Skidoo, Credits? Not So Fast!

Peggy Olson on Mad Men has been pissed because she didn't receive credit for her work on an award-winning Glo-Coat commercial. 

Who can blame her?  Commercials have never included on-air credits for the myriad folks involved in their creation, so awards are really the only way for anyone to receive recognition. Compare commercials to their long-form cousins in moving images -- TV and movies --  whose end credits have always allowed interested viewers to know every single person involved in their production, from the actors and directors down to the lowly gofers and shoe-shiners.

Well in Peggy's time, at least. Nowadays, while a few folks still stay to the bitter end in movie theaters, try viewing the end credits to any movie or show episode on broadcast TV or basic cable (except thankfully on Turner Movie Classics). They're squeezed onto the left side of the screen, squished onto the bottom, and/or fly by so fast that even Howard Stephen Berg probably can't capture more than a word or two.

Of course, networks do this so that viewers have less time to change the channel, keeping them engaged in the current parlance. End credits, it seems, can bore viewers even more than the similarly attention-afflicted commercials -- whose agencies have spent the last few years teaming up with broadcasters on all sorts of creative approaches to keep folks tuned in, such as shorter pods, in-show tie-ins and the like,.

Mad Men is a virtual creative lab in this area. AMC, for instance, runs historical factoids about the show's sponsors before and after their spots. And some Mad Men advertisers have now begun naval-gazing. They've become ad-industry obsessed, incorporating the process (albeit fictional) of creating ad campaigns into the commercials themselves.  

The creative agencies obviously relish the spotlight Mad Men has thrown onto their profession (although they seem reluctant to move the depiction of the ad creation process into the 21st Century). So here's a modest proposal: toot your own horn with credits! 

No, not end credits on the end of a 15-second spot (imagine how fast they'd need to fly by!). Rather, an idea borrowed from MTV, which some 20 years ago took another short-form TV medium, the music video, and slapped director credits onto them.

Wouldn't it be cool to see who directed the current Hotels.com Claymation commercial while it airs instead of via YouTube, where you'll find out it's Rich Webber.  Perhaps he and others could become  ad industry equivalents of Spike Jonze and other music video directors, who by the time they directed their first features were already familiar names to MTV watchers.

And while we're at it, let's give some on-air recognition to Y&R Chicago!  Yes, Don Draper was jealous of Y&R's spacious New York offices earlier this season, but, really (fictionally?), that was 45 years ago. Maybe viewers would get a kick out of seeing that while Sterling Cooper has vanished from the ad game, several of its rivals that Mad Men sometimes mentions are still alive and breathing...and dressed in modern clothes, not as if they're about to attend a John Lindsay fund-raiser.

Unfortunately, for someone in Peggy's position, recognition and credit will always be dependent on the awards process -- and thus with whomever at the agency handles the nomination process. I'd suggest bonding with that person over coffee and a sandwich at Chock Full o' Nuts or the Automat. Or, if credit is so important, moving over to the TV business. In fact, thanks to my presence in 2010, I have evidence that Peggy will soon do exactly that. Her IMDB credits prove it!

Skidoo, Credits? Not So Fast!

Written, produced and directed by Les Luchter

Finding a Needle in a Haystack

Movies in Brooklyn Bridge Park. Concerts in Prospect Park and Coney Island. Yes, summer in Brooklyn means lots of free entertainment. In 2010, it also means crowds. Very large crowds.

It's bad enough that you can now arrive ahead of time and end up wishing you had brought binoculars to better see The Big Lebowski. Or honed up on your tree-climbing skills for an unobstructed view of The Swell Season.

Turns out that one of the worst parts of being way back in the crowd is being forced to listen to folks around you providing rendezvous directions to wayward friends.

You'd think that mobile capabilities would have made this whole process easier. Maybe people are finding each other easily via texting or social networks. Perhaps there's an app that brings two people  together via incredibly accurate GPS. But, scrunched on our blanket in Brooklyn Bridge Park, hemmed in by sweaty bodies, enduring the wafting smell of cheese and bug repellent, my wife and I are oblivious to any of that.

Instead, we hear a French-accented twenty-something guy, who's already appropriated the upper back quadrant of our blanket, shouting in our ear. No, he's talking very loudly into his cell phone: "Walk to zee bock, you'll see a bleu awning on zee right. I'm on zee left een front of zee tall light tower."

I look around. About 2,000 people are in this section of the park, surrounded by five tall light towers, with some 100 people directly in front of each. But, depending on what angle Pierre's friend is looking from, in "front" of the light pole can mean just about anywhere. Like finding a needle in a haystack!

I suppress a giggle and try to lose myself in a book. (By coincidence, I'm reading "Thomas Wolfe's "Only the Dead Know Brooklyn" in the anthology Brooklyn Noir 2. It's 1935, and the locals know how to give directions, with the proper accent: "Yuh take duh Fourt' Avenoo express, get off at Fifty-nint' Street, change to a Sea Beach local deh, get off at Eighteent" Avenoo an' Sixty-toid, an' den walk down foeh blocks.")

But back to the present. The minutes roll by and so do more silly directions in the background. Finally, somehow, Pierre's friend shows up. The brie spreads. Our blanket gets more crowded. The movie starts and I get up on my knees to see over the basketball player in front of me.

In Prospect Park, the crowd is twice as large. We're ensconced beyond the fences of the main concert area. Stage way right, but we would actually see it if not for the portable toilets lined up and taunting us from inside the parameters. Expecting to get real seats, we brought no blanket. But we have room to stretch on the grass. And to enjoy the distant music amidst running kids and scampering dogs,

Then, from behind, we hear the booming voice of a Park Slope dad: "We're in the back, on the left side of the stage, near some bicycles, in front of a tree." I won't tell you how many bicycles are around or how many trees. Or how large an area he's talking about. My wife and I look at each other, and this time we burst out laughing. Rather than wait for the continuing directions, we pick ourselves up, scramble through the strollers, and move to a better vantage point.

A decade or so ago, when cell phones were not yet ubiquitous, we would frequently go to the even more crowded Bryant Park movies in Manhattan. And guess what? Latecomers found their friends. People would agree on pre-established locations, or folks would hold up distinct umbrellas with floppy bunny ears, or pitch posts adorned with colorful pennants.

In today's world of Facebook, Foursquare and Flashmob, gathering people together is the easy part. But Google the terms "finding people in a crowd" or "finding someone in a crowd" and you'll receive a mere handful of results. Pretty strange for a generation raised on "Where's Waldo!"

Anyone with any solutions to this problem, please chime in.  Because providing your location via voice over a cell phone just doesn't seem to be the answer.

It's an old joke that men never ask for directions; they'd rather get lost seeking their way. I would venture that they shouldn't give directions and get others lost too, except that giving bad instructions in crowds cuts across gender lines.

In the midst of a throng of people exiting Prospect Park, a sweet feminine voice behind us cut through the chatter: "As you come into the park, you'll see a whole bunch of people leaving.  Look for me."

Ok! And look for me when the Aretha Franklin concert gets rescheduled. I'll be in the back surrounded by a bunch of people, a lot of whom have lawn chairs.  In front of some trees....