With such a large cast and a plot line that reminds me how weak Eastenders et al have got in recent years, my fellow Eureka pals and I were enchanted throughout all four acts whilst a curiously timed yet appropriately atmospheric rainstorm raged on the other side of the canvas.

They certainly don’t write them like they used to. Here’s why:

Leonora is planning to run away with her lover, Alvaro, since her father forbids their relationship. When they are discovered, Alvaro accidentally shoots Leonora’s father and as they flee, they trigger a worldwide man hunt by her brother Carlo, who is intent on finding and killing both his father’s murderer and his sister.

As the lovers are separated so soon into the chase, a terrified Leonora disguises herself as man and with the help of a monastery, seals herself in a cave in the mountains awaiting the salve of death she craves to atone for her father.

Her lover Alvaro, believing she died during the chase, goes to America and joins the army.

Still with me?

Good. Well, there, he saves the life of a fellow soldier whom promises to care for him forever more (yes, it is Leonora’s brother, Carlo). Without knowing each other’s true identity, they become firm friends and, when Alvaro is seriously wounded it is Carlo who ensures he gets medical help.

Left alone with Alvaro’s possessions, idle curiosity sees Carlo find a picture of Leonora, he draws appropriate conclusions and vows to kill his friend – blood is thicker than water after all.

You can imagine what follows, but not how it plays out.

Rather than kill him there and then, Carlo waits for Alvaro to recover as he wants to kill him properly in his father’s honour. He follows him across the world and back to Italy where he finds Alvaro has become a Monk (and you don’t have to wonder where).

After a tense build up, they fight. Alvaro wins and as Carlo lays seriously wounded, Alvaro seeks help from the ‘monk’ he knew to be stationed in a nearby cave to give absolution to the dying man.

Leonora and Alvaro recognise each other disbelievingly, and, just when you think it’s all going to be OK, Leonora goes to comfort her brother in his last dying moments and he stabs her, fatally.

Now imagine all that with a raging storm, atmospheric lighting and the stunning, haunting voices of the Holland Park Opera.

Then try and watch an episode of Eastenders.

Nope, doesn’t even come close.

Despite the wide range of activities and acts available at the Hard Rock Calling festival on Saturday, by sundown it became face-smackingly apparent that every one of the 50,000 individual in the audience had come for just one man: Stevie Wonder.

Mr Wonder, you might say, is to music what the Dalai Lama is to Buddhism.  Or Edison to light bulbs.  He’s a shimmering ambassador for the art form of music.  You can mention his two dozen or so Grammys (one for every two years of his career), but this can’t summarise what he means to so many; from Tchoupi, the little woollen Eureka monkey to the little girl sat clapping along to Stevie from her dad’s shoulders.  The man cuts across the lives and experiences of so very many.   And it was a quite a sight to see, as the Master Blaster despatched hit after platinum hit, like endless waves of joy over the ocean of assembly humanity at Hyde Park.

Good day overall it was too.  Before Stevie wove his particular magic, Jamiroquai’s Jay Kay leapt about for us like an Apache, James Morrison massaged our blissed-out souls and sweet Corrine Bailey Rae (I’m in love…) serenely sang her way into our hearts. 

We didn’t get our faces painted, but we did have a funky Polish picnic, nicely rounded off by some contraband Pimm’s.  Perfect day really.  And it didn’t even rain…                 

This time, the lucky Eureka winners were Sandrine, Paul (our blogger for the event), Adam, Harry and Kate; guided by the wonderful Caroline. Watch out for the next Eureka events and tickets…

Six of us were lucky enough to participate in the Secret Cinema Event thanks to Eureka. Secret Cinema is not your average multiplex experience. The concept is to involve the audience in the film through the recreation of movie sets.

Before the screening, we were not told the location of the event or what film we would be viewing. We were picked up by “Utopia Skyways” and after initially believing that we were headed to Utopia, we were told that there was a crisis and we would have to wait in the holding zone. After rushing past the so-called locals, with our umbrellas and goggles in tow, we arrived at a huge warehouse. The interior of the warehouse was designed to look like the 2019 Chinatown set featured in the Sci-Fi classic, Blade Runner. There was everything from, eye-ball inspection equipment to vendors selling snakes and Asian food stands. All the while, actors dressed as characters in the film ran about in outrageous costumes re-enacting various scenes. The attention to detail was incredible.

At 9pm we were all escorted into a second room to watch the film. At the climax of the movie, a huge floodlight was projected onto the right-hand wall and two actors, dangling from the wall, re-enacted the scene as it occurred in the film. 

 Fabien Riggall, founder and creative director of Secret Cinema, explains: “Secret Cinema was inspired by the ambition and brilliance of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner to create a world where the audience could become part of the film. We will continue to challenge the idea of cinema and to push community, creativity and scale to bring the magic back to the film experience.”

We all had a great time and were really impressed by this amazing event. It was definitely a unique and worthwhile experience and we were glad to be a part of it!

