UPDATE: The event is now over (but was awesome). Stay tuned for some edited down videos from the talks, which we’ll post here and on YouTube. In the meantime, check out the full video of the livestream below and the highlights via Twitter (#SMWDF) here.

At Deep Focus, we look for creative individuals that are innovative and great leaders in addition to having a great portfolio.

Responsibilities for this position include, but are not limited to:

• Work in conjunction with the interdisciplinary team to develop the innovative and cutting-edge creative experiences and nontraditional campaigns that have built DF’s award winning portfolio
• Conceive, craft, and execute these experiences on time and on strategy
• Assist in the development of the look and feel of all major campaigns including rich media banners, promotional micro-sites and multi-platform initiatives
• Assist in the planning and execution of production of all work
• Assist in the development and execution of design standards for the visual lexicon for major accounts and projects, including brand application, typography, grid and layout and color palette, etc.

Skills & Experience:

• 3+ years experience at an interactive or design agency
• Experience in designing/developing cutting edge ad campaigns and websites with an emphasis on innovation
• Strong conceptual/strategic thinking
• Experience in production and execution
• Expert in Photoshop, Illustrator, HTML, CSS
• Expert in flash animation

Please send your resume and samples of (or links to) your work.

Responsibilities for this position include, but are not limited to:

• Provide day-to-day management of assigned accounts ensuring client campaigns, reports and projects are being progressed and delivered on time, on budget and to the highest standard
• Lead the management of projects and campaigns across internal departments
• Understanding and recognizing opportunities within emerging platforms, online communities and industry developments
• Work independently and with the Marketing Director/Strategists to plan and execute effective marketing strategies
• Provide regular status reports to Marketing Director and client for all initiatives
• Cultivating strong working relationships with client and internal departments
• Facilitate an integrated agency approach to ensure cohesive client service and provision of solutions
• Work with clients and finance to ensure proper billing and agency payment
• Oversee weekly campaign reporting and analysis to client and appropriate stakeholders
• Provide daily pro-active and thought leadership to team members and clients
• Assist Executive Management with new business proposals as needed
• Translating social media metrics into an insightful narrative
• Understanding social media metrics in order to optimize and create/adapt client strategies

Skills & Experience:

• 5+ years of agency experience with at least 3 years in digital marketing
• Retail client experience is a must
• Strong interest and knowledge in social media
• Bachelor’s degree (BA/BS) from a four-year accredited college or university
• Strong management skills
• Strong client-facing background
• Excellent verbal communication skills with ability to present ideas and information clearly and confidently
• Demonstrable passion for social media and preferably experience of delivering social media campaigns
• Strategically-minded. Must be able to spot opportunities to add value at every stage
• Well versed in online creative & media
• Expert knowledge of Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Power Point)Extreme attention to detail and outstanding organization skills
• Collaborative team player able to integrate with a diverse team
• Diligent work ethic with a desire to expand skill set while consistently learning
• Ability to think quickly (but not rashly) and prioritize
• Proactive, creative, and independent

• Be a leader on the team and have the ability to foster and mentor the skill set and careers of the junior team members.
• Competent in client-facing roles and able to confidently present plans/strategy.
• Oversee planning process and ensure that all client deliverables are being met in a timely manner.
• Develops recommendation of media with specifics of impressions, negotiated rates, placement, units, timing and savings from negotiations
• Developing media strategy based on the client’s marketing and advertising objectives
• Understand and actively seek online media solutions to assist clients in achieving specific goals and objectives
• Have the ability to develop planning timeline with key milestones in mind
• Write POVs using online media vehicles and opportunities
• Evaluates target audience segments based on plan parameters
• Determines budget allocation across media opportunities
• Develops marketing ROI forecast by site, placement and unit with historical benchmarks or industry averages

Skills & Experience:

• 3-5 years digital media planning experience
• Proven experience in implementing, executing, and optimizing display campaigns.
• Knowledge of all mainstream digital planning/trafficking tools such as DART, ATLAS, Comscore, @plan, Google Adwords, etc.
• Strong mathematic and analytical skills
• Proficiency in Microsoft Excel, Word and PowerPoint
• Excellent presentation, negotiation, and communication skills
• Possesses strong interest in emerging media technologies and latest trends in the social media/ media marketplace
• Ability to build and maintain strong relationships with media vendors
• Effective objective and strategy development skills
• Sound and logical decision-making ability
• Ability to manage multiple projects
• Persuasive skills for internal and client discussion

• Delivering innovative and creative media plans and directing the day-to-day media activity on the assigned accounts
• Develops recommendation of media with specifics of impressions, negotiated rates, placement, units, timing and savings from negotiations
• Developing media strategy based on the client’s marketing and advertising objectives
• Understand and actively seek online media solutions to assist clients in achieving specific goals and objectives
• Have the ability to develop planning timeline with key milestones in mind
• Write POVs using online media vehicles and opportunities
• Evaluates target audience segments based on plan parameters
• Writes RFP that includes media brief elements, necessary for reps to provide accurate proposals
• Determines budget allocation across media opportunities
• Develops marketing ROI forecast by site, placement and unit with historical benchmarks or industry averages
• Responsible for trafficking, generating performance reports, and optimizing campaigns to meet client objectives
• Able to mention/rain junior members of the team

Skills & Experience:

• 2-4 years digital media planning experience
• Proven experience in implementing, executing, and optimizing display campaigns.
• Knowledge of all mainstream digital planning/trafficking tools such as DART, ATLAS, Comscore, @plan, Google Adwords, etc.
• Strong mathematic and analytical skills
• Proficiency in Microsoft Excel, Word and PowerPoint
• Excellent presentation, negotiation, and communication skills
• Possesses strong interest in emerging media technologies and latest trends in the social media/ media marketplace
• Ability to build and maintain strong relationships with media vendors
• Effective objective and strategy development skills
• Sound and logical decision-making ability
• Ability to manage multiple projects
• Persuasive skills for internal and client discussion

Most of the others linked to microsites for a deeper experience.

But what about starting a relationship? Moving people into a CRM journey?

What is it about Super Bowl commercials that make brands want to scream “look at me” vs. “talk to me”? Is it the big stage (see my thoughts on that here)? Is it the big budgets? Is it the big egos?

What it is is a shame.

Sure, there were a couple of nice touches Pepsi’s Sound Off [disclosure, client, but that was not our effort], Bud Light’s rescue dog donation initiative via Facebook. But most of these spots had no aim to start a relationship with consumers. Just distract them for a moment.

The next great Super Bowl commercial won’t be a linear story. It will be the start of a relationship with consumers that will begin with a promise, and deliver value with further engagement. The “commercial” will continue for days after the big game — not views leading up to it.

In the meantime, check out what the team at Deep Focus and consumers-at-large thought about the effort put forth by this year’s crop of advertisers.

Congrats to the New York Football Giants — and the amazing team at Deep Focus for pulling off the second annual Super Bowl of Social Media!

But, we can’t. Because that didn’t happen. A few hashtags aside, the vast majority of the Super Bowl Ads contained little or no opportunities for viewers to enjoy a bigger experience than a 30-second spot. Few used widely available and saturated platforms to extend the value of their very expensive spots, and those that did frequently forgot to mention that they did within the ad itself! And not a single ad used basic tools to b

uild a long-term social audience. One major advertiser actually used the call to action in their TV ad to drive to a Facebook page that drove users to the USA Today – Facebook Super Bowl advertising survey and implored visitors to vote for their spot, instead of actually trying to engage the visitors in a branded experience.

There were a few bright spots. Bud Light’s delightful spot “Rescue Dog,” (Weego) presented the first Facebook URL of the night and drove viewers to a Facebook page that donated $1 to Animal Rescue Foundation for every like. While this kind of quid-pro-quo program is a little old-hat, this spot was far and away the most social (see our criteria here) of the night. And while CokePolarBowl.com had a cool (if not a little dull) experience, we were shocked that neither of Coke’s spots mentioned the URL. At all.

