Thursday, July 28, 2011

Five Times the Fun: Summer on the East Coast

Dan’s five things are less specific and more mood pieces, so enjoy the songs and pictures and combine them in your head for a vision of Dan’s summer plans.





Pietra:

Here's a collage of Pietra's picks:

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Five Times the Fun: Summer on the East Coast

Chelsea folks are a fun bunch, that much is clear, but what do they do for fun? Particularly in summer, the funnest season of all? In the blazing sun or blasting AC, here’s a list of Chelsea staffers’ top five summer plans, starting with our New York office.


To start us off, here are Lisa's and Pat's lists! Stay tuned for more staff summer plans!


Lisa:

"Reading, reading, reading.  On my list are:
Alan Hollingsworth- The Strangers Child
Bruce Chatwin- Patagonia
The Long Goodbye- Megan O'Rourke
The Faith- Jennifer Haith
Tender Is The Night-  F Scott Fitzgerald
Harry Potter-- The First One (read with my kids)"

Pat:







 

Friday, July 22, 2011

CHELSEA DIRECTOR BRUCE HUNT AND RP& CREATE FORCEFUL ELEGANCE FOR ACURA

Chelsea director Bruce Hunt created four new television spots for Acura’s latest campaign: “Aggression in its Most Elegant Form.” Hunt’s work balances pristine visions of the vehicles with raw demonstrations of speed and power, creating an abstract and beautiful canvas to highlight Acura’s 2012 line-up.

In “German,” Hunt offers a clever play on the typical sports sedan commercial, using the traditional visual cues associated with German luxury cars, then revealing the Acura RDX compact SUV.  In “Meant,” we see an Acura TL sedan being taken through its paces while a list of its most sophisticated features is read in voiceover.  And in “Smart,” Hunt creates a slow burn, having us hear the smart features of the new Acura MDX, then abruptly demonstrating the one feature that can save a life.  “Truck” will be released in the coming weeks.

Hunt’s other recent work includes feature film 2nd Unit director duties, in particular on Guillermo del Toro’s Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, opening nationwide on August 26th, 2011. 






"Meant"


"German"

Monday, July 18, 2011

Chelsea's Michael Muller shoots "True Blood" for "Entertainment Weekly" Covers

Michael Muller shot three covers for Entertainment Weekly’s June feature on HBO’s True Blood, which premiered season 4 on June 26th.  The American Gothic inspired covers feature Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) posing with each of the men in her highly complicated love triangle: Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgard), Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer), and Alcide Herveaux (Joe Manganiello).

Keep your eye out for upcoming EW issues with Michael’s other iconic painting inspired work featuring the True Blood actors.






 
 

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Chelsea Discovers Best Way to Beat Summer Heat

Chelsea has been pondering ways to cool down from NYC’s sweaty subways and sweltering summer sun—without turning our offices into AC tundra.  The only possible answer is of course gelato.  Over the summer, Chelsea NY will explore downtown Manhattan's best gelato and rank them based on texture, packaging, and most importantly – taste!

Eager to start our adventure off right, we popped into two gelaterias this week: Il Laboratorio del gelato on Ludlow St and Grom on Bleeker St.  Our only two constant flavors are vanilla and pistachio.

Laboratorio gelato in their fantastic packaging.

                                    

Our intern, Evan, delivered bourbon pecan, pistachio, vanilla, espresso, and chocolate hazelnut in baby blue lunch box coolers. Very chic!

Kudos for Laboratorio for creative flavoring.  Everyone enjoyed the decadant bourbon pecan gelato.  The chocolate hazelnut was not that creamy and very thick, almost like a fudge. Unfortunately, the pistachio and espresso came prepacked instead of freshly scooped. This definitely took away from the gelato. The pistachio was weak and the espresso very grainy – almost like they used the beans and not the coffee.

Overall, we ranked Laboratorio a 6/7 out of 10 for creative flavoring and packaging.


 
Intern Sara Haile (left) and Staffer Pietra Impastato (right) show off Grom's gelato.

For our second gelateria, we chose more traditional gelato: nocciola, vanilla, chocolate, and tiramisu. Grom packages their gelato ecofriendly biodegradable bags. We love how green they are!

Grom’s gelato is so smooth and creamy. It was hard for us to pick a favorite flavor – they were all very delicious.

Our rank for Grom: solid 8.5 out of 10.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Director Colin O'Toole Joins Chelsea's Roster

Chelsea welcomes visual effects and documentary director Colin O'Toole to our roster.  Known for his high concept special effects and unvarnished real-life moments, O'Toole has created insightful work for clients such as Nike, Playstation, Alfa Romeo, Adidas, and Reebok.

The diversity of O’Toole’s commercial work is mirrored by the diversity of his larger body of work. Deeply involved in the music world, O’Toole has shot a number of music videos, particularly for cult musician Ian Brown and Polydor Records.  His love of music also lead to the creation of Let Us Be Golden, O’Toole’s documentary hit at this year’s Edinburgh Film Festival.  Moving from film to television, O’Toole was also co-director on the recent BBC 4 series Drivetime, and he won a D&AD award in 2009 for his PSA “Pick It Up,” for the Home Office Anti-Knife Crime campaign. 






Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Chelsea's Alex Gibney interviewed on NPR about his new documentary "Catching Hell", which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival, and will be screening at upcoming Silverdocs & Chicago International Film Festivals

In Game 6 of 2003's National League Championship Series, a Chicago Cubs fan reached for glory ... and caught hell.   In his new film , Oscar-winning Director Alex Gibney records the fallout of a fateful flub.  Along with half a dozen other Cubs fans, Steve Bartman stuck his hands out for a fly ball hit by Florida Marlin Luis Castillo just as Cubs outfielder Moises Alou also went after it. But Alou didn't quite make it. Instead, the ball glanced off Bartman's hand and into the crowd.
     
          Bartman reaches to catch the ball that will change his life forever. 
 
Gibney tells NPR's Neal Conan that Bartman was immediately singled out after the incident. "The entire stadium focused their ire on him and almost tried to kill him," Gibney says. When he saw just how furious everyone got over someone doing the most innocent thing a fan could do, Gibney says he knew there was a story there.

Superstition plays such a huge role in sports that Bartman's name is now inextricably connected to the Cubs' loss. But Gibney says there's also something darker going on.  "Very often, we look to find scapegoats," he says. "Bartman was a perfect scapegoat."  That day changed Bartman's life forever. 

Click here to listen to the rest of the June 22 NPR interview.