Jocelyn

Shot by multi-award winning director Adam Berg over four weeks in Brazil, France, London and India. What sets this film apart is that it is not actually a film. Every location is real. The stairs in Lapa-Brazil, the council estate in Aulnay-Paris, Virginia Primary School in Tower Hamlets-London and the boys school, main street and community centre in Jodhpur-India. All these places remain transformed by a palette of 120 wonderful vibrant colours of paint. The people you see painting are not actors, they are real people from the local areas who rolled up their sleeves with us to paint. 260 of them from all over the world. These are the people who fill the pages of our Let’s Colour Project blog, whether by flickr slideshow, interview or in one of our documentaries. The track behind this film -’Go Do’ by Jonsi- could not be better suited and acts as an emotive anthem or call to arms for the world to start colouring.

Grey is out. Gloom is gone. This is the beginning of a colour crusade that is spreading around the world. The more of us who join in, the bigger the splash will be. Come colour the world with us.

To get a preview of our 2 minute ‘Director’s cut’of ‘Dulux Walls’, please go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPpMWaSPt-s&feature=player_embedded

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What up Cupola?

It’s sure been a while. I’ve been keeping myself busy, you know? Slamming revolving doors in Cuba, thinking the unthinkable in Nepal, some serious soul searching…it’s been a crazy year off. So there I am, freezing my a** off in the arctic when I get this call from a Palmer. Eurotrash are re-forming, I’m told. Only 5 of the class of 2008 are still around, I hear. We’ve got a ‘by’ to Division 2, I understand. Well I’ll tell you: I was sceptical. Who do these punks think they are messing with the Trash mojo?

So yesterday, circa approx 7.34pm on a sun soaked Regents Park I wander up ceegar in hand to witness a bloodbath. Those Trashers were out there playing for their lives against the EHS 4D Brann Group (or somerthing like that). They had 7 players who’d never played. They were hitting the ball and not running. They were dropping catches. What happened to the Eurotrash I used to know? Then I saw it. Their dabble in the field done, a trash laydee walked over to base, opened a bottle of wine, and preceded to top up a full paper vat. The Trash were back. All the beer, and no idea.

The class of 2010 have started slowly, but they have started. Despite losing 18 – 4 to EHS 4D, there was some outstanding skills shown on field. That Camilla Cramsie only went and caught out 3 of the opposition. With her wrong hand. Newbie Natasha Floyer made it home not once, but twice. Skilliskillicorn rocked up to the homeplate complete in aviators. Davey Barnet cleanly caught in outfield. And we sure won the banter war.

They got promise and they got style. Next week’s gonna be the first big win, and with some the drills I’m gonna have them running, Division 2 could be ours for the taking.

I’m looking forward to dishing out a little something I call revenge, nice and cold next Thursday against Mediacom. If you want ‘in’, hell I can train you.

And if you wanna see something to make you mad, read EHS Brann’s ‘school report’. They best enjoy it, coz we’ll be seeing them in the semi-final.

Enjoy the weekend and see y’all Monday,

The Coach

MVP Boy: Matt Palmer. Only one with a clue what to do.

MVP Girl: CamCram. 3 catches. Done.

Special mentions: Zoe Decool, Michael Cav, Seun Shobande, Tiffany Boutwood, George Brettel, Natasha Floyer, Skilly for their first caps. Tuula Rea for a last innings entrance and batting out the match. Tori for being the only other person knowing what she’s doing.

Gedeon Stol joins the agency in the newly created role of Head of Innovation. He will work across all Euro clients helping to ensure digital and technical innovation is at the heart of creative development. Stol joins Euro from RAPP Limited, where he was Director of Innovation and was responsible for creating bespoke technology solutions and unique concepts for clients such as Pfizer, Philips, GlaxoSmithKline and Skype. Previously Stol worked at Remedy Six as a Creative technologist, and Harrison Troughton Wunderman as head of their creative development team.

Eloise Smith joins Euro RSCG London as a Creative Director and will work across a range of clients. Smith joins from Work Club where she was Creative Lead across clients including Nokia and Kraft. Previously Smith was at AKQA where she worked on Smirnoff, Nike, Coca Cola and Marmite – creating content including websites, online films to applications, web applications, widgets and games. Before AKQA, Smith had stints at Rainey Kelly Y&R and St Lukes.

Euro RSCG London have also poached the Mother creative team Borja Alvarez and Enrique Reija. At Mother they worked on campaigns for brands including Stella Artois and Oasis. Between them they have also worked in New York, Madrid and also had a year at St. Luke’s where they worked on Strongbow, RNIB, Newspaper Society.

Mick Mahoney, ECD Euro RSCG London said “This is an exciting time for Euro. We are committed to strengthening the agency with brilliant and open-minded integrated talent. Our recent hires in both creative and planning are a demonstration of this commitment”.

The hires are part of a number of new recruits arriving at the agency in the coming weeks following significant new business wins in recent months – the hires span creative, digital, strategy, account handling and project management disciplines. 

