Hotspur and Argyle

Dressing up opportunities are limited when you’re a director but the other week Theo got to disguise himself as an accountant before descending into the London Underground to shoot a new Nokia viral campaign for the brilliant Work Club . We dotted five hidden cameras through Jubilee line carriages (including Theo’s briefcase-cam necessitating the matching outfit) and observed the traveling public reacting to the antics of our actors. Also pictured above are Work Club art director Rodrigo Lebrun , actor Steve Burge and writer Nico Tatarowicz . The films are going live this week, so watch this space.

Hotspur and Argyle’s sister outfit Contentment Worldwide has just finished a set of six training films for the Football Association starring England internationals Frank Lampard and Kelly Smith. It’s Contentment’s first work since being appointed by the FA to provide content across a range of campaigns.

Hosted on the FA Tesco Skills website, the films aim to teach tricks to young players but also serve as virals thanks to top notch comic performances from Lampard, Smith and FA coach Nick Levitt

Stand by for more Celeb-packed Contentment work for the FA’s Respect campaign launching in early August.

Finding ourselves in the meeting room of the RKY&R TV department, we came across the breathtaking work of art pictured above. In our view it juxtaposes anticipated with anomalous imagery to create visual analogies. Discrepancy and contrast in scale are emphasized as it investigates perception and memory… Anyway, we asked our host Katy Hampson about the provenance of the piece and she said it had been made by Head of Televison Tim Page as a tribute to his deputy Claudio Gorini. When we looked at it again, it all fell into place.

Hotspur and Argyle’s friend and collaborator Jake Polonsky is well known for applying his magical cinematography to pop promos and commercials and he’s also directed a couple of highly impressive shorts. But his mastery also extends to the still image. Have a look at these stunning new landscapes taken in New Zealand. (Always busy, Jake also recently became a Dad for the first time. Congratulations Jake!)

Following on from our success with Coke at BTAA (seven diplomas and the best viral award), we’re delighted to see that BP Ultimate has been shortlisted in the Cyber Lions. We produced all the live action content for the project. Click here to take a look at them. If you’d like to see more of H&A’s online offerings, take a look at Contentment, our new media division.

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Latest in a medium-length line of lascivious virals from H&A is this Burger King offering designed to attract fans to the ‘football your way’ web site. Commissioned by our friends at DLKW and produced for less than a Premier League star’s daily wage it’s going down well with football fans and Lad-media alike. Maxim Magazine has been moved to say ‘If this incredible video was a footballing nation, it would be Brazil - too hot to handle’. We love Maxim.

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Hyper-active genius and Hotspur and Argyle director Kevin Curtis wrote, directed and post produced this commercial in his lunch hour and entered it into the Doritos ad competition under the alias ‘Lucy H’. Hell, he  even starred in it! Writing in Campaign, Euro RSCG’s executive creative director Mark Hunter, said: ‘It made me laugh. Twice. So well done to Lucy H’. He also called it ‘the winner in my view’. If, like us, you agree you’ll be disappointed to hear that Kevin/Lucy didn’t triumph. The winner was determined by public vote so a grudging hats off to the campaigning abilities of the victor.

Check out Contentment Worldwide partner Sam Delaney’s new podcast ‘Stupid Telly with Sam Delaney and Tom’. It’s funny, clever and sexy. And it’s got explosions and dogs. Download from iTunes or Wippit.

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Dandy, artist, author, and friend of Hotspur and Argyle Sebastian Horsley was recently refused admission to the United States. Turning up at Newark airport in his trademark long coat, top hat and gloves he was immediately whisked away by immigration personnel for a spot of rigorous interrogation. After a little on line research they decided to put him on the next plane home on the grounds of ‘moral turpitude’. One of the first things they found that wasn’t to their taste was the H&A-produced ‘The Sebastian Horsley Guide to Whoring’, a very handy user guide which you can access above. Appeals to the US government have so far failed to get Sebastian’s ban lifted. (If you’d like to cheer him up you could always go and buy his breathtakingly hilarious book Dandy In The Underworld, recently anointed as Paperback of the Week by the Guardian).