There’s more discussion to come here on this topic – there’s a lot to say. But we want to hear your thoughts. So check out The Super Bowl of Social Media II and vote on which spots you think did a good job. Maybe you saw something in the spots we didn’t.

Responsibilities for this position include, but are not limited to:

Specifically, this ACD will help lead one of our Agency’s most important accounts. The ACD will be the driver of the work from concept to execution and trafficking, including inspiring clients to support it. She or he will lead a team of Art Directors/Designers, Copywriters, Interaction Designers, front-end developers and producers in putting the highest-level quality of digital marketing in to the market on behalf of our client. They will be responsible and accountable for both the excellence and the quality of our work, from branded content to apps, from social engagements to banner ads, from branded tools to websites. They will also be responsible for how well it performs in the market, and how we can improve our brands’ performance in each campaign.

Skills & Experience:

• 7+ years experience at an interactive agency.
• Thorough and proven talent in art direction and/or visual design.
• Bachelor’s degree (BA/BS) or equivalent professional experience.
• Expertise in managing a collaborative creative team in the conception and execution of digital creative, across formats and media.
• The desire and drive to lead a team while being hands on.
• A passion for brands and new online technologies.
• A mastery of digital brand marketing creative, from branded experiences down to direct response.
Ability to oversee multiple projects from beginning to end, problem solving as necessary.
• An understanding of user-experience and information architecture
• Sophisticated and enviable taste a must.
• An understanding of the world of social media.
• Proficient in Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, HTML5, and the typical tools of modern

Please submit your resume along with a link to your portfolio.

Responsibilities for this position include, but are not limited to:

• Work in conjunction with the team to concept and develop the innovative and cutting-edge creative experiences and nontraditional campaigns that have built DF’s award winning portfolio.
• Contribute inspirations, design thinking and directional thinking to concepting and design processes.
• Work both with the team and independently to develop original art direction for brands, projects and programs. Own the art direction and develop it into a full user experience.
• Work with animators, developers, production and production artists to implement every detail of the work.
• Develop the look and feel of major campaigns including rich media banners, promotional microsites and multi-platform initiatives.

Skills & Experience:

• 5+ years experience at an interactive or design agency.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent professional experience
• Expertise in designing/developing cutting edge ad campaigns and websites with an emphasis on innovation.
• Strong art direction point of view.
• Demonstrated range of outstanding art direction.
• Strong conceptual/strategic thinking.
• Experience working with junior designers and developers as well as the ability to be hands-on in the design process.
• Ability to deep dive into an art direction and blow it out into a thorough and detailed visual system.
• Expert in Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash (including action-scripting), HTML

Please submit your resume along with a link to your portfolio.

We’re happy to announce that FIVE of our endeavors have been awarded with a variety of SAMMY, OMMA, IAB MIXX and W3 Awards. We couldn’t be happier. We dedicate these honors to the amazing Deep Focus team who created the products and to the outstanding clients at Microsoft, Epix and Hearst who helped us make great work for them.

Our gratitude goes out to all the jurors who loved our work as much as we loved making it. Congratulations everyone.

The staging is at times awkward and many of the supporting actors laughably amateur. As much as the budget appears to have been a constraint on the effects of the film, it shouldn’t have affected the acting or coherency of the picture…. While those looking for a few midnight movie scares will find themselves very disappointed, the film is funny, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not.

See Cory’s film commentary on the Deep Focus Blog, and follow Cory on Twitter (@modage).

You’ve heard of The Webbys People’s Voice Awards? Well now it is time for the OMMA Awards Awards Members’ Choice. We were flattered to have been named finalists in FOUR (count ‘em, FOUR!) categories this year. Believe us, we’re flattered. And the heat is on!

We need your help now. If you think our work rocks as much as we do (and apparently as much as the OMMA Jury does), please go and vote for them. We’ve put a little screener of our work together for you below so you can get acquainted with the goods. But go and VOTE!

1. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (Dec 21) Anyone who’s been in a theatre while this trailer played knows exactly why it’s at the top of this list. The propulsive, wordless teaser for David Fincher’s latest is all sound and fury and is nearly impossible to watch without getting the chills. While it doesn’t explain much of the story, about a journalist (Daniel Craig) aided by a goth punk computer hacker (Rooney Mara) in search of a missing woman, it’s hard to imagine anyone watching it without thinking, “I have to see this. Right. Away.”

2. TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY (Dec 9) From the director of the Swedish vampire coming-of-age tale (and one of the best horror films of the past decade) “Let The Right One In” comes this adaptation of the John Le Carre espionage thriller set during the Cold War with the most impressive British cast this side of a Harry Potter film including Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, John Hurt, Mark Strong and more. The trailers for the film have been all atmosphere and intrigue and that’s enough to get me to the theatre opening day.

3. THE MUPPETS (Nov 23) After Jim Henson passed away, the Muppets seemed to lose their magic for a decade or two, so credit “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” co-writers Jason Segel and Nicolas Stoller for reviving the excitement again around these characters. The excellent, witty trailers should have both kids and nostalgia-prone adults both eagerly anticipating this one. “Flight of the Conchords” director James Bobin rounds up a cast including Segel, Amy Adams, Chris Cooper and a ton of cameos but all you really need to know is that Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo and Animal will all be there, too.

4. THE DESCENDANTS (Nov 23) It’s been 7 years since writer/director Alexander Payne released his last film; only a year less time than it took him to release his first 4 films “Citizen Ruth,” “Election,” “About Schmidt” and “Sideways” which made him one of the most promising filmmakers to come out of the late 90s/early 00s. Well after a hiatus Payne is back with his latest dramedy with George Clooney as a man trying to reconnect with his two daughters after his wife suffers a boating accident. It’s also playing TIFF and NYFF so expect it to be a major awards contender.

5. WE BOUGHT A ZOO (Dec 23) Speaking of hiatuses, it’s also been 7 years since the world has seen a Cameron Crowe film. The writer/director behind classics like “Say Anything,” “Jerry Maguire” and “Almost Famous” hit a snag with his last effort “Elizabethtown,” which ironically was about a man dealing with a colossal failure in his career. His comeback effort is based on the bestselling non-fiction book about a father (Matt Damon) who moves his family to the countryside to re-open a struggling zoo. If this isn’t enough to get his career back on track, the notorious music fan also has the doc “Pearl Jam Twenty” out in September.

6. THE SKIN I LIVE IN (Oct 14) Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar has been making films for international audiences for decades but has yet to be lured to Hollywood. The same can’t be said of his muses like Penelope Cruz and Antonio Banderas who have both gone onto successful careers in English language films. It’s been 20 years since Banderas and Almodóvar have worked together which makes their latest collaboration, about a mad surgeon and his female captive, especially intriguing. Word from Cannes was mixed but that’s been the case for the director’s last few efforts as well.

7. YOUNG ADULT (Dec 9) This dark comedy about a teen lit author (Charlize Theron) who returns to her hometown to try to reclaim her happily married high school sweetheart (Patrick Wilson), is the 2nd collaboration between director Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody. Their first film together “Juno” was a divisive effort, racking up awards and backlash in equal measure. I thought Reitman did a good job of grounding Cody’s stylized dialogue in some real emotion but was disappointed in both their follow-up efforts (“Up In The Air” and “Jennifer’s Body”), so hope that their latest can strike the right balance.

8. CARNAGE (Dec 16) Based on the acclaimed play “God Of Carnage,” about two sets of parents who gather to discuss a fight between their children, Roman Polanski’s film adaptation swaps it’s original Broadway cast for John C. Reilly, Kate Winslet, Jodie Foster and Christoph Waltz. It’s one of the few high profile films this film skipping out on TIFF because it secured the prestigious Opening Night slot at this year’s NYFF (occupied last year by “The Social Network.”) Sometimes movies based on plays can feel a bit contained and claustrophobic (not in a good way) but the trailer looks good, so here’s hoping the director can turn it into something worthy of his filmography.