Samantha Alonso, Head of Brand and Business Strategy at Naked Communications, joins the agency as a senior planner to work across a range of accounts. Sam worked at Naked for four years and in her time there worked on international business, including Coca-Cola, Kimberly Clark and Dyson. Previously Sam worked at McKinsey as a business analyst in Venezuela.

Rachel Filer joins Euro London as a planner from Dare Digital where she worked on ITV, Sony and BMW. Previously she worked at the Future Laboratory trend forecasting and insight company.

Russ Lidstone, CEO Euro RSCG London, said “Sam and Rachel are great strategic talents to bring into the agency and they are lovely people with it. Their integrated mindset embodies our strong planning and media positive approach – where digital and channel strategy are at the core of what we do, not some kind of bolt-on.” 

A pathway through futuristic flashing foliage beckoned me into Decode’s dark rooms. The exhibition began with several displays of the beauty of computational code – a celebration of the medium itself. Digital Zoetrope glowed eerily and mesmerised like a monitor from The Matrix, the occasional word emerging from a chaos of text.

Other exhibits were audience responsive. Solar consisted of a bunch of seemingly sentient spheres that move to your voice. One man got so engrossed he started thumping the microphone. “I want one of these for Christmas!” he said as his partner dragged him away. He wasn’t alone; all around people were playing with big grins on their faces. A 3D Dandelion dispersed its seeds as it got blown with a real hairdryer. A white screen that splashes colour as you cast movements on it brought out the contemporary dancer in everyone. Videogrid, a collection of realtime recorded audience clips showed that we are entering an age where if you act like an idiot, your actions can now be preserved for all eternity.

And we are entering a new age – one where we’re no longer limited to the individual experience. A digital clock on the wall ticked away, each digit being a new photo uploaded from an internet contributor somewhere in the world. You could imagine the same clock appearing simultaneously on their own wall a million miles apart. Elsewhere colourful shifting patterns mapped not computational code, but the stress and polution levels of real city inhabitants – the art that we unwarily create everyday.

It was interesting to see that some of the most engaging artworks were created with commonly available tools such as Maya and C++, a sign that it wasn’t the technology reaping rewards, but imagination and creativity.

Far from being cold and minimalist, my digital art experience resulted in orchestrating a Mexican Wave in front of a projection screen and a five minute gurn into a webcam. It seems that while technology can be beautifully enigmatic, it can also show us just how human we really are.

Henry

Our latest research into the attitudes of the British public to climate change shows that the British public are becoming more sceptical about the reality of climate change. Our nationwide poll of 1,043 people carried by Ipsos shows that just 31 per cent of people now believe that climate change is a definitely reality, down from 44 per cent a year ago.

In contrast, 31 per cent of people now believe that climate change is over exaggerated. This figure is up from 22 per cent in February 2009. Additionally, only 25 per cent of people now believe that it is up to the individual to act on climate change, a figure that has fallen from 31 per cent last year.

Our data also looks at various other factors including who Britons feel is responsible for tackling climate change, direct experience of changing weather, the Government’s agenda on the issue reaction to ‘green’ claims by private business.

Euro RSCG London has been running this research every six months since December 2007 and the latest data also shows that David Attenborough is the person Brits trust most when it comes to learning about the environment and climate change.

If you would like more information on this ongoing project please feel free to contact us – zoe.decool@eurorscg.com

The countdown featured a rather large proportion of commercials from the past couple of years, but also inevitably, the ever-popular likes of Sony Bravia “Balls”, John West “Bear” and Cadbury’s “Gorilla”.

Amongst this list of the most beloved commercials, in at number 12, was Euro RSCG’s Citroën “Carbot”.

To be in a list which such fantastic work was a great achievement. It proves the longevity of the campaign and the affinity that people still have with Citroën’s “Carbot”, 5 years after its initial launch. Even Kym March (remember her from Hear’Say, now Corrie) is a big fan.

The “Carbot” was born out of the strategic thought that the Citroën C4 was “Alive With Technology”. It led to a creative idea so different and unexpected, that it quickly became clear it would generate excitement, noise, discussion and fame. It was a piece of ‘entertainment’ rather than just advertising.

As the clip on ITV’s programme showed, every element of the commercial was thought about in excruciating detail. Justin Timberlake’s choreographer was filmed to give us an amazing dance routine, which was then recreated for the robot, using cutting edge CGI. The soundtrack of ‘Les Rythmes Digitales’ was chosen to give the creative fame in the pop world.

The director of the commercial, Neil Blomkamp, has since found fame in Hollywood and last year directed the Peter Jackson produced, District 9.

The “Carbot” gave us a fantastically original and versatile ‘vehicle’ for demonstrating the characteristics of the car. It also provided an idea that was ownable and created a long-term positioning that consumers really responded to, as proven by its inclusion in ITV’s “Ads of the Decade”.

Seb