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DGA QUARTERLY 19 PHOTOS: COURTESY TASCHEN (4) a single scene" of the larger spot to make "a really great highlight, a shareable moment." Another director, Brett Froomer, hasn't been impressed by the six-second ads he's seen, mostly because they're cut-downs of longer spots he's created, becoming "an editorial function" and not a director's de- sign or vision. "I have yet to be presented with a story- board for a six-second spot," says Froomer, a veteran of Radical Media now with Froomer Pictures Ltd. who's directed cam- paigns for Arby's, Taco Bell and Budweiser. "I'll see the six-second spot that's been cut later, and it's fancier than a GIF but not as sophisticated as a :15. It's not the way I would've done it." That "repurposing," as he calls it, has become common, as advertisers want more pieces of content in every imaginable format for digital, social, print and other channels. Budgets, meantime, aren't necessarily grow- ing to keep pace with the frantic demand. "Asking for as much content as possible as quickly and cheaply as possible may not be the way forward," Froomer says. "Clients will end up looking like everyone else." Adds Tom Dunlap, chief production of- ficer at L.A. ad powerhouse 72andSunny: "A six-second spot is not an island. It needs to lead you to a longer message, something that can be more strategically impactful." Froomer imagines a consumer-led change from what's happening now, when view- ers eventually become accustomed to the micro-ad format and its novelty wears off. "They'll start to say, 'I'm not interested in that anymore, it didn't entertain me,'" Froomer says. "That's when vision, experi- ence and filmmaking craft will mean some- thing again." Hall says it's a struggle to make the for- mat "something that imparts a brand's per- sonality and gives back to the viewer." Should the mini-ad be a spoiler, revealing the visual effects or the punch line of the 60-second hero spot? Or should it mimic the now-defunct media star, Twitter's video sharing app Vine, where stunts and pratfalls were the well-watched order of the day? One thing's for sure in that compressed time frame. "You can't try to do too much, but you certainly can't be boring," Hall says. "Or you'll end up being like a banner ad that no one remembers." ® ACK IN 2009, Taschen published a lavish, limited edition of Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon: The Greatest Movie Never Made, which con- sisted of 10 volumes—including Kubrick's final script, notes, correspondence and more than 30,000 illustrations. It was all housed in a carved-out tome the size of a vintage suitcase and carried a $700 price tag. Now the art book imprint has taken mercy on the more frugal-minded devotees of Kubrickania by offering a more modestly scaled package with all the same elements but at a tenth of the cost. As Jan Harlan—Kubrick's executive producer on his last four films—emphasizes, there were no half measures for the notoriously obsessive, meticulously perfectionist film- maker. Beginning in 1967, Kubrick read almost ev- ery book on Napoleon that existed in the English language and amassed a monument of visual references that covered the period of 1769 to 1830. As Harlan points out in the book, Kubrick's "never-ending interest in observing human folly was the well-spring of nearly all his films," and thus Napoleon—a figure who lent himself to the kind of grand, sweeping epic for which Kubrick became known—"was the ideal study object." Of course, the pathos of this absorbing chron- icle lies in how close Kubrick came to making his dream project. Budgets were drawn, costumes made, locations scouted, actors approached (Oskar Werner, David Hemmings and Ian Holm were considered) and the armies of Romania and Yugoslavia were enlisted for the requisite "cast of thousands" accuracy that Kubrick demanded in his battle scenes, which he described as "vast lethal ballets." But alas, circumstances conspired against the visionary director. Historic costume extravaganzas had gone out of vogue, and with a competing feature in the works, the ill-fated Waterloo (1970), MGM pulled out of the project, followed by the financially strapped United Artists. And yet Kubrick remained the eternal optimist. When asked why Napoleon? Kubrick said at the time: "He was one of those rare men who move history and mold the destiny of their own times and of generations to come." One could say the same about Stanley. ® Kubrick's Napoleon Complex BY STEVE CHAGOLLAN B L O S T E P I C Location film roll identifier Residence of Joséphine de Beauharnais, Malmaison, France (location scouting) Costume study of a French Grenadier uniform (1968)