9. A DANGEROUS METHOD (Nov 23) Career transformations don’t get much more impressive than David Cronenberg’s, which makes complete sense for a filmmaker obsessed with metamorphosis. “The Fly” director may have started his career doing low-budget (but no less strange) horror films but with 2005’s Viggo Mortensen starring “A History Of Violence” managed to transform himself into an unlikely awards magnet. Their follow-up “Eastern Promises” came and went quietly but their upcoming collaboration, about the relationship between Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and Sigmund Freud (Mortensen) and featuring some kinky spanking with Keira Knightley is definitely not going to go unnoticed.

10. MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL (Dec 21) I would be exhausted of the “Mission: Impossible” franchise by now too if it weren’t for the fact that unlike James Bond or Jason Bourne, there really isn’t much continuity between installments. Instead, each film is basically a springboard for the director to do his take on whatever he thinks a M:I movie should be and so far that has paid off 2 out of 3 times (sorry John Woo). The latest installment is especially exciting as it’s the first live action film from “The Incredibles”/”The Iron Giant”/”Ratatouille” writer/director Brad Bird. And it looks really cool.

11. WAR HORSE (Dec 28)
12. THE IDES OF MARCH (Oct 7)
13. THE ARTIST (Nov 23)
14. CONTAGION (Sept 9)
15. 50/50 (Sept 30)
16. WANDERLUST (Oct 7)
17. MONEYBALL (Sept 23)
18. THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN (Dec 23)
19. THE SITTER (Dec 9)
20. HUGO (Nov 23)

Additionally there are a few notable movies I already saw at Sundance: Take Shelter (Sept 30), Martha Marcy May Marlene (Oct 21) and Like Crazy (Oct 28). Additionally I already caught an early screening of what has been the best movie I’ve seen so far this year, Drive (Sept 16) which is not to be missed.

Cory Everett is an Associate Art Director at Deep Focus and self described “movie nerd.” In addition to watching hundreds of movies a year, he writes about them at his blog, for The Playlist/IndieWIRE and from time to time will be writing about them here.

Responsibilities of the position include, but are not limited to:

• Developing project Scopes, Budgets, and Timelines
• Working alongside account management and creative services to ensure timely progression on full cycle projects
• Client and partner management
• Prepare and maintain project documentation including project plan, status reports, internal meeting notes, change requests and resource requests
• Organizing and setting clear expectations in regard to tasks and deliverables
• Providing clear and accurate communication, materials and documentation to team and partners
• Gathering and organizing all client related assets
• Conducting thorough quality assurance testing
• Troubleshooting technical issues with the technology department
• Maintaining continuity, learning and quality assurance across projects

Skills & Experience:

• 3+ years’ experience in project management in an agency working on sites, social media, display ad and rich media campaigns
• Experience managing vendors and partner relationships
• Bachelor’s degree (BA/BS) from a four-year accredited college or university
• Excellent verbal and written skills
• Expert knowledge of Microsoft Office (MS Project, Word, Excel, Power Point)
• Experience with project managements tools (ie. Basecamp, Microsoft Project, etc)
• Knowledge of HTML, Photoshop, Flash and server-side technology a definite plus
• Dynamic individual who has energy and enthusiasm, and has an ongoing commitment to achieving high quality results

Responsibilities for this position include, but are not limited to:

Operations

• Oversees Media Planning/Buying team and serves as the primary contact to articulate the companies view on media strategy
• Distributes new project assignments together with media team
• Delivers verbal and written performance reviews for media team, develops team by coaching/identifying areas of growth. Actively foster an “agency team mentality” by working towards better communication habits with internal workforce.
• Acts as a mentor to media team by encouraging strategic and creative thinking as well as develop the negotiating tactics of the media team
• Responsible for making sure the Media department is staffed correctly and resourced properly to ensure efficient day-to-day operations
• Reviews and negotiates insertion orders terms & conditions in conjunction with Finance
• Maintains written process documents for all Media Planning/Buying
• Works with Finance on billing, pricing, forecasting revenue, job reconciliation, and on an as needed basis

Media

• Keeps aware of new and innovative media opportunities and applications by staying on top of industry and consumer trends
• Coordinates group meetings for vendors to present new offerings as appropriate
• Liaison between agency and the senior media contacts

Agency

• Works closely with the other team leaders in the agency to ensure alignment of campaigns to overall client strategies so client needs are met
• Provides support to account managing on new business initiatives as needed
• Represents agency at select industry conferences, events, and work groups
• Develop new business opportunities while pursuing new ways to contribute to the overall agency and client profitability

Skills & Experience:

• 10+ years’ experience with progressive responsibilities in interactive media, marketing, business development and team management
• Bachelor’s degree (BA/BS) from a four-year accredited college or university
• Understanding of all digital media channels
• In depth knowledge of interactive marketing technology applications
• Excellent communication and presentation skills
• Analytical and systematic thinker
• Strong negotiator

Epix, the premium television channel and video on demand service, needed to get the word out about their Shatnerpalooza event featuring the world premiere of The Captains, an Epix-produced documentary by William Shatner.

Since Epix is a relatively new entertainment provider, we had to generate awareness of the brand as well as drive viewership of Shatnerpalooza and The Captains. To make matters more difficult, we were told we would not have access to Mr. Shatner as part of our engagement plan. And, budget was tight.

We did, however, have access to our own in-house group of Star Trek nerds, whose abundant talents were leveraged to concept and create a user-generated video meme based on the most epic moment of the Star Trek franchise.

The Idea

“Khaaan!”

The scream from Captain Kirk in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is one of the most celebrated, quoted and parodied piece of film in Sci-fi history. We thought that if we could harness the power of the original Khan scream, and allow people to become part of the scream themselves by extending it ad infinitum, we would create a rallying cry for Shatnerpalooza that would be shared across the social universe. And thus, the Long Khan was born.

Deep Focus designed and built TheLongKhan.com, featuring a trailer for the project and a tutorial video explaining how to properly film and upload your own Khan scream. The site also integrated information about Epix, Shatnerpalooza and the world premiere of The Captains.

For two weeks we collected submissions online, and filmed Khan screams on-site at the 45th Anniversary of Star Trek Convention in Parsippany, New Jersey. Once we had collected over 50 screams, the first version of The Long Khan premiered, featuring a randomly ordered chain of Khan screams bookended by the original Kirk scream from Star Trek II. From there, The Long Khan grew virally, due in part to the customized sharing functionality that allows people to post a link on Facebook and Twitter to a personalized Long Khan featuring their own scream right after Captain Kirk’s.

The Outcome

It is too soon to know all the outcomes, but The Long Khan is on fire. We knew it would attract and engage Star Trek and sci-fi fans, but we didn’t anticipate it catching the attention of one particular fan, William Shatner himself. Mr. Shatner was so impressed and inspired by The Long Khan, that he conducted two Khan group screams, one with his audience at the Star Trek convention in Parsippany, and one with a room of 3,000 people at Comic-Con in San Diego.

His personal backing of the project brought added attention to the site, augmenting the Deep Focus seeding efforts and building the length of the Khan. Despite a zero digital media buy, we created (and still are creating) a viral groundswell of interest for the show and the network. And made history doing it.

Paul Clark:  Skate Boarding
Paul lives for the Danger Zone. Watch his boarding skills blow up the Pier 62 skate park in NYC.

Special Talents showcases the true talents of the people that work at Deep Focus, and how seriously BA we are.

Reading his tweets may induce sudden panic attacks, but for us, only fits of laughter ensue, possibly leading to our own demise due to the lack of oxygen.

Keep killin’ it, @AboutToDie_Guy.

Tweets to die for:

“Squirrels don’t get rabies, do they?” http://tinyurl.com/3b57pbg

“http://twitpic.com/52w9ew”

“Hiding behind curtain waiting for Hamlet to leave.” http://tinyurl.com/3tgknyz

“Score! About to get some free candy from this stranger.”http://tinyurl.com/3bcfluz

1. Drive Ryan Gosling stars as a Hollywood stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway driver during a heist gone wrong in this arthouse action film from “Bronson” madman Nicolas Winding Refn. The film boasts an impressive cast including Carey Mulligan, Christina Hendricks, Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman and word out of Cannes was very, very good.

