Martin Scorsese sets out to preserve a Hitchcock film which was never made. Only three pages of the script for The Key To Reserva (or Clave Reserva) remain in existance, but Scorsese is adamant he can make the film - not as he himself would make it, but as an actual Hitchcock film.

This is actually and ad campaign by Freixenet, a Catalan winemaker who produce champagne-type wines. It seems every year on Christmas day they have a special advertising spot on Spanish TV which they produce something special for.

According to a press release from ad agency JWT the idea for the ad came from executive creative director Alex Martínez and his team in Barcelona.

“We wanted to produce something that would be pure entertainment, something that was true to our philosophy that it’s not enough now to ‘buy’ audience time — we need to create advertising that the audience chooses to spend time with.”

And so this year they have Martin Scorsese starring in and directing the ad in a funny short film format.

The ad was produced by produced by Ovideo and RSA Films and has it’s own website - and the existence of YouTube and other video sharing sites means that this years Freixenet ad will get a much wider airing than previous years.

Interesting and clever stuff, not to mention expensive. It does beg some interesting questions for viral marketing too - with everyone and their dog trying their hand at viral marketing, has it gone mainstream? Will you be able to get by on a clever and funny idea in the future or will you need to add Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt or Spielberg to your idea to get some attention?

Grafitti I spotted while running for a train. Snapped it on the camera phone. Sure why not.

UPDATE: Graffiti. Not Grafitti. I always get that wrong.

I used to be a big fan of 2000AD, and Bob Byrne has started to revived my interest in it recently. There’s no doubt that it spawned some of the greatest characters ever in comics. It also kick-started so many careers and inspired more people to get into comics, than any other title I can think of.

I guess if you lived in the UK or Ireland, it was a very real thing to aspire to get your work into it. Much more so than a kid living in the states deciding they want to work for DC. I remember managing to get the editor Steve MacManus (tharg) on the phone to discuss which art colleges were best for studying comic art. I doubt you’d get past the front desk with DC.

Anyway, I was just sent this through, and thought it might appeal to anyone out there who read 2000AD in the time before Simon Bisley got lazy.

It’s just a fan trailer, but it puts 300 to shame.

Update - check out the rest of the fan films here. Particularly like the arkham asylum (though the Joker isn’t quite right). These have been kicking around for a while, so sorry if you’ve seen them before.