communication- insight?

A communication used to share an idea, concept, feeling is one thing. Communication used to manipulate is another. Actually to me all communication seems to be of the second type but not everbody admits to it.
And therefore not employing the device that truely seems to work for the second type seems to be the biggest reason any type of communication fails. A student of mass communication or comm.sciences would probably better explain it, but my take on the device that works best for the manipulative communication bit- Incomplete messaging works beter than complete messages. Let me explain.
Driving down a main road, you see a Levis Signature hoarding. The latest one thats in your town about the new cheap jeans from levis. The line says "At Rs. 599/- it doesn't hurt that much". What the visual shows however are what really hurts during those years of madness: the rotten-tomatoes-at-your-first-performance or cactus-on-your-backside-as-you-make-your-move situations we've all been through.
What has happened, is a casual line that directly states the marketing promise(cheap jeans) in borrowed lingo of the college youth, with a visual that says what has been left out. So the complete line should say: "At Rs. 599/- it doesn't hurt that much, but what really hurts are the rotten-tomatoes-at-your-first-performance or cactus-on-your-backside-as-you-make-your-move". Which if you've ever sat through a creative brief in an ad agency would be what would've been put in the "desired response" slot, as "research" showed youth saying it hurts because they can't afford a Levi's. Whew.
So, children, thats all you do- take desired response, break it in two, put the first half as line, suitably contextualised, put second half as background leaving your audience guessing how the bloody hell does it connect and when they get it... a 3D experience in a static medium. Kidding.

My real focus was on the last part...leaving your audience guessing with an incomplete message that they solve inside their head, feel suitably rewarded and boom... they like it. Happens all the time. Watch out when the best jokes are cracked or when somebody pulls that deadly comeback.

P.s:If this post feels a little incomplete or vague, you know why ;-)

Many things

Always wondered why we have such a linear approach to arranging all the information we use- Psychology/cognition/philosophy students would explain it with the psychokinetic phenomena/sequential absorption theory/The premise but i dont care. It is this that is the primary cause of most of our troubles. It is this that makes us think he is placed higher than me or we are lower than them leading to all sorts of conflict. Why cant we all assume we are just floating in free space and yes, i can see him, oops that one disappeared....? Some day.

Marketing, a favourite past time for me, however bends this favourably. Some time back was the Stains are good campaign( indianised terribly) and now there's the it campaign. This it one is quite a whopper. Vis it. One agency has even pulled the ultimate inside story. They've put out an recruitment ad for the man who wrote the original recruitment ad.
But it stands out. The cultural signposts are all there down to the "t". Funnily, each film snippet is inspired from movies or TV shows ensuring a strange sense of familiarity, whether its the japanese show in Lost in translation or the Primer( the cult movie) look for "making of it".
Great ides. super execution.

Movies this weekend

All that consumption didn't spoil my appetite for the weekend movie binge- Did two movies back to back

The clearing- A story that was all about storytelling than anything else. Parallel narratives, sensitive details, the works. A rather abrubt ending though.

Out of Order- Crazy hollywood crazy- the kind nobody else outside Hollywood thinks crazy- Man has chronic depressive wife mostly high on dope which gives him the perfect excuse to throw an X-tacy party and skinnydip with his kids' friends' mom and get frisky with her. And finally asks the audience to pass judgement on the charecter. Please.

Whew! what a weekend!

Played my consumer tag to the hilt. Bought a car, a vaccum cleaner(well...) and a world space radio. And then did the wardrobe update! Hang on there Mr. Money bags...

Movies this weekend

Finally spent time outdoors hanging around with humans (family, actually) so didn't quite do the big list. Didn't want to miss the ritual, so late sunday night went back to my " next whisky bar". This is what resulted:

The myth- Was that jackie? And who's that babe doing a tits-on-rat-glue number? Our own mallika sherawat? Oh please. Don't you go anywhere near this if you liked police story. If its murder you want, well...yes!

Motorcycle diaries - loved it. The vulnerable che before he became che-the-Tshirt. Did i smell swades?

Thats all.

Blogscam?

Call me a cynic, but somehow the entire iipm episode smacks of struggles of a-medium-coming-of-age creating the sort of buzz that has other media taking notice. Easy for me to say this post-facto, but suderman already smelled fish. As the interest fades off, rather quickly and quietly for how it spread, there's another pertinent question begging to be answered: have we "indianised" the blogging experience by making it the "I WANT TO BE HEARD" angst coming from screaming over a billion voices?

Tune into the time machine

Dunno how many of you listen to the radio these days. Not many, i guess.May be the FM with all those firangi sounding desi RJs. So much for Freddie mercury's radio ga-ga. But shift to our AIR and you can happily move into the waybackmachine. Nothing seems to have changed since the 70's or max 80's. Same songs. Same "presentors". Same bloody sound. Listen to 107.1 fm between 12-1 pm. Again in the night between 9:30pm and 11:00pm in AM 783. Nothings changed.

Movies during the week

To makeup for that sorry set over the weekend, raided the DVD rental with a vengeance. This is what i got:
Black angel (Senso '45) by the crazy italian director Titi(oops) Tinto Brass
Jamon Jamon by the crazy spaniard Bigas Luna
Score with a HUGE cast like de niro, brando AND edward norton and still...sad
Kundun by scorcese
Beauty & the beast I & II

A mixed bag at the end of it.

Movies this weekend

Vague set actually...

• Zendegi va digar hich by Abbas Kiarostami- Tested my patience. Don't know if the director had not yet arrived at his language but sorta drifted along and then ...poof
• The postman by kevin costner. More like a retired post masters take on sabeer bhatia way back in '97. Not a bad movie by itself but the setting was so convoluted that the movie made you turn funny shades of green halfway through. It was when Kevin costner had this feeling that he carried the best semen in the planet (ugh..remember waterworld?)
• Fried green tomatoes Actually another decent movie from 1991 when movies had to have a ...story. But its so localised and so unfamiliar today that it was some heavy-duty cinema-passion that kept us from throwing rotten tomatoes at passers by.

Mid-week mid-day blues

Afternoons, especially between 2 and 4pm is my favourite time of the day. Every thing gets all dull and boring and if you're somewhere in a small town under the shade of some large leafy tree all the better. But here i'm staring at my desktop and its taking every bit of my resolve to stay alive. I thought this post will help. I doubt it.

Movies last weekend

Big Fish
Be cool
Princess diaries2
Maria:full of grace
Sin City
Fever Pitch

Madras this?

Who owns this city? The hip crowds smoking cigars in Distil or the vorion6000-with-halfboil-junta? Or the thick middle watching both and doing nothing much? Does anybody own it at all? Sudhish thinks venkat did a good thing: Pushing people to write to the Dinamalar and tell them what you feel. What do you feel? Am talking about the series of "moral policing" acts thats happening in chennai. From hoardings that displayed skin which got tarred to telling Khushbu to leave chennai, it has certainly shown growth in the last few years. Shouldn't we put our little 2bit on this?
Spread the word. Post the link.