Forgotten Creative Genius No 3.

The next forgotten creative genius is a musician that created the building blocks of modern music, Louis Jordan.

During the 1940s and early 50s, this saxophone-playing singer and bandleader created innovative music in a style called jump 'n' jive, a frenetic fusion of jazz and blues. 

Louis Jordan took this style chopped it up, tossed it around and threw the pieces in the air. And down came the prototypes of Hip Hop, Rap, Rhythm and Blues and Rock and Roll.

Jordan possessed a unique singing style. His slang lyrics and cadence was what we know today as Rap.
  
While Rap can be traced to news singers of West Africa it was Jordan who experimented with this new singing style and put it to record.

In 1947 the tracks, 'Beware (Brother Beware)' and 'Look Out (Sister)', were spoken as rhyming couplets. The first true raps in popular music. The cadence, the rhyming, the attitude, the hipster slang is all there. Debbie Harry eat your heart out.

'Beware (Brother Beware.)'

If he drives you to the beach
and he starts to reach,
look out, sister look out

If he says you look fetchin'
and wants to go show you his etchin's,
don't go up there, you better not go up there.

And if he says you know you look good in a sweater,
go home and write him a leteer, hmm, hmmm,

'Saturday Night Fish Fry' from 1950 also features a rapid-fire, highly syncopated semi-spoken vocal delivery that Kanye West would have been proud of.

Now my buddy and me was on the main stem
Foolin' around just me and him
We decided we could use a little something to eat
So we went to a house on Rampart Street

We knocked on the door and it opened up with ease
And a lush little miss said, "Come in, please"
And before we could even bat an eye
We were right in the middle of a big fish fry



Although it's churlish to suggest that one artist was responsible for Rock and Roll, Louis Jordan has a case for taking more credit than most for this genre. 

Jordan was the greatest post-war exponent of the jump jive. He brought attitude with his gutsy lyrics, rockier beats and frenetic live performances. Music producers were quick to take this new sound to other bands.

Milt Gabler was Jordan's producer,  and spotting the potential in the rockier rollier beats that Jordan was performing, took them over to other Decca stable mates,  most notably to Bill Haley and The Comets. 

Haley recorded several of his songs, including "Choo Choo Ch'Boogie" (which Gabler co-wrote) and "Caldonia."

The dance floor  sound soon began to rock as teenagers went wild and gyrated like a pneumatic drills in suits and skirts. The joists of the wooden floors creaked and groaned a little bit harder.

Chuck Berry and Little Richard were huge fans of Louis Jordan.
Berry modeled his musical approach on Jordan's, changing the lyric  from black life to teenage life, and substituting cars and girls for Jordan's themes of food, drink and women. 

We all know the opening riff to Chuck Berry's Johnny B.Goode. 

Listen to  the intro played by Jordan's guitarist, Carl Hogan, on the 1946 hit "Ain't That Just Like A Woman" and you'll hear the similarities.

Jordan was a gifted player of the alto saxophone. He made the instrument wail and scream in a way that was unheard of for the time. 

He blew a unique energy that ripped each note with a fervor and passion that was compelling and inspirational. The sax became a progressive rock instrument in his hands.

As a songwriter, Jordan's output was phenomenal. He wrote or co-wrote over 100 songs, 57 of them were hits. 18 reached No1.

Although the methodology of gathering chart information has changed over the years, Jordan is still ranked by Billboard in the top 5 best selling artists of all time.

Jordan was at the forefront of the first music promos 

In the 1940s, he promoted his singles with soundies. Short three-minute films, shown on coin-operated video jukeboxes  in nightclubs.  He gatecrashed the MTV of the 1940's with charisma, style and passion and was fondly dubbed 'The King Of The video Jukebox' 

And with his comedic talent and fine acting skills he went on to appear in many mainstream films.

Modern music owes a huge debt to Louis Jordan. 
He was a true pioneer.And judging by the numerous playlists I see, Jordan is most definitely a forgotten genius.

James Brown, once cited  Louis Jordan as the major influence on his career.

" I identify myself with Louis Jordan more than any other artist. He could sing, he could dance, he could play, he could act. He could do it all."

 Louis Jordan 1908-1975.

Forgotten Creative Genius No 2.

Today, I asked seven advertising creatives these two questions.
Have you heard of Benjamin Franklin? 
Do you know what he did?

All seven said they had heard the name and that Franklin was once an American President. 

Only one of the seven respondents said that Franklin was the guy who signed The Declaration Of Independence.

So, I thought I would add Benjamin Franklin's name to my 'Forgotten Creative Genii' section.  And here's why.

Franklin was a crazy, mad cap inventor who was also a humanitarian, businessman, army leader, statesman, philanthropist, writer, wit and intellect. 

He was someone who was just at home experimenting with dark materials in his lab and chasing lightening bolts as he was sitting in his study writing witty, erudite journalism and business strategies.

If you mesh the madness of Doc Brown from 'Back To The Future' with the business acumen of Steve Jobs and the nobility of Ghandi, you get somewhere close to the man.