2. The Skin I Live In The latest film from Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar (“Talk To Her,” “Volver”) is a twisted tale about a plastic surgeon on the hunt for the man who raped his daughter. The film reunites the director with Antonio Banderas for their first collaboration in more than 20 years. Word from the Croisette has been mixed but I’ll likely get to see for myself when it premieres at the NYFF this fall.

3. The Artist This one really came out of nowhere. A silent, black and white film about a silent film star on the cusp of the sound age. This one got snapped up for distribution by The Weinstein Co. just before the fest began and it’s a good thing too because reviews were very strong. The Playlist called it “a joyous, big hearted tribute to old school moviemaking” and gave it an “A.” I’m definitely curious.

4. We Need To Talk About Kevin It’s definitely not going to make anyone feel good but in the hands of the right filmmaker, grief can be worthwhile. Tilda Swinton stars as the mother of a teenage boy who went on a shooting spree dealing with her grief and heavy emotions ensue. Reviews are again, very strong though so I might just have to dive in.

5. This Must Be The Place Sean Penn stars as a Robert Smith-like aging rock star who sets out on a road trip to find the Nazi war criminal who executed his father. I had been looking forward to this one a lot more before it screened and word was decidedly mixed. In hindsight I should have seen it coming, the premise is too insane to be anything other than terrible.

(Though both “Midnight In Paris” and “Tree Of Life” premiered there, I’m leaving them off this list because I’ve already seen them/will be seeing tonight.)

Cory Everett is an Associate Art Director at Deep Focus and self described “movie nerd.” In addition to watching hundreds of movies a year, he writes about them at his blog, for The Playlist/IndieWIRE and from time to time will be writing about them here.

Fourteen months ago, SocialVibe worked with digital agency Deep Focus to create an in-game offer of virtual currency for FarmVille players. Players who engaged with the brand and were given the opportunity to go on to become ‘fans” (or “likes” in the current parlance) of Bing, which tripled its audience on the social site in a single day. In all, 300,000 Facebook users were lured to “fan” Bing on March 2, 2010.

Check out the full article here.

@wesingyourtweet takes other people’s tweets and puts them to music – or using their word – Re-sweets them. The duo create and perform some medium-syruppy sweet little harmony things that, IOHO, bring the tweets to life. They’ve re-sweeted the Barack Obama, the Dalai Lama, countless comedians and countless civilians. They archive them all here on their posterous (WARNING – abandon all ye afternoon free time, all who click here).

Though not new to the web, they’re new to us. And after all, if we don’t know about it, it doesn’t exist. Want to know the duo better? Check out their love on CBSNews.com a few months back.

In the meantime, we’ll be sweeting along, as long as you keep up the re-sweeting, @wesingyourtweet. We dig.

Here are some all star Re-sweets:

The Inspirational Tweet:

The Tweet:

@MKupperman is comedy, and this Tweet made us almost pee out pants, so we had to Re-Sweet it. #wesingyourtweets

The Re-Sweet:

http://wesingyourtweets.posterous.com/re-sweet-mkupperman

The Inspirational Tweet (a classic!):

The Tweet:

Well, we told you it was coming. Here is our first Classic Sweet, going all the way out to @kimkardashian She rules, this tweet rules. #CLASSIC. #wesingyourtweets

The Re-Sweet:

http://wesingyourtweets.posterous.com/a-classic-sweet-for-kimkardashian

The Inspirational Tweet:

The Tweet:

We love @JoshMalina and we wanted to send a sweet for this killer Tweet. We love Panic Rooms too, and Jodi Foster. Re-Sweet to house anxiety #wesingyourtweets

The Re-Sweet:

http://wesingyourtweets.posterous.com/re-sweet-joshmalina

Created by Chris Hartelius and Frank Grecco (who may or not be dating a DF employee, btw, full disclosure), @trueamericandog celebrates fictitious animal characters that are strategically placed in outrageous situations. Worthy of headline news in The Onion, these stories have gained traction by Gizmodo and The Huffington Post as a great place to waste your time.  Even Pee Wee got giddy about it.

If that’s not enough to make you a worshiper, in an Internet age where cats are deities, @trueamericandog kills kitty by enabling “Wi-Fi Dog” to offer an Internet sled tour, “Barfy Scorpion” to set a ski record and “Proudly the Surfing Tiger” to become a summer attraction after his murder. Yep. Pretty freakin’ sick sweet.

Check out some of our faves:

“Kooly The Bear Enjoying Some Wine” http://tinyurl.com/3jjs9f9

“Barfy Scorpion Sets New Record on Ski Mountain of Murder” http://tinyurl.com/3z2q2d6

“Dog Helps Horse Finish Hibernation Chamber”http://fb.me/MJeEXSpY

We think it’s pretty smart for businesses, but we also think it is interesting for anyone who likes LBS or foursquare type stuff. Every time you visit DeepFocus.net, the leaderboard will show the top ten FourScorers in a single category. Play refresh-roulette to see another one!

You can check out FourScore, including looking up local businesses, here.

We’re hiring for a slew of positions – from Creative to Marketing to Communications, we’re looking for people who want to do some cool stuff with us. We’re not so bad to work with. And our web site sure is red (warm red, actually).

Want to know more reasons to work with us? Check out our opportunities and get in touch!

Ariel: High Pants

First up is Ariel. Ariel is no low-rider, especially when it comes to his appearance. He takes going above and beyond to a whole new level.

We found out this morning that we won the Webby in the “Lifestyle – Tablets & All Other Devices” mobile category for the AbExNy iPad app we developed with and for MoMA. We couldn’t be more flattered to be honored in this way, especially considering we were up against some great apps from the likes of Target and Epicurious. This is a real triumph for deeply engaging design and marketing.

So Congratulations to everyone at MoMA and Deep Focus who helped make this beautiful experience. And congrats of the other Webby winners and nominees! And of course, thanks to the judges – we appreciate it.

By the way – thanks to everyone who voted for us in our various “People’s Voice” races – we weren’t victorious, but we really appreciate the support!

Some more about the app

Download the app for free here: iTunes App Store.

See a walkthrough of it and learn about its features here: DeepFocus.net.

Get a rare and fun behind the scenes look at designing the app on MoMA’s blog.

See what folks said about it on Slate and PCMag.com.

The man behind the brag is Harris Wittles (who is not British?), a stand up comedian and writer on the NBC series, Parks and Recreation. His keen eye for douche-braggery and penchant for “false humility” is what sets Deep Focus’s heart all a flutter.

Hollywood may not “leggo their ego,” but @humblebrag lets us enjoy their absurd attempts for attention. Way to make 140 characters into hard-hitting headlines, @humblebrag. We’re all about it.

Feast your eyes on some particularly tasty humble brags:

“In 24 hours I’m heading to Costa Rica with 9 models. So glad I got in such great shape with my steady diet of Coors Light and Wendy’s #noabs” http://tinyurl.com/3d382xt

“So girls are here in my room and im still playing angry bird i kinda wish they would fall asleep or something.” http://tinyurl.com/3fajftv

“It doesn’t matter how much granite, marble tile, jacuzzi tub or square footage a hotel room has… if the internet is slow then it SUCKS!” http://tinyurl.com/5sxmwdm

Having recently joined twitter, her feed is a great series of funny observations about whatever she’s currently doing/reading/eating/watching. Kind of reminds you of the old twitter before it became the ego-vortex of social media it is today. She’s been called (by us) “kind of a female Michael Ian Black” – she was on the Michael & Michael Have Issues cast with him as “Marla” and also wrote for the show, as well as Saturday Night Live. To name just a few accomplishments.

But the tweet that sealed the deal:

I did the “Not My Job” segment on Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me. I am not good at quizzes. http://n.pr/hP34gL

She was on Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, the “oddly informative news quiz from NPR” (@waitwait). That’s enough for us. So, @jessirklein, keep it coming. We’re listening.

