some stories are best told without any words

This silent black and white film tells more of a story in six minutes than many two hour movies manage. Paperman was created by Disney's John Kahrs (The Incredibles) who was inspired by the time he spent in NY, commuting to Grand Central. To create soft black and white animation (the only color is lipstick) Kahrs and his team used new software called Meander which merged hand drawings with computer-generation to create the look of Disney animations of yore. It's up for an Oscar and made its debut on youtube Tuesday where it's already gotten 3 million votes.

twitter goes to bed with tv

Inquiring minds at Brandwatch and My Clever Agency did an interesting study on how "dual screening" is transforming TV watching. Finds:

1. Dual screeners are most likely to tweet from bed. (Surely soon to be a New Yorker cartoon.)

2. Viewers are 12 times more likely to tweet about a show during days it's on air vs. days it isn't.

3. Tweeters are more negative about shows as they're being aired than they are about them after they've aired. (The past is always better, even in TVland)

4. Less than half of TV shows in the US include official hashtag in their broadcast. (When will showrunners get with the program their audience is watching?)

5. Most TV shows do use official hashtags on Twitter, however. (At least there's that.)

6. Almost half of the official TV show Twitter accounts seldom engage fans, not responding to mentions or queries.

More goodness here, with pretty infographic.

writing a book vs. writing a Facebook

I'm mystified as to why so many authors, presumably good at writing, leave it up to others to come up with their social media profiles. Here's how David Sedaris, one of the most gifted, funniest writers on the planet, greets visitors to his Facebook page:

This page is updated by David's management and publisher to keep fans informed about new events, articles, and to allow fans to share feedback and connect with other David Sedaris readers. David knows and hears about this page but does not create posts.

I know better, I think, merrily setting up my first-ever Facebook author page, hoping it's warm and inviting and a fun place to hang out. But do I really know best? Sedaris has 575,000 "Likes" to my measly 20. Hoping you'll help narrow the gap after the jump.

tracking my book sales before there's a book

My (soon to be published) novel doesn't have a cover or even final contents yet, but I'm thrilled to see that it already has a listing on Amazon. You can't buy it yet, but you can pre-order. At least a few kind readers (and my mother) must have one-clicked already because my sales rank went from #172,987 yesterday to #151,748 today. (The smaller the number, the better the sales.) I know the ranking is meaningless, but I find the uptick (or downtick) irrationally gratifying. All those years scoffing at data geeks in meetings--now I'm the sucker for numbers.

think stocking stuffer

I know, I know. I'm dismayed, too, by the Christmas Creep. Some NY sidewalks (I'm looking at you, 125th) are already festooned with giant snowflakes. But one thing it does is remind you to stock up on little gifts. Funny, isn't it? Christmas comes on the same, foreseeable date every year, yet who isn't scrambling for prezzies in the last days before? Dominik Imseng, a Swiss journalist and copywriter, saves procrastinating gifters from being caught short this year. For the Mad Men and Women in your life, here comes Think Small, the story of the world's greatest ad. It's a delightful immersion in the ad world of the 1960s via the story of one of the most iconic campaigns of the era. $23.99 on Amazon, only 5 left at this writing. Secret Santas start your engines here.

in which writing a novel becomes publishing one

Just pressed the send button on final manuscript for novel accepted by Simon and Schuster. Off it goes to the publishing gnomes who will read, rearrange, come up with covers, blurbs (hopefully) and (if I'm lucky) a marketing campaign. It's a story set in Adland (where else), Mad Men thirty years later, when a copywriter in her 40s tries to stay relevant as walls literally fall down around her. A coming-of-middle-age tale of a woman and a business. How surprised (thrilled, actually) I am to see that, though it's barely left my computer, it's already got a pub date (March 19) and a listing on Amazon! Title is "Making It: A Millennial Tale of Madison Avenue." Unless you can think of something better.

steve frankfurt brought creativity to new medium: TV

RIP Steve Frankfurt, a real-life Mad Man who helped transform television advertising from the talking-head medium it was in the 1950s when radio scripts were simply read to camera to the creative playground it became in the 1960s. He joined Young & Rubicam's television department in 1957, straight out of college when most of advertising's revenues came from print and no one quite knew what to do with TV. Because of this, "kids" like Frankfurt were given a lot of freedom.

"Television was a toy then," Frankfurt said in 1983 when he was inducted into the Art Directors Hall of Fame. He became a leader in making use of all aspects of the medium: he used the of a beating heart for Excederin ads and a strobe-lightlike effect for Band-Aids. He broke another boundary when he became president of Y&R at age 36--top ad agency execs in those days were usually plucked from the ranks of account executives or copywriters.

A New York Times article announcing his promotion in 1968 noted he kept his office on the creative floor, not the "sixth, top management's bailiwick." He spread his talent to Hollywood where he was hired by producers to create title sequences for films including Rosemary's Baby and To Kill a Mockingbird. In 1965, the BBC profiled him in a documentary series called Insights into the Lives of Individual Americans. He was billed as "The Quiet Persuader."

Here's the footage, kindly posted on youtube by Steve Emmerling, a former Y&R copywriter. It's a wealth of 60s styling details like closets hidden behind wallpaper, wrought ironed balconies, pipe-smoking in offices and men sitting around conference room tables as secretary discreetly serves each freshly brewed coffee in cup and saucer and Don Draper-esque men in three piece suits say things like "We need something pictorially to symbolize fresh!"