Culture /

Pancake o'clock

Today is pancake day! So, our kindly and pancake-aware Shadow Board at Weapon7 Towers made sure we have full stomachs by serving us a range of yummy and delicious pancakes in the kitchen, garnished with a medley of fresh fruit. Oh Mmm. This is a picture of a creation that someone assembled using blueberries and raspberries and bits of banana called 'Time waits for no pancake' and, if you look carefully, it's a very special, and tastebud tingling, non-digital clock face. It was lo-fi, retro and yummington.

Farewell, farewell

Our Chairman, Steven Hess, had a proper send-off last week when he left for pastures new. The east wing of Weapon7 Towers played home to 'Hessfest', a veritable street party with a single long table of 50 Weapon7ers, and food, drink and games galore.

Fancy dress extravaganza

Tom Wrigley, fancy dress extraordinaire, gave the agency a talk yesterday all about the history and application dressing up in eye-catching theatrical clothes. Usually combining home-made nous with creative savvy, Tom's repoitoire of costumes contains classic after classic, including sweets super-glued to skin (which people could eat off during the evening), pink tights and braces and Thomas the Tank Engine. The talk was jam-packed full of information such as the history of fancy dress since the 1400s, and why you should always take some spare clothes for the Walk of Shame home in the morning.

Adam Dovey interview

Our own Adam Dovey chats about his role as a management accountant to CIMA.

Something from Wrigley to chew over

Weapon7 grad Tom Wrigley was interviewed by the IPA for his thoughts on the whole shebang on gradvertising. Topics covered in the chat included tips for new graduates, the best experience of the job so far and what it takes to get noticed. Read the whole article here. 

Coffee culture

Christmas and New Year celebrations are fast disappearing into history, and it's been a very busy first week of 2012 at Weapon7 Towers. We're all back to work, the minds are a-whirring, the pens are a-scribbling, the banter is a-whirling and the caffeine tastes delicious. We'd like to wish all our visitors to Weapon7.com a very happy and interesting New Year.

 

Context - the premiere

Much excitement last Thursday at Weapon7 Towers, as Head of Creative Technology Jeremy Willmott and his team of 5-min movie makers (Ian, Ant, Becky, Martin and Kate) unveiled 'Context', their short film. Beer and wine was a bonus feature presentation for the audience of 20 or so, including the actors in the film. Jeremy talked about the manifesto for the film club, which was all about creating short films in a collaborative way, with the resources to hand. You can watch 'Context' here.

 

Au revoir

Chris, our managing partner, has moved onto challenges a-new within the group. And as his leaving gift we decided to furnish him with a brand new Jelly Buckingham portrait of himself.

 

MUD in your eye

Decades before World of Warcraft, gamers went adventuring in MUDs (Multi User Dungeons). In an enthralling presentation, we discovered our very own Project Director, Shane Connolly, was there at the birth of online roleplaying. He helped create Avalon, a completely text-based fantasy realm where players could interact, even over the miniscule dial-up speeds of the time. It was a phenomenal success and can still be explored here.

Happy birthday to us

It was Weapon7’s 10th birthday celebrations last Thursday, and what a celebration it was! Highlights included two homegrown bands – Provenance of Squid, and Special Guests (who were actually called ‘Special Guests’). There were also three DJs (Danny Sausage, DJ Thomas of The Miskinshire and Le Faffage), and two speeches – one by none other than our new CEO. See footage of Provenance of Squid murdering various tunes here.

48 hour film

Martin and Jeremy recently took part in the Smoke and Mirrors 48 hour film competition. They were briefed at 7pm on Friday with the theme of ‘lost’ and had to hand in a completed film at 7pm on the Sunday. This involved writing the script, shooting, editing and all post-production. You can watch the film here.

Secret filming

There’s a very interesting film project going on at Weapon7 Towers, with a small, enthusiastic crew of staff putting together a secret film project of their own. I would give you a few teasers, but I don’t know them myself. Here they are in Greenwich Park, engaged in the said secret project, recording some footsteps.

Stay tuned for a possible premiere at some point in the future...

Weaponless defence

As part of our 'Random acts of presentation' series, one of our account managers, Ben Bannister, gave a very interesting presentation yesterday all about Kenpo. 

In the true style of a martial arts master, Ben roped in members of his audience and pitted them against each other in a battle of non-agressive mindpower. In this photo, we see our Strategy Director seamlessly foiling an attack by our Head of Creative Technology. Bruce Lee, eat your heart out.

Bookmarks

 

Mad scientists

Don’t you just love mad scientists? They used to be people you only saw on the telly. You know, blokes with lots of wispy, backcombed hair and eyes that looked like they were propped open with matchsticks. They had a perpetual look of wonderment and terror as if they had accidentally attached electric wires not to a Van de Graaf generator, but to their own genitalia instead.

But now every good agency has a mad inventor. Except they’re more clever than mad. And they’re not called mad scientists any more, either, but Creative Technologists (although they’re mad scientists at heart.)

Read the full story at wallblog.co.uk

Supersize Me

Last Wednesday was ‘Supersize Me’, a chance for Weapon7ers to split into four groups and brainstorm what would be the most creative, effective and ingenious way to grow their assigned fledgling brand. Each team had just two weeks to develop the insight, idea and devise what the executions would be.