Some other highlights:

I will eat an apple when all the cookies in the world are gone.

http://twitter.com/#!/jessirklein/status/58980413288353792

If someone is nice enough to say “Welcome to the jungle,” is the jungle really going to be that bad?

http://twitter.com/#!/jessirklein/status/55636631796981761

@CoryBooker does more on Twitter in one day than I have ever done in my entire frigging actual life.

http://twitter.com/#!/jessirklein/status/53650254163222529

And the irresistibly true sentiment we’ve all probably had in the last week…

Getting same feeling from Rob Lowe shirtless Vanity Fair cover that I get when I accidentally walk in on someone using the toilet #DONOTWANT

http://twitter.com/#!/jessirklein/status/59986376409628672

And oh yeah, told you we’d pick a real person this week! See you next week.

A few weeks ago, news broke that Netflix had purchased the rights to House of Cards, a new series executive produced/directed by David Fincher and exec produced/starring Kevin Spacey. While it’s not entirely surprising to see big screen giants like Fincher and Spacey making their way to the small screen, ever since Kiefer Sutherland led “24” to huge success just over a decade ago the practice has been increasingly common. But it is surprising to see Netflix, a movie subscription service, enter the world of original programming.

Netflix is the world’s leading Internet subscription service with currently 20 million+ subscribers in the US and Canada. Not content to merely put Blockbuster into bankruptcy, the 14 year old company have evolved their business model from a strictly by-mail rental service into the number two video subscription service, right behind Comcast. With Hulu (and more recently Amazon) starting to crowd the streaming movies/television market, Netflix was probably looking for a way to distinguish themselves from the competition.

So they took a page from the HBO playbook imitated pretty much everywhere on cable television now. Before “The Sopranos”, HBO was a premium service that was mostly devoted to airing content created by other studios, usually films a few months after their home video release. But with the show’s huge success, the network realized the best way to get subscribers was by offering them something they couldn’t see anywhere else: quality original programming.

Marking Fincher’s television directorial debut, House of Cards will be an adaptation of a book (and 1990 BBC mini-series) that stars Spacey as a manipulative politician looking to rise up in the ranks. Because of the star power involved, (along with Fincher and Spacey’s recent Awards Season magnet, “The Social Network”), it’ll be sure to draw the attention of media outlets and viewers alike. The word is that Netflix outbid several major cable networks, including HBO and AMC. Instead of dipping their toe into the water with a series of shorts (or something less expensive), this purchase shows other networks that they are now a player in the original series market.

Under the terms of the deal, Netflix will give the show an unheard of two-season (26 episode) commitment. Common practice is for shows to produce a pilot (which gets tested and revised) before going to series. A recent trend among more expensive series is to get a full season order. If a show requires a ton of elaborate sets and effects like HBO’s “Rome” or STARZ’s “Camelot,” it’s almost worth the risk to invest in a full season. It’s a safer bet to split pre-production costs over a dozen episodes than taking a big financial hit on just one episode that might not even see the light of day.

Even though a two-season order is virtually unheard of, it makes sense for Netflix. Their $100 million order (each episode is expected to cost between $4-6 million) shows they are not kidding around. They’re also entrusting A-list talent to hedge their bets on the show being high quality. As long as the story feels complete in 2 seasons (with an option for it to continue) Netflix will have a piece of content that they will own forever. This also takes Nielson ratings completely out of the equation along with the notion of watching something “live” or “reruns.”

It will be fascinating to watch their strategy for rolling this out (imagine a huge advertising and PR push). The question remains whether they will “air” episodes once a week or release an entire season at once. The likelihood is that they will mimic traditional release schedules, but that doesn’t mean that they will. They can write the rules as they go.

Cory Everett is an Associate Art Director at Deep Focus and self described “movie nerd.” In addition to watching hundreds of movies a year, he writes about them at his blog, for The Playlist/IndieWIRE and from time to time will be writing about them here.

@Pres_Bartlet is our tweeter of the week because of his coverage of the ongoing budget debate and looming potential federal government shutdown going on in DC. Fans of the show will recognize an uncanny resemblance between these current events and a season 5 story line (peaking in Episode 8: “Shutdown“). Now we’re no political pundits, but we think @Pres_Bartlet is doing a good job of not only entertaining his followers, but breaking down the difference between political fiction and political reality. And pointing out what’s important. Thanks for the leadership, @Pres_Bartlet: “What’s next?”

Some of his sample tweets:

And we promise: next week, a tweeter who is not a fictional character. Or at least not by the usual definitions.

Responsibilities for this position include, but are not limited to:

• Use planning resources to research websites and ideas
• Work with Planners to develop media recommendations
• Track results and optimize media buys by site and placement (DART)
• Assembling screenshot reports to ensure all placements are correct
• Organizing and tracking vendor invoices and managing discrepancies
• Filing insertion orders

Skills & Experience:

• 1-2 years digital media planning experience
• Bachelor’s degree (BA/BS) from a four-year accredited college or university
• Working knowledge of Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
• Excellent verbal and written skills
• Experience with DoubleClick or other ad serving platforms is a plus

Whoever is tweeting (even though the reptile is now safely behind glass again) for this fictional character – based of course on the non-fictional zoological fugitive squamate who escaped from the Bronx Zoo last week – brought the already humorous story to a new level. Their integration of celebrity handles gave us twitter jealousy. The venomous one garnered over 227K followers in less than a week, in addition to tweets from the likes of Ellen and NYC Mayor Michael Bllomberg. We also love the handle: the possessive “s” in the middle for some reason makes it even better. Real slick, @BronxZoosCobra. Real slick.

Some highlights:

And now that she’s safely incarcerated back at the zoo:

Note: This is the inaugural post for of the Tweeter of the Week – our new feature that recognizes achievement in tweeting. Or just tweeters that make us smirk. The Deep Focus staff picks the Tweeter of the Week based on one single criteria: our whim. For that reason, it goes to a fictional character handle for a snake this week. Next week, we could be all serious about it. Who knows? That’s the great thing about whim.

As an editor for Tumblr’s Art category, I help people discover interesting works found on their site. I manage seven (!) blogs and would like to introduce two of them that were noticed by the Tumblr Community team.

art, not art, not. was created to meet my personal desire to scrap together contemporary visual artwork that walks the line between art and not art. This blog has now become a central site for art enthusiasts to find resources, updates and happenings within the world of contemporary visual art.

ARTISTS’STUDIOS is a sister blog that encourages art enthusiasts to look inside artists’ studio spaces, where they can discover the variety of unorthodox materials used to create their art.

Cosmopolitan Boulevard lets users stroll down a virtual city avenue, window shopping as they go. By tapping the windows, users are given the opportunity to play with and  explore the products through interactivity, video and whimsy. We worked with Cosmo and seven premiere brands – Baby Phat, Estée Lauder, Lancôme, mark., Nivea, Revlon, and Yves Saint Laurent – to create the experience. Download it now and check it out for yourself.

So far, based on its 4.5 star rating and rave reviews in the app store, audiences love the experience and the app (we’re pretty smitten with that, too, by the way). Check it out, and download the app here.

Updated, March 22: Here’s part 2, where Ian waxes on his career and how Deep Focus came to be and how to get a job at Deep Focus.

Updated March 23: In part 3, Ian discusses the myth of viral marketing, among other things.

Deep Focus is pretty thrilled to have worked with Bing and Hotmail in a completely innovative way to help online philanthropy trailblazer DonorsChoose.org – one of our favorite things.

To that end we’re proud to announce the publishing of our first E-book: The Goodness Engine: Driving Greater Social Impact in the Digital World. This E-book, along with its companion site that’s chock-full of video, whiteboards and other valuable content, makes the learnings of the DonorsChoose.org Social Hackathon available to any nonprofit (or anybody, for that matter), anywhere.

The Donor’s Choose Social Hackathon was a unique one-day event hosted by Bing and Hotmail that brought together thinkers from across the digital space to think about how to improve DonorsChoose.org’s success online. From APIs to Social Media, the full-day brainstorm covered it all, creating some highly valuable content. Download The Goodness Engine: Driving Greater Social Impact in the Digital World here to see what DonorsChoose.org learned.

