NVC the 030616 Edition

Playfulness and youthfulness seemed to be the themes of the week. In this edition of NVC, we’ll cover post-Oscar buzz, more on emoticons, and some folks having a fun time doing their day jobs…

To start, “The Big Short,” a darkly comic look at the 2008 financial meltdown, won the Academy Award for best adapted screenplay for Charles Randolph and Adam McKay. Smiles all around here since that is part of our March reading list.

Great opening quote, by the way:

Tolstoy as seen in “The Big Short” Screenplay.

As a side note, early in the script, there was a reference to smash cut — a technique in film and other moving picture media where one scene abruptly cuts to another for aesthetic, narrative, or emotional purpose. Made us eager to see the film. But first things first. Finish the screenplay.

Also, we were reminded about a New York Times newspaper article that appeared before the movie opened, where the actors from the movie talked about the debt crisis. We pulled it back out of the save pile and plan on revisiting AFTER we see the movie.

>> And the Oscar Ad Winner are…

Besides the Super Bowl, the televised Academy Awards show tends to attract creative ads which are probably a relief to view if the show itself bogs down (which it always seems to do).

According to Adweek, the winner for best animated short at Sunday’s Academy Awards was Droga5’s adorable “Rock, Paper, Scissors” spot for Android which walked away with viewers’ hearts, if not an actual trophy.

What we like about it is that it tells a compelling story both with AND without sound.

Another one that works well with AND without sound, was All Day Breakfast.

Good Morning Oscars!

> Revisiting Facebook Reactions (Emoticons) and the Art of Commenting…

Our emoticon awareness has been on “high” since well before last week’s NVC post. We had put something in the Bonus Content section (Magid: Will Facebook’s new Reactions reduce written comments?) that we felt needed a bit more attention. Larry Magid said:

I have mixed feelings about Facebook’s new Reactions product. On one hand, I applaud the company for offering users a wider range of emotional responses they can easily make to other people’s posts, but I worry that it might cause some to make fewer comments the old-fashioned way, by typing their original thoughts.

And there in lies the rub… the concept of “original thoughts,” which seems worthy of a whole AWSI post. Some people want to be in repeater mode — not repeater AND commenter. To comment — let your feelings known— can be a bit risky.

A confident person with a strong core can pull it off. And someone with a thick skin who just doesn’t care what others think about what they’ve said (yeah, #whatevs), can make a go at commenting if they have the time. These days, SnapChat with its “now you see it, now you don’t” style of communicating, you can comment and then poof! It’s like it didn’t happen UNLESS a clever person make a screen grab of the post. But no worries, it takes a bit of nimbleness to grab a screen shot from a mobile device.

Moving right along…

>> Oscar Tweet Record Set

Apparently, when actor Leonardo DiCaprio claimed the title of best actor for his role in “The Revenant,” it set a record for being the “most-Tweeted minute of an Oscars telecast ever,” according to Twitter with more than 440,000 tweets per minute. That moment surpassed the 255,000 tweets per minute sent when host Ellen DeGeneres tweeted out a star-studded selfie in 2014.

We are guessing that these were “tweet-throughs” (re-Tweets) without much in the way of commentary based on the volume, the timing and most likely, the device used (reminded us that a lot of Twitter and Facebook happens on a mobile phone with a cramped keyboard which limits commenting).

Still, that’s a lot of tweeting…

>> Baggin’ it: Winners of Grocery Bagger Competition Announced…

NGA Best Bagger Competition.

Shifting gears, we were really curious to learn more about the NGA Best Bagger Championship that was mentioned in the Morning Newsbeat.

We weren’t aware there was such a competition. Found out the first Best Bagging contest was held nearly 30 years ago, in 1987. The “Texas – Oklahoma Checkout Shootout” which took place in in Dallas, featured two contestants and former NFL Quarterback Terry Bradshaw as the emcee. Since then, NGA has branded and grown the event to feature more than 25 state bagging contestants with Food Network star Duff Goldman as the master of ceremonies.

Pretty cool that this established source of pride within the grocery community still continues. Here are some clips.

>> The Amazing, Seemingly Ageless Jagr— Hockey Player Keeps Going and Going…

We found an interesting story (The NHL’s 44-Year-Old Enigma) about NHL player Jaromir Jagr, who is leading the Florida Panthers in scoring and has managed to keep pace with players 20 years younger.

Curious, we took to Google to track down some video of Jagr in action. Check out these pieces: One from ESPN and another from SportChimp.com.

We’re impressed!

Song of the Week

Completely random, but then again, that’s how staying curious works, we heard this one and it made us LOL. Enjoy!

Song of the Week: Star Wars – The Imperial March 2015 (Electro House)

Stay curious (#SCMF) and may the Jedemi Force be with you!

-The Gang

Bonus Content – All about Smash Cuts

Here are some examples of Smash Cuts:

> In Futurama, we have the producer’s favorite smash cut ever from the episode “Put Your Head on My Shoulders”:

Bender: Wait. You mean people will pay good money for romance? Hmm. I think I have a scheme so deviously clever that I—
[Smash Cut to courtroom and judge banging his gavel]
Judge: $500 and time served.
Bender (with a gold tooth, fur coat, and two hooker bots): Stupid anti-pimping laws!

> From Archer: Archer has a very idiosyncratic trick of cutting people off mid-sentence and having the dialogue in the new scene either responding to, echoing, or finishing off whatever the previous speaker had been saying.