Thursday, March 31, 2011

Coming On Your Face This Fall.





Is that title too rude?

Many moons ago, when I wasn’t a hot-shot advertising intern.

Back when I could afford to flat and didn’t have to move in with my parents because it’s apparently difficult to remember to pay people.

Back when I could wake up at noon, drink on weeknights and didn’t have a care in the world.

Way back then (why did I get a grown up job again?) I worked with a friend of mine called Joe. You may not be able to call what we did work. We did stock shelves and occasionally talk to customers but mostly we shared our time talking about cartoons and making up insanely far-fetched movie scripts.
Now Joe and I, whilst very different people, work very well together when it comes to writing scripts. I like to think this is because, like our favorite writer John Swartswelder of the Simpsons, we enjoy trying to come up with insane yet funny scenarios.

Ours were less funny because a) it was us trying to outdo each other with stupidity and b) we were working in a timber yard and wrote several scripts on big sheets of ply-wood (If you brought one of those pieces of ply-wood, hold onto it, it may be worth a lot some day).

I will share these movie concepts with you, but I have to stretch these out to one a day. Mainly if you read them all at once your head will explode from how awesome they are, but also because I have work to do and writing them all at once would take my entire morning.

So, without further adieu.


“Three’s Company.”

This was our Avatar (a movie I didn’t care much for, for the record), the greatest one we ever thought of, and if one of our scripts could be brought to life it would be this one. It was a comedy, action, romance, drama, horror, with a dash of sci-fi and a whole truckload of WTF.

Three guys, I don’t think we ever got so far as to name them, all work at a nuclear power plant (I know you're already hooked). There's some sort of explosion, and a toxic waste spill rips the heads off two of the guys and causes these heads to become attached to the body of third guy.

It may seem insensitive with whats going on in the world but we wrote it ages ago
so it must I am exempt from being insensitive. 
Now this third guy is a nervous-yet-okay looking guy. He has a date with the hot girl that works in another department at the plant, I'm thinking Scarlett Johansson. He has one opportunity to take her out a few nights after the explosion. However, he has to go on this date while attempting to conceal the fact that he has two extra heads, hiding them with parrot costumes, potted plants, a boom box and balloons.
 These heads (because some how they survived) give him advice throughout the date, although in one hilarious scene one of them gets annoyed at something she says and tries to take control of third guy's arm and throw something at her which the third guy has to try and play off.

Another of the heads is an aspiring magician. His first gig is a few nights after the explosion but of course he doesn’t have proper control over the limbs of the body they all now share. So he has to teach the others the tricks. He somehow manages to incorporate the fact that he has three heads into his act and although he is very nervous, this is his golden opportunity after all,  after a few early hiccups and a lacklustre audience he eventually wins them over and his show goes well.

I can’t really remember the third guy’s back-story. Perhaps he was suicidal and the other two convince him life is worth living. That kind of works doesn’t it? Or he was a drug addict and they get him clean, the Oscar guys will love the gritty realism of that (Christian Bale can play him cause he does those roles well usually).

The B story, to add a comedy aspect (because the rest of the story is so gritty and real) the bodies of the two detached heads are running around town getting into all sorts of mischief. They foil a bank robbery, save a baby and are awarded the keys to the city for various acts of heroism. Obviously all of this is completely by coincidence because in reality they are just headless bodies running around aimlessly, unable to see, hear or respond.

Throughout the movie we see that though the three guys hated each other, they grow to be friends and by the time they are (miraculously) separated, they are the best buds and get together all the time for beers. The closing shot will be them sitting creepily close together because they miss all being attached.


There are probably more plot points I am forgetting and will be reminded of, so there may be revisions in the days, weeks even months to come. But as I remember it, this is our greatest master piece.

So next week I will discuss more of mine and Joes epic movie/TV show ideas.

P.S. This is mine and Joe’s idea. If you steal it and make a movie we want a cut, and to go on stage when you win an Oscar. Also I want to meet all the stars, because part of the reason for writing these concepts was to meet famous people and be their friends and piggyback off their success and travel the world.



Friday, March 25, 2011

Proof That My Proof Readers Are Smarter Than Me.

You know when you say a word too many times and it starts to lose meaning. "Proof" just did that to me and I only used it twice.

Right, so I have been stupidly busy recently (Read: I have been watching someone use Photoshop while standing behind them dancing and singing acapella show tunes) and you guys never got updated on the proof-reading contest.

Well, it didn’t go so well.

