that all came to a stop as soon as I saw ‘Olympic Dreams’ – a beautiful series of photographs by James Dodd – that I just had to write about. So it’s photography again!

When I first saw them, these beautiful black and white shots really stopped me in my tracks. I’m now kicking myself that I missed the exhibition in Sheffield late last year. Read more…

At the beginning of August I had the pleasure of judging the 23^rd SUN Awards (Shot Up North). Showcasing the best photographers north of London is now in it’s 23^rd year. The judging took place at Doug Curries studio in Leeds where I meet some great people all with different backgrounds:

Ed Horwich, photographer and organizer of the awards along with Doug. Seamus Ryan – Photographer, Rob Walker – Photographer, Vicky Munro from Brass, Clair Watkin from Comma Ca and Jon Cohen of Fuji Film (non-voting chair and adjudicator) oh and we couldn’t forget Woody the dog.

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We’ve covered Google Doodle’s off before on the Red C ‘We Like’ section, so it’s clear we’re a fan of the sheer brilliance of these little drawings. Today, though, the doodles have gone to another level and embraced the sheer showmanship of Freddie Mercury who would have been 65 today.

I’ll be honest with you, I’m not a massive Queen fan. Although I have to admit they do a mean Greatest Hits compilation… none of their albums that I have listened to have ever grabbed me. Regardless of that, even I can appreciate that one of the greatest front men ever to have graced a stage is Freddie Mercury and the stories of his hedonistic lifestyle are legendary.

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Back when I was a Junior Copywriter my then Head of Copy (an incredibly talented and intelligent guy called Graham) shared with me a book that instantly went from a book I must read to a book I must own… that book was The Copy Book. At some point, though, I lost my copy of the book, which was something I can honestly say I was gutted about.

Why? Well the original version of The Copy Book was jammed full of beautifully written adverts that any Copywriter would give their eye teeth to have written. Not only that, each set of adverts was introduced by the Copywriters who had written them… meaning you had a true insight into the minds and working habits of great Copywriters that included David Abbott and Alfredo Marcantonio.

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The music video has always been a playground for creativity, which probably explains why so many great movie directors, from David Fincher to Michael Bay, first made their names with videos for the likes of George Michael (Fincher directed ‘Freedom 90′) and Meat Loaf (Bay directed the epic ‘I would do anything for love… but I won’t do that’).

Thanks to the the ability for anyone to rip a video off the internet and play around with it in their bedroom, something wonderfully creative has happened… and that’s the rise of the ‘literal video’. basically, a ‘literal video’ is where a music video has its lyrics altered to describe the visuals that you see in the video… which then not only highlights the bizarreness of the video but also gives the video a new comic lease of life.

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Writing a radio ad is one of the few opportunities a copywriter has to work in a completely unique medium, and I love it. Radio ads can be really effective too, if you get it right. And really annoying, if you get it wrong. So when we were briefed to create an attention-grabbing radio ad to entice tall or large fellas into High and Mighty stores we knew there’d be some big challenges… excuse the pun.

The problem is, the kind of chap that needs extra long trousers or XXXL size t-shirts can be a little bit coy about his ample dimensions. This initially came as a surprise to me, but then I am the daughter of a 6ft 7 scouser with hands like bunches of bananas who’s very proud of his stature… and his ability to reach things on the highest of shelves. I suppose their self-consciousness can be likened to the way that long tall sallies like me shy away from describing themselves as having a ‘boyish’ figure because of its unfeminine and unflattering connotations.

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It’s 10am in the studio, everybody has finally woken up for a busy day ahead when someone pipes up “who’s turn is it to make a brew?” One by one heads disappear behind monitors and the same voice continues “I made the last ones, I’m not doing them again”. It’s a common dilemma across homes and businesses throughout the UK and most probably the world. Yes this is serious. What everybody needs in their life is an app – specifically a mobile app, to encourage hot beverage participation. What they need is ‘Brew Round’ our fantastic new app from the Red C studio which will solve all future conflicts and confusions.

Of course I jest, whilst Brew Round is our new app, it’s clearly much more light hearted than that, let me take you on a small journey, which begins on a cold wintery afternoon in November 2010…

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