We believe strongly in transparency, collaboration and bringing people together toward a common good. So we’re doubly excited to bring you this piece of intelligence. Be sure to tell us what you think.

Designed specifically to create heightened connectivity to smartphone superusers around their lifestyle and habits, the phone OS reduces the number of interactions and gestures needed for a user to get to the content and features they care most about. A WP7 owner can spend less time trying to connect with their life  and more time living it.

This concept is particularly useful in giving users the power to get the most out of proliferating media and social content – this phone doesn’t just have a Facebook app, the OS has Facebook wired right into it.

Microsoft challenged Deep Focus to find ways to engage with this brand new concept, understand it, and most importantly crave it. No small feat considering Windows Phone’s heritage. So how did we do it? We created a multi-phase campaign utilizing social media (and social culture) to help illustrate the benefits of the new device and most importantly, get the device in peoples hands – at least virtually.

During this process, we realized that it is nearly impossible to see how great an experience a phone will provide when it is brand new out of the box. In fact, many retailers don’t even enable customers to turn the phone on. We thought the single best way for people to experience the phone was to enable them to see what it would be like after a few months of use. And what better way to do it than emulating how it actually works using peoples’ Facebook data.

Through our seemingly simple but lovingly crafted application, users were able to connect to their Facebook profile and were immediately presented with the phone now showcasing their friends’  pictures,  latest status updates and posts, and their own personal photographs. The address book populated with their contacts. The home screen with their favorite people. The email with their messages. You get the drift. A simple idea, expertly crafted allowed the previously impossible to be achieved – trying out an innovative new phone risk-free and using it as if you’ve owned it for months.

See what your life would look like with the Windows Phone 7 Facebook Demo.

They [impressions and clicks] are fundamentally what a multi-billion dollar industry is based upon, and usually those things don’t change until they break – or someone figures out a way to make more money doing it differently. It’s the “who killed the electric car” scenario.

Read 5Qs: Ian Schafer here.

BEST PICTURE

My Pick: Inception
Oscar’s Pick: The King’s Speech
Spoiler: The Social Network

Thanks to an expanded lineup of ten films the Academy has surprisingly done a pretty good job at picking out the best films of the year. Of the ten nominees, they nailed my top five favorites of last year (“Inception”, “Black Swan”, “Toy Story 3”, “The Social Network”, “127 Hours”) and filled the other slots with respectable films (without a single embarrassment “The Blind Side” mucking things up). Despite this incredibly strong lineup, the Best Picture race has essentially been boiled down to just two films: “The King’s Speech” vs. “The Social Network”. Many pundits are calling it a battle between old and new Hollywood, “The Kings Speech” a film that seems perfectly groomed for Oscar and “The Social Network” supposedly a film for the digital age. (The irony here is that “The Kings Speech” director Tom Hooper is actually a decade younger than “The Social Network” helmer David Fincher.)

Age difference notwithstanding, “The Kings Speech” is a very good film and one that could have easily been overly sentimental (or boring). I had expected it’s Oscar bait pedigree to bother me, but I have to admit, the film really works. “The Social Network” is another very good film, but one that has been overestimated by older critics (hoping to show that they “get it”) by calling it a film that “defines a generation.” Fincher himself denies these charges and I have to agree with him. ‘Network’ is a solid B+, an incredibly well made and entertaining film that just misses it’s timeliness by failing to incorporate some of the elements that made it’s brilliant teaser trailer so chilling. I understand that the focus of the film is the creation of Facebook and not how it’s changed our lives, but as it stands the legal battle could be about almost anything (the invention of a new microwave) and it wouldn’t change 90% of what the film is about (friendship, betrayal, etc.)

It’s unfortunate that the truly daring and audacious nominees (“Inception”, “Black Swan”) don’t have a shot at the big prize but it’s still a step forward for The Academy just to see them nominated. To look over the list of past Best Picture winners and compare it to, say, the AFI Top 100 is to see two lists with very little crossover. The Best Picture race is one about the politics behind the race and often has very little to do with the actual best films of the year. Ballots are filled out by who is friends with who, which characters were likeable, which screener didn’t look too depressing to watch, who had the best parties, etc. Basically, if the Academy get it right (as they do from time to time) it can almost be viewed as an accident. So if “The King’s Speech” takes the Best Picture prize on Sunday (as is being predicted), just be rest assured that in a few years it wont really matter. The films that mean the most to people, the ones that are still being talked about and debated, the ones that really captured the zeitgeist, will be the ones considered classics, regardless of what the Academy says.

BEST DIRECTOR

My Pick: Darren Aronofsky – Black Swan
Oscar’s Pick: David Fincher – The Social Network
Spoiler: Tom Hooper – The King’s Speech

Despite Christopher Nolan’s (unforgivable) snub in this category, it’s a great lineup. Darren Aronofsky, The Coen Bros, David Fincher and David O. Russell are not exactly Awards season guys. A decade ago, (with the exception of the Coens), these guys were total outsiders and here they are a decade later, on the inside. Since Nolan wasn’t nominated, my favorite in this category would be Darren Aronofsky for his (again) brilliant work on “Black Swan”. The last 20 minutes of this film are truly stunning filmmaking, regardless of any tonal problems in the first two acts, you can’t watch the final act and not be blown away. But likely, he’ll have to wait his turn and this race will be down to Fincher and Hooper. While it’s expected that “The Kings Speech” will take the Best Picture prize, (I’m still crossing my fingers for an upset), it’s possible that the Academy could split the vote for Fincher in this category.

Hooper directs a fine cast of British actors to fine performances but there is no denying how meticulously crafted “The Social Network” is. (If you want to see the attention to detail on this film, just check out this 93 minute doc “How Did They Ever Make A Movie Of Facebook”.) While ‘Network’ is, at it’s core, a thrilling legal drama, it is one that is executed perfectly. From the crackling script by Aaron Sorkin, to the dark cinematography by Jeff Cronenweth to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s unsettling score, Fincher takes what could have been a made-for-tv-movie and turns it into a Best Picture contender and one of the best films of the year. If the Academy votes with their hearts for Picture, I’m hoping they’ll go with their heads for Best Director and give it to Fincher.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

My Pick: Christopher Nolan – Inception
Oscar’s Pick: David Seidler – The King’s Speech
Spoiler: none.

Arguably one of the most original screenplays of the year, “Inception” has probably also been the one to inspire the most debate. Unfortunately for Nolan, his film is up against “The Kings Speech” which will likely steamroll it’s competition in most major categories. It’s unfortunate since Original Screenplay is usually that category that awards the films too daring for Best Picture (“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, “Talk To Her”, “Pulp Fiction”). But it looks like (barring a major upset) it will be given to Seidler for his sturdy historical drama.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

My Pick: Toy Story 3
Oscar’s Pick: The Social Network
Spoiler: none.

The good news for Aaron Sorkin is that due to his screenplay for “The Social Network” being loosely based on Ben Mezrich’s book “The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook” he will not be going up against “The Kings Speech” in this category. So even if “The Social Network” gets shutout of Picture and Director and Actor, it will go home with at least one major prize. My favorite “adapted” screenplay in this category was “Toy Story 3”, which was “adapted” from the first two Toy Story films. Also: the Academy has really strange rules about this kind of thing.

BEST ACTRESS

My Pick: Natalie Portman – Black Swan
Oscar’s Pick: Natalie Portman – Black Swan
Spoiler: Annette Bening – The Kids Are All Right

Annette Bening, perpetually the bridesmaid in this category, was beat recently (twice) by Hilary Swank. She might have had her chance this year for “The Kids Are All Right” with Swank’s “Conviction” failing to garner many positive notices. Unfortunately for her, Natalie Portman gives the performance of her career in “Black Swan”. Onscreen for every moment of the film, the camera usually never more than a few feet away, she bares everything in this film. It’s an exhausting, physical, emotional performance and one that she’ll likely never be able to top. (Can you even imagine a part that would give her the opportunity to do more than she does here?) Even with the films shifts in tone from campy theatricality to psychological horror, Portman nails every moment. She is perfect.