If you are foolish enough to explain the contest in a blog that both participants frequently read, you should anticipate it's failure. Especially because, if like me you haven’t told the participants about the competition beforehand, it might upset them.

However, I do highly commend Beka for her proof-reading efforts.
She went through and rewrote my entire post with atrocious spelling and grammar, here is a sample:

ADAM LESLEY MARTIN, I REFUSE TO PARTICIPATE IN YOUR SICK COMPETITION.
You get to sit their on yuotube all day, wear jadnals [or flip flops or thongs or what evr they are called in you're part of the world.), drink at lunch  time and do it all with a good freind.
Well I appare to be getting theyre. Its alot of work so sometimes youtubeing takes a back seat and today is the only day I have been alowed, neigh, encoraged to drink befre noon, it is apparantly a Birhtday traditon to drink guiness and do shots on you're birthday at   9 am. sweet
Any Whooo just a short one day, as it has been over the past few weaks unfortunatly as Hugh is looking at me angrilly and he actually read the blog the other day wear i called him names so idont think he feels to pleesed about the whole me wasting rejuvanating my craetive spirit by bloging and reeding other peoples blogs i will put a knew list on the side bar of the   awsome blogs i read and you shood read aswel, partly because you will find the genuinly funny and partly because i want them to see that their is so much trafic going to their site from my site and   then they wil email me and we can be frends and we can go out for cock tails a  nd tapas, o what awoderful world that wood be.
This essentially reminds me why she is one of my best friends (good, announce it on the internet, maybe then she will come back and proof read.)

Hayley, on the other hand, was less creative. She sent me a semi angry text and decided not to participate.

So it's relatively obvious who won.

Because today all we seem to be doing at work is moving desks around, and most of the work we had on seems to be coming to an end, there is a good chance I will try to get ahead on posts. Then you don’t have to deal with a) lacklustre posts like this one, and b) going so long without hearing my sweet, sultry text voice whispering gently in your ear though the interwebs. 

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

A Multilayered Business Opportunity And The Team Behind It.

The "The Whole Thing Stinks" Building.
I could of photoshopped it so it looked less like 30 Rockefeller but forget that.

You may not know this about me but I am not just one person.


No, there is a team of writers behind this voice. David, the clever one sits in the corner reading novels, currently he is reading of Elizabethan England.

Graham is the office drunk. Oh Graham, always up to mischief. Look at him now abusing the interns for not bringing him a bagel and a packet of panadol because, like every night, he had a big one.

Sherrie is the office slut, not much to say there.

And Liza is the level headed one whose job it is to keep this whole operation running smoothly. Oh she stresses a lot about peoples inability to keep to schedules or when Graham brings live animals he stole from the petting zoo down the road into the office (the “The Whole Thing Stinks” offices have a strict no animals policy, not after Craig the intern some how got an elephant, a zebra and 4 hamsters* on to the 37th floor of the building) but she loves it really. (Did anyone else notice how that brackets with an asterisks really broke up the flow of that otherwise pretty comical sentence. Note to staff: Don’t do that.)

That’s right it’s all one big happy family here at the office.

Except for the proofreaders. Hayley and Beka. They take liberties with the text, one more so than the other, some just leave snarky red notes and others send emails and texts throughout the editing process.

So, without their knowledge, until I make one of them proofread this later today an experiment will take place.

The team has written a dummy blog, it’s all happy and weird. It will be given to both proofreaders with the information that they can change it as much as they like (as opposed to my normal note of “make it make sense then don’t fucking murder my writing!!”).

I will post each persons revised copy of the, original admittedly average (but whats new), blog and we can all make our decision as to who proofreads my nonsensical ramblings the best.

I may get the 3rd floor digital guys to make some sort of poll for this, or we can just vote in the comments section. Stay turned.

P.S With regards the competition, Hugh entered the current header (he blogs, as well have a button Hugh.). He has the slight advantage of sitting right next to me and the fact that he was one of only two entries. Come on people.

But let me know if you like this one.




*Being an office based in New Zealand there are no hamsters in the country so know one really knows where or how he got them. We assume he liberated them from the hamster fighting league but we all thought that that we a legend. 

Friday, March 11, 2011

I'm Like The Beatles, Only I'm One Guy. And Only A Blogger.

Me: What should I write about today, Hugh.
Hugh: What you write about everyday, Adam. Trying to take over the world.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I prep for my writing.

Almost everyday Hugh and I have that conversation. It is usually after we have gotten annoyed at each other for not being able to come up with ideas, because let's face it, it's his fault (I can say that with some confidence knowing that he rarely reads this, despite now having a button for my blog on his blog).