Franklin invented the first American musical instrument,  the glass harmonica. It created musical tones by using different sized glass bowls. 

He fitted the legs of his armchair with curved pieces of wood and made an invention that is still widely used today. 
It's called the rocking chair.

Franklin loved electrical experiments. He introduced new terminology to explain the concepts he was working with, such as “positive” and “negative” charge. He coined many electrical terms including the word, 'battery'.

Franklin had an aversion to fire which explains why he  invented the lightening rod, formed the first fire brigade and established an insurance company to insure locals against losing their possessions in fires. 

Whenever Franklin encountered a problem he came up with a simple, creative solution.

The books on the top shelf in his study were too high for him to reach so he invented a long armed book grabber, not dissimilar from the grabber that modern street cleaners use today. 

Franklin's brother had kidney stones and was in a lot of pain when using a rigid catheter.  So he invented the flexible catheter which was simple and more comfortable.  

In later life he got tired of changing his glasses from long to near sight. So he invented the bifocal spectacles.

He invented the Pro and Con list. The first documented  Pro and Con list making technique comes from Franklin. … my Way is, to divide half a Sheet of Paper by a Line into two Columns, writing over the one Pro, and over the other Con. 1772

Ben Franklin owned his first company at the age of 22, the Pennsylvania Gazette newspaper. He also had a printing company which printed money for Pennsylvania and Delaware.

He invented a new phonetic alphabet getting rid of the letters c, j, q, w, x, and y, and adding other letters for certain sounds to help improve people's spelling. 

He invented the oven, the Franklin Stove, which produced more heat and less smoke than a conventional open fireplace.

He founded the first U.S. hospital, the first police department and two colleges.

And if that that wasn't enough he also founded the first U.S. postal system and the first circulating library.

In 1758. Franklin pioneered the idea of air conditioning and refrigeration. Working with Hadley, another scientist, they successfully cooled a volatile liquid to 7 degrees Fahrenheit.

He was a prolific writer and wrote dozens of books including 'The Way To Wealth' and 'Wit and Wisdom'. He often wrote under pseudonyms like Silence Dogwood, Caelia Shortface, Anthony Afterwit, Alice Addertongue and Busy Body

Franklin was a joker and drew the first cartoon to appear in an American newspaper and was considered to be America's first writer of humour.

Franklin started The Society To Abolish Slavery and The American Philosophical Society.

He mapped the Gulf Stream and designed sea anchors. 

He also designed a new version of the indoor toilet which used the waste water in his bath as a flushing system.

As an avid swimmer he came up with the idea of swim fins. Flippers for the  hands to help people swim faster. 

He also created a fold up chair with steps. 
This, of course, was the first step ladder.

He never took out a patent on any of his ideas because he wanted as many people to benefit from them as possible.

Although, that didn't stop him from becoming America's first millionaire.
  
Franklin was a bit like 'Rambo'. He raised £3000 to purchase cannons to defend against Dutch and French and organized his own militia when the local government was hesitant to do so.

He was a Founding Father of the Continental Congress and yes, he signed The Declaration of Independence and The United States Constitution.
  
Benjamin Franklin never stopped having ideas and implementing them. His radical lunatic concepts shaped millions of lives across the globe.

Franklin was many things.

The one thing he wasn't, of course, was an American President.

Benjamin Franklin died in 1790 aged 84. 

20,000 people attended his funeral. 

 

 

WHY EVERY ADVERTISING CREATIVE SHOULD BE A BIT GERMAN.

I never give up a chance to talk about German Expressionist film. A few years back, as luck would have it, I found myself chatting to  German Creative Director  Flo Heiss, at his agency Dare Flo is from the town of Murnau. A significant place in Expressionist cinema. The great director Friederich Wilhelm Murnau took his name from the town. After our chat,  I wrote a handout which attempted to demonstrate how the techniques and principles of early German directors can be harnessed by advertising creatives. For what it's worth, here is an extract from the handout I wrote for my own advertising students. It served as a gentle introduction to a subject close to my heart. And Flo liked it too.

 Can you use light as narrative force?

The black and white lighting in Expressionist films represented two opposites, for example sanity and insanity. Known as Chiaroscuro lighting, it is an artistic tool developed by  the Renaissance painters and expanded into the film and photographic culture in the early 20th Century.

Light was used, not merely to create a mood, but to deliver the  narrative and to form an expressive character.  The technique involves blending light and shade, often in harsh ways, with side or front lighting, to create a memorable, dramatic image. 

 
 Nosferatu 1922

Orlac Hande 1924



A scene from the Expressionist inspired Citizen Kane or a promotional shot for  NASA?





 Faust 1926






Vincent, Tim Burton 1992

 















                    

 

Use graphic lines.
Early German cinema often dealt with the notion of a fantasized reality. This led set designers to create odd angles and distorted viewpoints to reinforce the emotional state of the character.