BEST ACTOR

My Pick: James Franco – 127 Hours
Oscar’s Pick: Colin Firth – The King’s Speech
Spoiler: none.

My favorite performance in this category was James Franco for his gripping (and somehow also hilarious) performance in “127 Hours”. I’m usually not a fan of true life tales or giving awards to actors based on how well they can imitate another celebrity, so credit to Franco and director Danny Boyle for crafting a real performance here. Many will stay away from the film because of an endlessly discussed 2 minute scene late in the film but they’re missing out. Boyle’s intense, visceral film (like Franco’s character) will put you through hell first, but you’ll come out feeling like life is beautiful. That said, Colin Firth will be walking away with his first Oscar in this category. Even though he gave a better performance last year in “A Single Man”, better late than never is usually the case with the Academy.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

My Pick: Melissa Leo – The Fighter
Oscar’s Pick: Melissa Leo – The Fighter
Spoiler: Hailee Steinfeld – True Grit

Melissa Leo has been nominated before but it looks like she might actually walk home with the prize this year, despite some stiff competition (even from her co-star Amy Adams). Leo was recently criticized for taking out her own For Your Consideration ads so if the PR fallout from that ends up affecting votes, it’s possible that first-timer Hailee Steinfeld could win. Despite being a huge fan of the Coen Bros., I didn’t think “True Grit” was among their best work. Steinfeld, however, did deliver a great performance but it is of course a leading one, not supporting. Because she is a newcomer she was able to squeeze into the Supporting category, so she might have a shot over Leo who has far less screen time.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

My Pick: Christian Bale – The Fighter
Oscar’s Pick: Christian Bale – The Fighter
Spoiler: Geoffrey Rush – The King’s Speech

While it’s possible Geoffrey Rush might have a chance here, if you have seen “The Fighter” it’s hard to imagine anyone else but Christian Bale taking this prize. Bale is incredible in this film, you really can’t take your eyes off him. As Dicky Eklund, crackhead and trainer for his brother Mickey Ward, it’s a completely transformative performance. David O. Russell’s real-life boxing drama has a real energy and authenticity that sets it apart from typical sports films and allows Bale’s performance to feel completely alive. Not once during the film do you picture Bruce Wayne/Batman onscreen and that’s a true accomplishment.

And if you want to get interactive you can fill out your own ballot at NYTimes and share with your Facebook/Twitter friends.

Cory Everett is an Associate Art Director at Deep Focus and self described “movie nerd.” In addition to watching hundreds of movies a year, he writes about them at his blog, for The Playlist/IndieWIRE and from time to time will be writing about them here.

Deep Focus not only enjoyed the Super Bowl ads this year, but got under the collective hood to see how social they were. We created the first ever breakdown of social media in Super Bowl Advertising rating its use of social to engage and extend “big game experiences” well after the game. The “Super Bowl of Social Media” and our blog post about the somewhat antisocial creative that ran during the game created a lot of buzz.

Advertising Age ran CEO and Founder Ian Schafer’s commentary on the ads in the Digital Next column. (Advertising Age, The Super Bowl of Social Media? Maybe Next Year, Ian Schafer, February 8, 2011).

Creativity noted that “The game had been hyped as the social media bowl but was in fact notable for its lack of digital integration,” citing our blog post. (Creativity, Super Bowl XLV Recap, February 7, 2011).

Lastly, Ian – one of the official commercial judges for the The New York Post was quoted in their Super Bowl advertising wrap up. (New York Post, Super Bowl car commercials score with message of economic patriotism, Helen Freund and David K. L I, February 7, 2011).

“Chrysler’s ad will actually make people consider buying a Chrysler,” said Ian Schafer, CEO of Deep Focus, a marketing agency in Manhattan.

After years of saying “I’ll go next year,” I finally made it out to the Sundance Film Festival. Thanks to some invaluable advice from Sundance veteran @dordotson, not only did I make it out to Park City but was able to see 12 films during my 4 days at the festival. It was an exhausting but thrilling experience* to be among the first audiences to see most of these films. By the time these films are released over the next year or so, they’ll all have posters, trailers and other marketing materials that give you an impression of what that movie will be like. When you see it, the film will either live up to or disappoint those expectations. But this was an almost completely pure movie-going experience. So here are the films I saw at the fest ranked most-to-least favorite.

1. Submarine (dir: Richard Ayoade) This deadpan British comedy was my most anticipated film going into Sundance and my favorite film leaving it. The fast, funny story of a social outcast experiencing first love as his parents marriage is falling apart will no doubt keep garnering comparison’s to Wes Anderson’s Rushmore but first-time director Ayoade (Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace) has his own comic voice. Read my full review.

2. Like Crazy (dir: Drake Doremus) Boy meets girl. They fall in love. Girl overstays her student Visa and can’t return to the US until her legal matters get sorted out. A long distance relationship ensues. This film will be painfully accurate to anyone who’s ever been through it. Anton Yelchin isn’t quite charming enough to believably win over Felicity Jones (who is radiant in the role), but if you can suspend disbelief there you will be wrecked by the tragic finale.

3. Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel (dir: Alex Stapleton) A great documentary about legendary film producer/director Roger Corman. With over 5 decades in the business and over 400 credits to his name the film does a great job recapping the career of this B movie icon. He helped start the careers of countless actors and filmmakers including Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich, Jack Nicholson, Jonathan Demme, Robert De Niro, Ron Howard and more, all of whom are interviewed here. A must see for cinephiles. Read my full review.

4. Another Happy Day (dir: Sam Levinson) This dysfunctional family dramedy received the most enthusiastic audience response of anything I saw at the festival. Written and directed by filmmaker Barry Levinson’s 25 year old son,the film assembles an impressive cast including Ellen Barkin, Ellen Burstyn, Thomas Hayden Church, Demi Moore and Kate Bosworth among others. It’s undeniably full of indie cliches but done with total sincerity and balances the weighty subject matter with character based comedy. Read my full review.

5. The Details (dir: Jacob Aaron Estes) A dark comedy starring Tobey Maguire and Elizabeth Banks as a bored married couple led into a chain of events that includes multiple infidelities, extortion and a murder. Shares some DNA with the films of The Coen Brothers but is tonally inconsistent. Laura Linney steals the show as neighbo/crazy-cat-lady Lilith Wasserman. The Weinstein Co. bought this for $8 million, (the biggest sale of the fest), so expect a heavy marketing push later this year. Read my full review.

6. Terri (dir: Azazel Jacobs) Coming of age indie about a lonely overweight teen (newcomer Jacob Wysocki) and his friendship with his Vice Principal (John C. Reilly). Reilly is hilarious and the film can be commended for not going where you think it’s going to, (Terri gets a makeover, Terri gets a girlfriend, etc.) but without some kind of resolution the film feels slight. Read my full review.

7. Take Shelter (dir: Jeff Nichols) A film about the end of days or mental illness, depending on your reading of the film. Michael Shannon plays a man who starts having nightmares (or are they premonitions?) about a dark future ahead. The film does a great job carrying a tone of pervasive dread but at nearly 2 hours the film becomes repetitive. This is the one film I saw that would be greatly improved from trimming 15-20 minutes before it’s release.

8. The Future (dir: Miranda July) Bipolar film from filmmaker/artist July where the first half resembles an LA hipster Woody Allen film and the second half is a surrealistic David Lynchian nightmare. Really enjoyed the funny quick wit of the first half and was completely thrown by the left turn into symbolism. Did July go through a bad breakup or something?

9.  Martha Marcy May Marlene (dir: T. Sean Durkin) Elizabeth Olsen (Olsen sister/breakout Sundance star) plays the titular character, an extremely damaged young woman who has recently escaped from a cult. The movie is disturbing and unsettling but the repetitive nature of the film (flashback, current, repeat) became grating in the final act when you’re waiting for something anything to happen. Still, the film has stayed with me more than most and that must count for something.

