August 20, 2004

		Indie Films Brave Hollywood for Malibu Film Fest
		BREAKING: Celebrity Cruises Teams with Cirque Du Soleil
		MOVERS: Hires at Driver and Animax
		ON THE WEB: Are Those from Old Navy, or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

Indie Films Brave Hollywood for Malibu Film Fest

Malibu Film Festival "Lonely"

Backyard Productions director Kevin Smith and freelance creative director Josh Caplan -- who brought us the hilarious Yard Fitness "Naked Man" campaign a few years ago -- have teamed up again for a series of promos for next month's Malibu Film Festival. The premise of the campaign is that "independent film can't survive in Hollywood," a point driven home by scenes of people dressed up like film reels -- courtesy of Hollywood's Anatomorphex -- facing the unforgiving side of Tinsel Town.

In one, we see reel-people giving a street performance that fails to win over the crowd, while another shows reels reduced to homelessness. In the best spot, a reel strolls down the sidewalk, Joe Buck-style, to the theme song from Midnight Cowboy as a passing motorist tells him to get out of town.

BREAKING

Celebrity "The Lights"

Celebrity Cruises and agency Arnold Worldwide are introducing "The Bar at the Edge of the Earth" -- a cruise experience created by Cirque Du Soleil -- with an appropriately artsy commercial from RSA director Carl Erik Rinsch. The spot shows the inhabitants of a seaside town as they are slowly mesmerized by a reflection in the distance, which ultimately reveals itself to be a Celebrity cruise ship -- "soon departing for the unimaginable," according to the voiceover.

MOVERS

Freelancer Rob Kaplan has joined New York's Driver -- a production company that specializes in acting as a freelance production department for agency clients -- as the shop's in-house music producer. ... Stephen Axthelm -- formerly managing director of Crossroads Films and, more recently, a freelance consultant -- has joined L.A.-based animation and interactive shop Animax as director of marketing.

ON THE WEB

The watchdogs over at Adland have spotted something, um, interesting about the animation in Deutsch/L.A.'s back-to-school effort for Old Navy. The spots show people getting pretty excited about Old Navy's bargains, due to some chemical reaction that is illustrated with cartoon diagrams. How excited? Check out this still. And what's with the maraca? Looks like a skill you might find advertised in your junk mail folder.

MORE NEWS / ARCHIVE

VW Spotlights Touareg, Phaeton for Olympics [08.18.04]
Supercuts Knows Men [08.18.04]
Action at The Production Farm, Swell and Eisner Interactive [08.18.04]
Wexley School, Hess Team Up for ESPN.com [08.17.04]
Additions at the Sloan Group, Charlex and more [08.17.04]
Fox Sports Puts Hometown Fans First [08.17.04]
Marco Named ECD at Saatchi/L.A. and other moves [08.13.04]
See Holds the Line for EA's Madden NFL [08.13.04]