The other day I went for a walk in the park near my apartment in Brooklyn, Prospect Park. It’s a great, wild park and a blessing in the midst of the concrete and brownstone. About a half mile into the woods, I was just starting to sink into nature when I passed a woman pushing a stroller. She was walking at a rapid clip while talking loudly on the phone. The child was sitting in the stroller holding an iPad on which he was watching a movie (also loud). They were both completely alienated from their environment and I thought, “What’s the point?”

Continue Reading »

Is it just me, or does it feel like many of the so-called “food products” of the past 50 years are finally in their death throes? I happened upon this morning regarding a pop-up store for Pop-Tarts in Times Square strikes me as solid evidence that Kellogg’s has NO IDEA what to do with this irrelevant product and their solution is to pull out all the stops. It’s getting embarrassing, guys.

First of all, the “store” is not really a store. Let’s be clear: it’s an ad. Experiences like a café, a mix-and-match vending machine and an hourly light show, which is supposed to simulate frosting(?!), have been designed by companies that specialize in this kind of brand trickery to entice consumers into the notion that Pop Tarts World has something to offer. In fact, these shenanigans are more processed and more fake than the product itself, and considering the product in this case…that’s saying a lot. Continue Reading »

Lately, I am obsessed with the Maysles brothers. Anyone with an interest in human nature should be. They have much to teach.

If you know who they are, then you know what I mean. Pioneers of the “direct cinema,” they strive to capture reality directly and present it truthfully. To do this, they get out of the way and let their subjects shine. Probably best known for Grey Gardens (1976), they also captured youthful frenzy at the historic Rolling Stones concert at Altamont (Gimme Shelter, 1970), and created a moving portrait of desperate middle aged men in their 1968 masterpiece, Salesman, which follows four traveling Bible salesmen across the American consumerist wasteland.

Each of these gems is like a time capsule. The characters, the settings, the events, could only have taken place when they did and where they did; and watching them, one is instantly transported to that place. The narrative unfolds through the editing, not through exposition or interviews. And in each, the attentive viewer is struck by the utter lack of self-consciousness displayed by the subjects, people who are not generally used to being filmed (with the exception of The Stones).

So, how does this apply to research? Having done thousands of consumer interviews on film, and hundreds of in-home interviews, I am always struck by the intimacy the Maysles are able to establish with their subjects. Salesman, which we watched the other night is a particularly good example of this. Continue Reading »