10. Reagan (dir: Eugene Jarecki) An even handed doc about President Reagan. A quickie history lesson for 80s kids (like myself) who are too young to have known what was going on during his presidency. A good overview but a little dry and probably would have been better (and more comprehensive) as a mini-series. I think this aired on HBO on Monday.

11. Another Earth (dir: Mike Cahill) A homemade sci-fi film set in the near future as mankind learns of an identical duplicate planet Earth which might contain another “you.” Disappointingly much of the film is a slow moving grief drama, with the carrot of science fiction dangled just out of frame. Anyone frustrated by last year’s bait-and-switch Monsters will likely find themselves feeling the same way here. Read my full review.

12. Circumstance (dir: Maryam Kershavarz) Yet another coming-of-age drama, this one set in Iran as a wealthy family deals with their rebellious daughter. Starts promisingly but story threads disappear, there are too many scenes of slo-mo and the film really just runs out of steam. Curiously the film won the Audience Award for Dramatic feature though I suspect that may have had more to do with the film’s sympathetic backstory. Read my full review.

*For those people interested, the scene was mostly over by the time I got there. The first half is when all the paparazzi/celebrity/Seacrest’s show up, so I decided I’d rather go the second half and have a better chance at actually getting into the films than staring at famous people. (Besides, I can do that in New York.)

Cory Everett is an Associate Art Director at Deep Focus and self described “movie nerd.” In addition to watching hundreds of movies a year, he writes about them at his blog, for The Playlist/IndieWIRE and from time to time will be writing about them here.

My panelists will be:

• Jonah Peretti, Founder of BuzzFeed and Huffington Post
• Jay Rosen, press critic, writer, and professor of journalism at New York University
• Danielle Sacks, award winning senior writer, Fast Company Magazine
• Jamal Henderson, Brand Manager, PepsiCo

With the acquisition of Huffington Post by AOL, this is a can’t miss event. And now you don’t have an excuse. You’ll be able to watch it in the player below at 3pm.

Click here to rate the spots on their use of
social media, and tell us what you think.

Boy was I wrong.

As it turns out, the closest any brands got to integrating social media into their spots was the rudimentary Facebook URL.

And that has me scratching — and shaking — my head.

According to Lightspeed Research:

• Nearly two-thirds of 18-34 year-olds planning to watch the Super Bowl have smartphones and intended to use them while watching the game.
• Of those, 59% were planning on sending emails or text messages about the game, while 18% planned on checking out the ads on their phones.

There was not one spot that actually asked us to do anything. Or suggested that we do something. These ads could have all run before the Internet was even invented. Nothing acknowledged that we had any other connections at our disposal other than the one between us and our televisions. We were expected to visit the brands’ websites because we found those brands and their commercials interesting.

Newsflash: most of us have already forgotten the brands the commercials were advertising.

Someone in the office joked that this year we were probably going to see a few Facebook commercials with a brand in them. There were barely brand commercials with Facebook in them. Brands used to buy spots on the Super Bowl to be perceived as more relevant. This year, they just looked out of touch by ignoring the medium that many people are using just as much as TV.

Running a Super Bowl spot is an opportunity to forge connections with millions of people who don’t feel one way or another about your brand. It’s an opportunity to start a relationship, to get people to opt-into a CRM funnel that can last a lifetime. A measurable CRM funnel.

The irony is that those brands will look to social media to gauge their audiences’ reaction. They’ll count views on YouTube. They’ll ask their interns about what Twitter had to say. Their PR firms will be watching the Google Alerts roll in.

But none of them will reap the benefit of actually building a meaningful connection.

Chrysler could have given the audience a social, charitable platform to help Detroit, a city in need.

Motorola could have identified individual early (?) adopters willing to “be different”.

Coca-Cola could have actually helped some real people make some real people happy.

But alas, we were left with skits. And some commercials. Some commercials were skits. Some connected, but none of them built connections.

And that’s a shame. Because at time like this, marketing needs to be about people. Not just crotch-kicks.

But what do you think? Did these spots deliver opportunities to live beyond the big game? Did they create a reason for people to not only connect with the brand, but each other?

Let us know. We’re keeping score.

Click here to rate each commercial’s social media aptitude and send a message to the industry.

MoMA, The Museum of Modern Art, challenged Deep Focus with a big question: how should this leading institution make its first move on what is sure to become one of the most important platforms for fine art: the iPad (or personal tablet) platform?

Important considerations included how to go beyond marketing and provide truly useful experience, how to leverage the incredible assets the institution owns in ways befitting their culture and high standards, and, most importantly, how to use this incredibly dynamic platform to extend the museum’s core mission: increase the understanding of modern and contemporary art everywhere. We had a challenge, to be sure!

The Idea

Deep Focus envisioned a simple, elegant, powerful and highly useful application for MoMA. To make a huge entrance into the iPad market, we wanted to create the first highly interactive and socially enabled fine art coffee table book.

Utilizing and celebrating MoMA’s highly-anticipated and quintessential Abstract Expressionist New York exhibit – a seminal exhibit in which MoMA owned every single piece of artwork and had hours of footage and material – we would launch MoMA’s official app with a focused and interesting purpose. The app we would create would use the magazine publishing model of releasing new content – in this case exhibits – using the framework we developed for AbExNy in future app updates, creating lifelong fans of MoMA’s work.

The Outcome

The resulting app — MoMA Abstract Expressionist New York — is a charming, elegant, and beautiful app that undeniably emulates the feel and aesthetic of the MoMA on a platform that at times can feel anything but beautiful.

Intended to help users enjoy the exhibit remotely, prepare to view the exhibit, or relive the exhibit after viewing, this app allows and upclose and personal view of the exhibit never before provided. Some highlights include:

• Tools to browse by year, artist, bookmarks, audio, or “most liked,” as powered by Facebook Open Graph (coming soon).
• Video, essays, author biographies and educational content demystify the movement.
• A browsable map (the entire AbEx movement launched within a 5-mile radius of the MoMA NY) with photos, audio and video of artifacts from the movement never before available to the public and not on display in the museum.
• Social features including integrated Twitter and Facebook (coming soon) tools.

The app launched to enormous success. Lauded in The New York Times, PCMag, and countless art, culture and education blogs, the App quickly became the number one most downloaded app in its category in the App Store. It earned over 10,000 downloads in its first week and created significant buzz across Twitter, where users continue to tweet their favorite artworks from within the app.

When tasked with creating a new brand website, Deep Focus rose to the challenge and delivered an experience that is undeniably smooth. Beyond this defining brand characteristic, Cîroc required a website that was scalable, dynamic, social and compatible cross-platform. In particular, the user experience had to feel immersive and entertaining with dazzling effects and transitions, but without Flash integration typically used to accomplish this in competitor websites.

As always, the Deep Focus solution required the merged creativity of designers and developers, along with incomparable client service and advisement. The outcome is a ludicrously smooth environment built with CSS3, advanced JavaScript, and HTML5. This whiz-bang front-end production is efficient, practical and ultimately more impressive when you consider the client-friendly and ultra-flexible content management system that serves it.

And most of all, have a happy holiday and a killer new year, from all your friends here at Deep Focus.

We discussed the vision and creative process behind the official MoMA iPad app we launched in October with our teammates over at MoMA. Our chat was featured on MoMA’s Inside/Out blog. Some highlights:

From a utility perspective we wanted to re-imagine the way people would typically experience an exhibit from afar, namely, the “coffee table book.” – Ian

The works themselves were our source of inspiration. The power of these pieces, for me, is how they catalyze all kinds of thinking, rationalization processes, and curiosity every time I look at them. The mind’s desire to understand and create meaning can’t be subdued in this context. That inspired us to create an application that allowed a few ways to experience the artworks… – Ken

What’s great about designing for the iPad is how much can be accomplished with gestures and directly interacting with the content. Unlike a computer, the iPad has a much more natural interface that allows you to become more immersed within the experience. – Dave Kroner

See the entire post here.