Great people in and around advertising have great taste in art.
I wanted to know what turns them on, so I asked them about their artistic fascinations and inspirations.
🧑🎨 You’re welcome.
John Pace is a Melbourne-based an Executive Producer, Writer, and the brains, limbs and internal organs behind Hooves – a production company that strives to get the best, and most fun out of ideas. He is funny, he knows funny, and the following selections prove that he has exquisite taste in all things amusing and good.
Let’s get it! ☄️
🇸🇪 Roy Andersson
The Swedish filmmaker, Roy Andersson, has been my favourite artist throughout my career. I probably should choose one of his films for this but the impact that he and his art have had on me is holistic.
He has made six or so incredible feature films but he also made hundreds of super funny commercials in the 70s and 80s that still hold up to scrutiny. Learning about those commercials when I was a film student really opened my eyes to the possibility of building a career out of making funny ads.
The jump cut in the spot with the two boxers remains my favourite cut of all time.
🍓 Suicide with an Escape Clause Sketch
I love comedy that is played completely straight, and the British satirist, Chris Morris, is the master of that. Everything he has made has inspired me comedically, but his Suicide with an Escape Clause sketch from JAM stands out. It is such a dumb conceit treated so seriously.
🕺Yoann Bourgeois / CCN2 – Celui qui tombe
If you haven’t already seen this then you might’ve seen Yoann Bourgeios’ work with a person repeatedly falling off stairs onto a trampoline. This piece hits me especially hard though. There’s some layers to it with the original French version of “My Way” being about losing love or something, but it needs no backstory. It is perfectly human.
🏔️ Matt Stone and Trey Parker - Therefore
This two-minute video of Matt Stone and Trey Parker talking about connecting story beats is the single best piece of writing advice ever.
👻 Spooky Black - Without You
I really didn’t want to include music in this list because it is so subjective, but this song just kept coming to mind when I was thinking about art that I deeply love. This guy (Corbin) was just short of 15 years old when this video came out, and that fact alone makes the song so much more interesting.
The video should be funny but it’s not. It should be earnest, but it’s funny. The whole thing should make me cringe-bounce out immediately, but the purity of the song and his voice and the lyrics drilled into my soul and it remains an all time favourite.
👧 The Girl Chewing Gum - John Smith
John Smith is a trail-blazing legend for this.
💸 Making Pigeons Pay
I have carried this book around for years and years because the title gives me so much joy. It’s a book about making money from racing pigeons, but any time I read that title I imagine someone with such a vendetta against pigeons that they wrote a book about how to make pigeons suffer in some kind of fucked-up Sopranos style way.
🛳️ The Craft in this Print Ad
Thanks JP 😘 Now look at his Hooves!
Who would you like to see curate one of these? Don’t be ashamed to suggest yourself…
DMs are open! 💌
Follow along on Instagram 💅
One does enjoy a ramble around the world wide web…
🛹 The Simpsons No-No Sheets
🏯 Every Takeshi Kitano film
⚽ Football’s Search for Meaning
🫦 6 People I Want to Kiss
✝️ What if?
Thanks for reading!
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😘 Jonathan