It upset the equilibrium and made the composition more attention-grabbing. 'The image must become graphic art' was the mantra of The Expressionists in art and in film. Their attention to detail was astonishing.

Press the pause button while you are watching The Cabinet of Dr Cagliari, Nosferatu or Faust and  trace over the still image. 

The trace lines will give you a graphic grid, or template, from which you can form a layout with logo, type and image. 
As shown here:

Some sets were very busy and chaotic. If you crop in to some of these images you will find simpler structures, little hidden visual treasures. Something you won't have time to see in the actual film.

 Integration of elements.

Expressionist directors spent hours composing each scene. Their visual objective was to create one unifying scene where actor and scene became one. If your advertising image is one where a human figure is in a landscape or interior take a tip from Conrad Veidt, who played in many films of the time.

 "If the decor has been conceived as having the same spiritual state as that which governs the character's mentality, the actor will find in that decor a valuable aid in composing and living his part. He will blend himself into the represented milieu, and both of them will move in the same rhythm."


Below, a scene from Nosferatu 1922 and a print ad for Anti-Deforestation.
 


 




Angles, light, mood, narrative, perspective, this is a staggeringly beautiful image. And it's an ad.

 
An example of the scene which has the same spiritual state as the actor.



The Power of Close Up.

The most expressive element in Expressionist films was the actor. Without words (and often without formal training)  the protagonists had to act with facial expressions. Sometimes, this created a stylistic cartoon character. 
At other times it created a visual poem.

If you are shooting close-ups for fashion brands or you are recording radio scripts and your aim is to get emotional truth, consider an idea from film maker Carl Theodor Dreyer. 

With The Passion of Joan of Arc, Dreyer did something that proved incredibly controversial. He had his crew build sets for the actors to perform in, but the majority of this set construction and art direction isn’t visible in the finished film.
He tells his story through the prominent close-ups throughout. 

Dreyer pursued such a spatial design, not to show off the work of his crew, but to permit his actors to immerse themselves in their surroundings in a way that would place them in the emotional and physical space of the 15^th century trial depicted during filming. 

He achieved the most beautiful, striking images. 
Furthermore, many film critics consider Maria Falconetti's performance to be the finest piece of acting in the history of the cinema.

Although, Dreyer wasn't German, he was raised in a Danish orphanage, and was heavily influenced by the Expressionist movement.

 An ad for Amnesty International or a still from Dreyer's 'The Passion Of Joan Of Arc'?

 

 

The  Power of Perspective

The German film makers from 1907 onward gave great consideration to point-of-view. Like a great painter they understood how to implicate and immerse the viewer into their scenes. Think about point-of -view, compose your layouts from a variety of angles. 

Consider how you want your audience to react and what emotion  you are attempting to create in the viewer or reader.

The main question here is: are you art directing for show or are you art directing to involve? 

This image below is powerful if taken front on. However, shooting the figure from below enhances the emotion of fear.




 


 The German expressionists used a technique called 'depth-setting'. This is where the background comes to the foreground and vice versa. 

They deliberately distorted space to be perpendicular to enhance the emotion of the character.  Both linear and non-linear perspectives were created with set design and lighting.The wide angle lens didn't come in to play until much later. 

Anthropomorphic image.

Animating objects to give them a character and spirit is something we are familiar with in advertising. 

In the language of German Expressionism, objects have a complete active life. They are imbued with the same mores as humans and act in the same way.

There wasn't much money after The Great War, particularly in Germany. So the directors of the time built sets, illustrated on great canvas back drops and filmed indoors. 

For dramatic effect the sets became characters in their own right. 
The house, the doors, the staircases were all anthropomorphic.

The sets were deemed to be a character. They portrayed an emotional force central to the narrative tone. And it was cheaper than paying for another actor.

As well as building characterful sets, the early Germans were the first film makers  to wrestle with the notion of anthropomorphism. (The personification of objects).

 

Below. A film image and an ad for kitchenware.

F.W. Murnau's Faust, 1926. Hands emerge from a tree.

Here are some examples of ads which have wittingly, or unwittingly, been inspired by the German Expressionists.

A television ad for Lynx deodorant and  a still from 'Far Away, So Close'. The clever BBH creatives certainly know their Wenders from their Hertzogs

An ad for Playtex bras or a scene from The Bride Of Frankenstein ?

An image from a Borders Books campaign, 1995, or a scene from F.W. Murnau's  Sunrise, 1927 ?

A print ad for a brand of wheatgerm bread or a still from The Cat And The Canary?


 
 An ad for Nike or a scene from an Expressionist inspired movie Blade Runner?

A scene from The Last Laugh 1924 or a selfie of My Big Hand 2015 ?



If any readers are interested in German Expressionist films here are my recommendations:

The Cabinet Of Dr Cagliari, Wiene, 1920.
The Hands Of Orlac, Wiene, 1924.
Sunrise: A Song Of Two Humans, F.W. Murnau, 1927.

and

The Passion of Joan of Arc, Dreyer.



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