Hasta La Creative!

Broadcast and linear TV viewing segments grew for the month largely thanks to sports content.

Sci-fi series Black Mirror had a top-five debut following the release of the latest season.

The Top 10 Overall Streaming chart only had two non-original titles.

Netflix’s crime thriller The Night Agent made it two weeks in a row as the most-watched streaming title, taking the honor for the final week of January, according to Nielsen Streaming Content Ratings. The Night Agent had 2.924 billion viewing minutes for Netflix, which had six titles in the top 10, with two having shared…

DirecTV has filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission accusing Disney of negotiating in bad faith as the satellite provider’s blackout of Disney-owned networks moves into its second week. “Disney has violated the FCC’s good faith mandates by predicating any licensing agreement on DirecTV’s waiving any legal claims on Disney’s past, current or future…

On Friday, Ryan Reynolds tweeted out the first picture of the official Deadpool costume with him posing on a bear skin rug, à la Burt Reynolds, and the image is utterly brilliant and perfect in every way. Let me explain.

In 1972, Reynolds became the first male centerfold (some say ever) in Cosmopolitan. The shock wave that rippled through American culture, as women proudly taped the poster to their walls and admitted to the world that they had sexual desires, would spawn Playgirl magazine and change the conversation around sex in America.

Believe it or not, it was a total surprise to a great number of people to learn that women like to look at naked men, just like men like to look at naked women. Of course, it came with a certain amount of notoriety for Mr. Reynolds, and gave Cosmo its modern-day reputation as a bit of a smut magazine. It was so shocking that the next centerfold didn’t appear until 1977, when Arnold graced the pages.

Beyond the shock, everyone at the time knew the image was somewhat of a joke. The bear rug? Clearly a joke—it was poking fun at masculine stereotypes and was chosen by Burt. The chest rug? Not a joke—people liked things hairy in the ’70s. But the point is, the press at the time talked a lot about it being a tounge-in-cheek, tit-for-tat situation. Men had centerfolds to look at, and women deserved them, too. It was only fair. The significance of the image made the sexuality of it moot for many people. This was about equality. (The image has lived on in everything from DirecTV ads to agency copywriter profile pics.)

Referencing the image says a number of things, but first it’s important to know Deadpool is a character who is self-aware. He actually seems to have knowledge of himself as a character in a comic book and knowledge of other characters in other universes. This is pretty unique in the comic-book world. In other words, Deadpool can act like he’s talking directly to other characters, and those characters, who are not self-aware, can’t really talk back.

With great power, comes great irresponsibility. #deadpool #officialsuit @deadpoolmovie pic.twitter.com/MPM89bYz1B

— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) March 27, 2015

That’s why Ryan Reynolds, who plays the character, could tweet the official costume with the caption, “With great power comes great irresponsibility.” That’s a direct jab at “With great power comes great responsibility”—a Spider-Man quote often attributed to Uncle Ben (though it first appeared in the narration in an old Spider-Man comic).

So, Deadpool is clearly taking a direct jab at Spider-Man. Who else might he be jabbing at? Well, in the image, we see him laid out in place of a sexual revolutionary, though Deadpool is not showing any skin. That says he’s jabbing at the male sex-symbol image of Captain America, Thor and Iron Man—whose lead male actors have all been celebrated for their sexual appeal. It’s like Deadpool is saying, I’m going to blow your minds with a whole new kind of comic-book man—and the ladies will like me better. It also says, I’m not afraid to break some taboos, reference the real world, and hey, don’t forget, I’m always a little cheeky. That’s just me. And the ladies like a man with a sense of humor, a man who reads Cosmo.

Disney Marvel is smart not to underestimate its fans and recognize the power of taking the piss with the superhero genre. It made a lot of money with Guardians of the Galaxy, and it’ll make more with Deadpool. Adult comic fans like to be talked to like adults. See, we all know how ridiculous our love of superheroes is, but we love them anyway. We love them smart. We love them topical. We love them allegorical.

And for those few who don’t, those who need things at a simpler level, this first image is still brilliant because, “LOL, just l@@k at him on that stupid rug! Hilars!”

