Matt just won a contest sponsored by WNYC’s Leonard Lopate for his “STOP THE WAR” T-shirt designed for the highly acclaimed feature doc “The Life of Reilly” (starring the late, great Charles Nelson Reilly, and directed by our very own Barry Poltermann and Frank Anderson).
I’d like to show you this pilot mini-series — a “behind the scenes” journey following the Chicago (Hoffman Estates) Home design team, shot in August of 2008. Here we follow the team as they travel throughout the US and Europe, seeking trend inspiration for the 2010 product line.
In Ep. 1 we visit Theresa, Chief Design Officer for Kmart. She introduces us to her team, made up of designers from company’s like Pottery Barn, Martha Stewart and Macy’s. Review design boards, hear the strategy and learn how KmartDesign is radically transforming the image of this “American icon”.
In the second episode we follow as Kmart’s top Home designers unearth spring fashion as they research fashion style, home trends and color trends in Paris.
This episode two was directed Frank Anderson at Hoffman Estates and by Dan Ollman in Paris:
“I can’t believe this is Kmart.”
I’ll blog later about the goals of the project, bur for now suffice to say that the project is a video document of the story of Kmart’s journey to change the perception of the brand.
In episode 3, from London, KMart’s Chief Design Officer Theresa says, “There’s a lot of science behind design, it’s not just creative”. During their trip abroad, Trend Director Rick notes the KMart Design team checklist – color, shape, fabric, finish, pattern, and texture.
We see how the team takes that information and translates it into product that’s adaptable for the KMart customer.
This episode was directed by Dan Ollman:
In this final episdoe TREND TRIP, the KMart Design team looks closely at both apparel and home design in the shops of New York City as the two “are closer together these days.”
“Just because we’re Kmart doesn’t mean that we can’t offer great design at great value.”
In the final episode we meet the New York Apparel design team (who will be featured in upcoming episodes of “Behind the Design”).
Trend Director Rick says of their design products, “You want to make it the best that you can and still make it affordable for the customer”.
Scouring the streets of style mecca New York is part of that process.
There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
There is no editing stage.
Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you’re doing even if you don’t and do it.
Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
Once you’re done you can throw it away.
Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done.
People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
Destruction is a variant of done.
If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
A bunch of us at AboutFace have been hard at work over the last couple of months doing a series of videos for the Sears HEROES AT HOME program.
Sears has been a sponsor of Rebuilding Together, an organization that helps veterans and their families fix up their homes when they are facing hardship.
Here are a few of our favorites of the more than twenty webisodes that we did.
They are equal parts heartbreaking and moving. Thanks to Sears for the opportunity for all of us to meet these amazing people.
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83-year old Kenneth ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins takes American flags down every Friday to place in the center square in Lynchburg VA, to honor of the eight area soldiers who died in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Hoppy is a veteran of WWII. In fact he was at D-Day on Omaha beach with the US Navy. The Sears’ Heroes at Home program helped Hoppy renovate, restore, and update the home he and his wife have lived in since 1948. “This is a great thing that they’ve done for me.”
Note that we did a brief profile of the shooting of the ‘Hoppy Hopkins’ piece in a previous post>>
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“God sent these people.” Howard Burke fought in WWII with Company A. He now lives with his wife in a small home in Lacey’s Spring AL. “We were in a predicament” his wife explains. Howard has trouble walking… he is paralyzed on one side. So Heroes at Home remodeled portions of his their home to make it handicap accessible. As Mrs. Burkes says… “These are our heroes.”
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“I don’t know how I got that name ‘hero’.” Wayne Johnson lives with his wife of Houston Texas in the house they had built in October of ’52. A half of a decade later the house was falling apart. They still didn’t even have a shower… just a tub. But then Sears and Heroes at Home helped by renovating, restoring, and repairing his home.
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Harold Hatton, a Navy veteran who lives in Tampa Bay Florida, plays cards with his fellow veterans at his local VFW Post. He comes from a military family — he is the oldest member of his local Post and his grandson is the youngest. But as we meet his wife Isabella we find out that she is partially handicapped. She has rheumatoid arthritis. Heroes at Home helps them both by making their house handicap accessible.
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Ruth Perry is a Gold Star mother for Chapter Four of “Rolling Thunder” in Lynchburg, VA. Her son Stanley was killed in Vietnam in 1969… she got word on Christmas Eve. The Sears’ Heroes at Home program helped with remolding her Lynchburg home.
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“They gave me a very good Christmas present that I will never forget” says Veora Collins. Sears and Heroes at Home traveled to the south side of Chicago to help renovate and make handicap accessible Veora’s home. She lives there with her son… US Army veteran Roosevelt Collins, who is partially paralyzed from a stroke. “When this came along it was god sent”.
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Blake Vanderwert lives in New Prague Minnesota. Her husband, Jonathan, has spent fifteen years in the service, but they never thought he’d be called into active duty. The Sears Heroes at Home / Rebuilding Together program helped the Vanderwerts renovate their home while Blake’s husband was deployed. There was a lot to do… nothing had been done to the house since 1950. “They wanted the do it because they actually cared.”
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Army veteran Christopher Joseph and is wife Barbara are having a neighborhood cook out at their home in Central Islip NY. Christopher walks with a cane and still doesn’t talk much about what happened in Iraq. His wife tells us about the critical renovations to their home they got from Heroes at Home. She is grateful for the help that her husband has well earned. After all… he paid a heavy price in the military… “protecting home away from home.”
As we reach the end of 2007, AboutFace luminaries Barry Poltermann and Frank Anderson’s “The Life of Reilly” retains a perfect “100% Fresh” rating from critics at Rotten Tomatoes and is currently listed as the best reviewed film of 2007. Here is the trailer from the SXSW premiere:
In case that isn’t cool enough, the film has appeared on several critics’ and reader top ten lists of the ‘Best Films of 2007′ including: The Village Voice/LA Weekly Film Poll of Best Films of 2007, which featured “The Life of Reilly” in its top ten “Best Documentary” list;
No End in Sight
Into Great Silence and Lake of Fire (tie)
Terror Advocate
Manda Bala
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters; Manufactured Landscapes; My Kid Could Paint That; and West of the Tracks
I For India; Our Daily Bread; Sicko; The Cats of Mirikatani; The Life of Reilly; A Pervert’s Guide to Cinema
Nerve.com’s 2007 Reader’s Poll, which listed “The Life of Reilly” as the 3rd Funniest Film of 2007;
Score one for our good friend Matt Frost!