So, at that point of the day we call a truce and go write a blog each.

Mine made up of my pointless ramblings, much like you're reading now. His a well-structured deep and meaningful jaunt through his thoughts… nerd.

And I think this defines us as a pair, unit, collaboration, whatever completely heterosexual way you can describe two incredibly good-looking males that hang out a lot. Hugh is the logical-ish one and I am the “fuck advertising let's ride bikes” one (due to this being my blog I have to be the one that sounds more awesome). From that cool shit usually evolves.

So my friends, as the weekend approaches and our spirits are uncharacteristically high because of the amount of praise and adoration we have received over the last few days, I muse (yeah, that's right, I muse. I muse so hard Chuck Norris made a motivational poster about me), about the power of the human mind.

Seriously it is insane. Last week we didn’t have any ideas for any of the briefs we were working on. Today and yesterday we presented them and got pats on the back, literally (to be honest it was weird because the guy giving the pats was old and has a pedo-stache).

UPDATE: Remember the competition, read all about it here. I have an actual prize. The prize is you! And by that I mean that a robot-you.

Hugh and I spent a good few days last week with very little to do but make robots, paper ones, of some of our favorite characters. 



So your prize can be either you or your favourite character in robot form! How badass it that? (Pretty badass, don't deny. You are probably entering the competition multiple times right now, because let's face it, I have awesome prizes).  So get creating me some banners people. (Please and thank you, obviously).
Also check the casual lean and displaying of bling I have going on in this picture. That's all you really need in advertising - a casual pose, a bit of bling and a cardboard Invader Zim.



*Allusions to myself and Hugh being good-looking heterosexuals, mentions of Chuck Norris and the insertion of manners were actually the work of Beka.
*Footnote is also the work of Beka, who didn't want anyone to get the wrong idea about Adam's self-image, sexuality, fondness of Chuck Norris or ability to be polite.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Drinking And Driving. Separately of Course Because I Am Safe



First and foremost, competition in the post below.
Enter it.
I've already had some cool entries, but would love some more. I will post my favorites over the next few weeks.

Now, onto the important stuff.

Have you ever just driven?

Like gotten in a car with nowhere to actually go?

I don’t really like driving so I don’t do it that often, but one of my most favourite times that I aimlessly drove was around New Years a few years ago. 

*Looks up to the left like JD from scrubs*

*That weird water wipe that means it’s a memory*

Enter me, with a whole bunch of my friends.
If it were a bad sitcom we would look almost exactly the same as we do now but with cool, old-school hair. Come to think of it that’s pretty true - I had long hair back then. This was about 3 years ago, and I looked like a d-bag. How quickly times change (cries as “Time After Time” plays).

So there we were drinking - as friends do (beers appear in our characters' hands).

We did all that normal stuff - drinking games, shots, long walks on the beach, pretending that pouring beer on the barbeque meant that we were beer-battering whatever it is we were cooking at the time. For the record, it just makes it taste like an ass.

All of a sudden we noticed one of us was missing.

It was a girl I had known since intermediate school and went out with at one point, and we had noted earlier in the night how, at the time we referred to it as 'crunk', she was (as was the style at the time). 

Her boyfriend was also quite drunk and we had to save him from the “Sea God Nimfrus” earlier in the evening - a story that deserves its own post.

So in a bid to save this female friend, who had pink hair at the time and as such was referred to as a princess by many other much younger campers, had gotten severely entrenched in a campsite of what we referred to as “D bags”.

The battle that ensued consisted of one of my friends getting thrown into a car, another being threatened with a 2x4 (or 4x2 depending on your country of origin), and me trying to carry her home while she scratched my face.

All in all - not pleasant.

So the next day Hugh and I packed our shit and drove. And drove. And drove.

It was soothing as hell. We listened to bad emo-punk music and sung, and visited several different campsites of people we knew.

We stayed with a family that had the best camping set up I have ever seen - with everything but a TV.

We slept in the car and on beaches. And drank back drafts and Heineken at every stop.

It was brilliant.

It will always remain in my memories as one of my best New Years - despite the antics that went down with our friends at the first campsite. 

Call this a “part one”, an overview if you will, of this New Years because there is much more to it.

P.S Remember to follow and stumbeupon and all that stuff that can get more people reading this. And remember to enter my competition, it will be fun.


Free Stuff! Prizes! Neato!!

Alright Ladies and Gentlemen.

It is time to win free stuff.

And by free stuff I mean I want something from you.