Animated posters for movies? Sounds annoying. Wait, subtly animated posters? Now you have my attention.

Disney’s cinema adaptation of the Broadway musical Into the Woods is being teased with a series of animated portraits that do a good job setting the mood for a dark fairy tale. In most of the GIFs, the only movement is in the form of shifting shadows and reflected moonlight. 

Subtle animation is quite a creative trend these days, so it’s not like Disney’s marketing team invented the idea. But it’s still a great example of when form and function work well together.

Check them all out below, via Disney Insider.

Apesar de ter criado um Tumblr que faz uma releitura dramática e pouco romântica dos heróis da nossa infância, o artista Jeff Hong jura de pés juntos que é um grande fã das animações da Disney.

O amante de storyboards criou o polêmico “Unhappily Ever After” com alguns clássicos que ele mais gosta como “Hercules”, “Mulan” e “Tarzan”.

Em sua amostra, os personagens são afetados pelos contextos sociais, políticos, econômicos e ambientais do mundo moderno, como por exemplo o Simba trancado em um zoológico e a Mulan tentando sobreviver sob a fumaça sufocante de Pequim.

Um trabalho curioso que nos faz pensar sobre como seria a fantasia ao se deparar com a realidade.

Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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A impressão em 3D é uma das novidades do momento, mas até agora estava restrita à confecção de objetos rígidos, o que nem sempre é agradável, ainda mais para o setor infantil. Itens fofinhos agradam mais aos pequenos, e deixam os pais mais confortáveis, já que as chances de arranhões ou machucados é menor.

Pensando nisso, o setor de pesquisas da Disney está desenvolvendo um sistema de impressão 3D de ursinhos. Ao invés de pelúcia, eles usam fios de lã, que quando sobrepostos, criam uma camada confortável para a criançada agarrar. O padrão usado para a confecção do ursinho é o mesmo que seria utilizado em qualquer outra impressora 3D, mas o resultado é bem mais fofinho.

Os protótipos também estão gradativamente evoluindo para incluir também bichinhos que possam ter mecanismos que permitam a movimentação dos braços, por exemplo, ou a inclusão de peças eletrônicas internas, que possam torná-los mais interativos.

Essa técnica pode alavancar a confecção em larga escala de bichinhos customizados, como uma réplica de um desenho da criança. Iniciativas do tipo já existem, como o Child’s Own Studio, mas os ursinhos são feitos de forma artesanal, o que acarreta demora e também encarece o produto final. Ao que parece, se depender da Disney, isso vai se tornar um serviço em breve.

Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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Where to start?

Benicio del Toro's spiked Billy Idol locks? Chris Pratt in a Michael Jackson leather jacket with an elderly Walkman? A raccoon wielding the very latest in tactical firearms atop a talking tree?

No, let's start with the real star of the Guardians of the Galaxy trailer, which premiered to huge fanfare Tuesday on ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live (Disney is great at keeping this stuff in house, by the way—they own both Marvel Studios and ABC and will be distributing the movie, too): Scandanavian band Blue Swede's 1974 cover of "Hooked on a Feeling."

The song really probably shouldn't work with the space-opera-comedy-hybrid thing Marvel has been doing for the last couple of films (the tone here is similar to the studio's Thor: The Dark World), but it really, really does. It's a perfect counterpoint to the action and makes the absurdity of the whole enterprise part of the joke, rather than a liability. Does it work? Well, 3.5 million YouTube viewers can be wrong, but from a marketing perspective, they probably aren't. That number is rising, by the way.

The Guardians themselves have had one of the more porous member rosters in the Marvel portfolio. The current series, by Brian Bendis and Steve McNiven, was planned and set in motion while this movie was in pre-production, so it's a safe bet that the characters picked for this flick are as toyetic as possible (and indeed, are on display in multiple plastic forms in New York this week at the Javits Center for Toy Fair).

Anyway, this movie features Bradley Cooper as a talking woodland creature and Vin Diesel as an Ent. Check it out below.