Author: Mark

Here are two layouts from the Young Lions competition. For those who missed my previous post, we needed to promote the WFP “Food for Education” program with our ads.

The body copy for the “I am hungary” one says:

Help educate children while providing them with nutritional meals. Find out how you can make a difference by donating towards our Food for Education program by logging onto www.wfp.org

The second layout the body copy and the headline wasn’t finalized because we killed the idea in the end. Supposedly the gold winner at the competition had a similar idea with the bitten pencil but I haven’t seen that layout yet to know exactly how close we were to winning gold.

Might be the best Star Wars yet… [YouTube]

Thanks Digi!

I watched the movie Shooter earlier today, it was long, boring and didn’t have enough snipping sniping. Maybe I should just download the 1993 movie “Sniper” and rewatch that.

I will no longer be coming back on the 15th to Kuwait, my trip has been extended 2 more days.

Found this book called “Butt Book” at a supermarket and thought it was pretty funny. So I picked up the book and flipped through it, turns out there is a gay magazine called Butt Magazine and this book was a collection of the “best” stuff. Not very pretty…

The results are out and we didn’t win anything at the Young Lions creatives competition, but thats not why I am depressed. The idea that did win gold was the third idea me and my partner had and we KILLED because we didn’t think it was strong enough. Thats like the worst thing that could happen. I am still hoping someone is pulling my leg here..

I prefer American Dad over Family Guy anyway…

Everyone I met today in Lebanon has been complaining about how hot it is. Its 32 degrees and they are complaining about the heat!

For some reason when I am in Lebanon I have a very bad habit of lying to taxi drivers. I think its because I feel sorry for them or because I don’t want to seem like a tourist in my own country but whatever the reason is, I always lie to them.

I always make it look like I work in Lebanon for one thing. When I get asked what I do for a living I am honest and tell them advertising but then I complain about how there isn’t much work in Lebanon and how I am considering leaving and that I have offers from Qatar and Kuwait. When they ask me if I know how to drive I say yes of course, how many Lebanese do you know that don’t? Then I either say that (a) I had an accident back in October and totaled the car so until I could afford to fix it I take cabs, or (b) I live with my brother so he drops me off where I want so I don’t see a reason to buy a car.

Cab drivers don’t make a lot of money in Lebanon and the expression on their faces and in their eyes just saddens me. I like giving them big tips, I actually leave big tips to a lot of people here in Lebanon since its like everyone has financial difficulties…

Just finished packing my bags and will head out to the airport in a bit. I am not going to post from there (the airport) since I am packing my laptop with my main luggage. I will most probably post again later in the evening. See ya!

I got the following email from Cinemagic:

Dear All,

You are invited to attend “Short & Sweet”, Cinemagic’s weekly screening event. The events will take place at the Cinemagic Courtyard in Bait Lothan, Salmiya, on Wednesday 9th of May, and will run between 7:00 – 9:00 p.m.

This week we will be screening “Children of Heaven“, a 1997 Iranian film that was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1998.

It deals with a brother and sister and their adventures over a lost pair of shoes, while also touching upon the more serious subject of the political situation in Iran as well as class differences between the rich and the poor and daily urban life.

In 1998, the film was the first Iranian film to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but lost to the Italian film Life Is Beautiful by Roberto Benigni.

It was successfully shown on numerous film festivals and won awards at the Fajr Film Festival, the World Film Festival, the Newport International Film Festival, the Warsaw International Film Festival, and the Singapore International Film Festival. It was nominated for the Jury’s Grand Prize at the American Film Institute’s festival.

For its part, Cinemagic Kuwait, is organizing these events as part of its efforts to contribute to the development of an internationally competitive Kuwaiti audio-visual production industry, partly by bringing the filmmakers and audiences together and by Increasing the public’s interest in – and appreciation for – the art of filmmaking.

As always, attendance is free of charge and you are encouraged to invite guests. Seating is limited, so make sure you come a little early. Snacks and refreshments will be served.

Yazan Al Ghazzawi
PR & Marketing Manager
Kuwait Cinemagic

Tel: (+965) 574 3253
Cell: (+965) 722 2416

www.cinemagics.com

I passed by the jewelery exhibit tonight at the Mishref fair ground to check it out since my cousin who recently came in from Thailand had a display there (ZoRaB). On the way in to the exhibit I found a huge shawerma stand outside so I went up to a guy there and ordered myself two shawermas. The guy turns to me and tells me these shawermas are not for sale, they are for management upstairs! I found that strange, actually not really that strange since this is Kuwait but still, a fancy jewelery exhibition and the management upstairs have their own shawerma stand right outside?

So I walked in to the exhibit hall and right at the entrance the Kuwait Customs had a display. Again this felt out of place but I figured I would get closer and check it out. I have to say, its one really strange display. The backdrop of the display had a collage of pictures from their most famous drug busts I think. There were also a couple of pictures of alcohol busts, you know the very cliche 200 bottles of red label on the floor and 3 Bangladeshis posing behind them. Now the cool part was the magic section. They had a display of magical items they had caught, its seriously the silliest stuff. There was a horse shoe, some rings, a few rocks and a lot of handwritten notes. I think those were curses or something. On the far left they also had some pharmaceutical items (they looked like adrenalin shots) and three fake DVDs. I still don’t understand why they had a display set up at a jewelery exhibition, maybe for comical relief.

The jewelery exhibit itself was kind of dull but I am also not really a jewelery person. The exhibition ends today (Monday) so if it is your kind of thing maybe you should check it out, the customs stand itself is worth the trip.

I just found out I am leaving to Beirut tomorrow for a photo shoot. I should be back in Kuwait by May 15th.

As I mentioned previously, for the Young Lions competition we had to come up with an advert for the WFP. I just wanted to bring to attention their “Food for Education” program where WFP provides meals at schools so hungry children are encouraged to attend. For only $34 a year you can provide a child with a meal at school for an entire academic year. You can donate online via their website and even have it automatically deduct from your credit every month to save you the hassle of manually donating monthly. Its for a good cause and its only KD10 to feed a child for a whole year so check out their website and donate if you can. [Link]