You may have noticed that I have a badly, or perhaps brilliantly, depending on who you ask (although those who say it's 'brilliant' tend to express themselves through art, using the medium of their own fecal matter), designed header. Shh your hating faces! I am a writer, not an art director and therefore I don't know how to use photoshop.

SO... Competition! Email me (I just put a button on the side there, aren't I clever) a design for my header, preferably in JPEG but crayon will be accepted. If I like it you get the mystery prize, and prizes could be anything from a personally signed picture to something cool I steal from work.
Its all part of the fun!

Also tweet about me, put me on your Facebook, follow me. Exploit my newly installed button! Email me and you might get a mention (prestigious I know). All that stuff. And your prize for that will be that tomorrow or maybe today I will write a funny and entertaining post about something funny and entertaining.

Might start on that one now.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

The Day The Magic Died.



A week or so ago I worked at Subway for a morning. Because apparently that’s what you do as a junior copywriter.

The first thing this allowed me to do was fulfil a dream I have had for a long time. Not a Martin Luther King style dream of racial equality, or even a dream of curing the world of some disease, because beyond leaving the bread out and inventing penicillin the field of sandwich artistry has stayed pretty much the same for the last 50 years or so. No, it was a dream of being able to actually get behind the Subway counter and make the sandwich I have always dreamed of.

Oh, you’d be jealous of this sub.

It looked amazing.
Bread cut at the recommended 45-degree angle.
2 meats (say what?).
A pig load of bacon (slow down buckoo!).
At least 2 avocados worth of avocado.
More than the company's recommended 6 tomatoes slices (you fiend).
More than the 42g of lettuce (are you mad?).
Even more than the suggested 12 grams of onion (he did what?!).
Only 3 sauces? Bah, I bend not to your rules!

I, ladies and gentlemen, thought of myself as a sub-shaman.

Like Jesus fed a whole lot of people with bread and fish, I fed myself with bread and chicken and bacon and Subway goodness.

However something went wrong. Firstly, my manager looked at me weird and scolded me a little for my liberal use of everything.

And secondly it tasted like ass. Well, not so much ass as that taste you get in the back of your mouth after you throw up. It had too many sauces, including the weird new sauce that I had never battle-tested. Foolish.

Day one sandwich artistry fail.

But gather round boys and girls, because there is a moral to my tale of misery and woe (I know none of my posts have really had morals before, but this is one lesson I think we can all learn from).

Lesson: You know all of that 'less is more' bullshit people keep telling you, that you only pay attention to because you cant afford to put all of that extra shit in. Listen to it. They be spitting the truth.  *Tips 40oz of Jack Daniels to the curb*

Word.

Also my art director and creative partner Hugh just started a blog. He is a cynical douche but go read it, it has pretty pictures and if enough of you go to his site from here he might design me a header that isn’t average.

EDIT: I also got stuck on a problem at work and as part of my research on said problem I put buttons down the bottom for Digg and Stumble. Click them so even more people can come and enjoy the fun. If you came from one of those sites, welcome! Click the like button... please.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

I Should Release A Sex Tape To Boost My Profile.

Pictures make sit more interesting so here is one.
It is a photo and exact transcript  of the sort of things I say around the office....
Even though I am a copywriter. And That tie looks hideous on me.



Right I am back. It may not be for good, but for now it is so. So rejoice while you can and treat every post as my last because I am;
A) a little lazy and
B) overworked and underpaid (less than minimum wage represent!).

Now that I seem like a pessimistic a-hole (censoring for the kids, oh how I have grown up), let's go on.

So I have been working at an agency called Publisic Mojo in Auckland. It has been going well as far as I can tell so win there. But uh, its been challenging, not going to lie.

I do office-y things like send comical emails, and break computers while playing late night indoor cricket as Hugh and I think of ideas.

And I write a lot. It's advertising writing which doesn’t really flow like normal writing, which is the reason I have disjointed paragraphs and unfinished sentences. I will stab you if you tell me I am doing it wrong, because I got told the other day that a letter Hugh and I wrote was, and I believe this is verbatim, “quite well written.” Boom Bit…. characters (haha there is still a naughty word there but remember I'm being good for the kids).

So this is currently being written at my desk while Hugh is setting up a wordpress account (pfft wordpress. What an * insert a stereotype that uses wordpress*), because we are stuck.

So today’s call to action (look at me being all advertise-y) is that I want a list of sites that are interesting and inspiring because trawling youtube is fun and all but I needs me some brain food… although I can never get enough of this video. 

And also this video never gets me down.