The Glue Society’s Jonathan Kneebone explores creativity in films Goldfinger and Once Upon a Time in the West
Image of Black Pencil-winning Goldfinger
Six decades ago, Sergio Leone co-wrote and directed what many people would consider to be his finest work, Once Upon a Time in the West.
To be honest, many people would consider it to be one of anyone’s finest works.
It is a long film. And it moves at a glacial pace. Which – depending on which side of the climate argument you find yourself on – is potentially not as slow as it used to be.
It invites you to work things out as it goes along. Making it particularly engaging.
Circumventing the rules of cinema as decreed far later by the likes of Robert McKee, it is so daring, different and demanding that it forces you to keep watching. And shockingly, it has Henry Fonda playing opposite expectations as its principal bad guy.
It was shot on 35mm using the Techniscope format, with a crew of 140 in Rome, Spain and Monument Valley, Utah. And the soundtrack (by Ennio Morricone) was written in advance of the filming itself (being played back on set) to ensure the scenes would synchronise with its pace and emotion.
Rather a change from trying to find a library track for your ad in the final hours before it needs to go to air.
"The soundtrack was written in advance to ensure the scenes would synchronise with its pace and emotion. Rather a change from trying to find a library track for your ad in the final hours before it needs to go to air."
There are brilliant hand-crafted titles designed in Cooper Black (by someone not credited) which mirror the movements of the theatrical stage as it is being set – and a unique composition of abstract sounds in the first thirteen speech-free minutes of the movie which cause the audience to align themselves with its real-time rhythms.
Which all points to one truth. This was craft at its most deliberate and determined, in a way standing up as the definition of creativity.
Around the same time, Robert Brownjohn – a designer from an ad agency McCann Erickson – was tasked with creating the title sequence for the Bond movie, Goldfinger, to accompany the Shirley Bassey rendition of John Barry’s iconic composition.
Projecting images from the movie onto a gold painted model, and lining up names and roles alongside, led him to be given one of the earliest Black Pencils in D&AD’s history.
The design concept was used throughout the promotion of the movie – and to some extent it pioneered the iconic title sequences that still engage us today.
Along with Maurice Binder, he created a genre all its own. And of course, more recently, Daniel Kleinman has continued to advance the art.
Aside from creating something that has moved into folklore, what connects these folks is the time they were creating in.
“Projecting images from the movie onto a gold painted model, and lining up names and roles alongside, led him to be given one of the earliest Black Pencils in D&AD’s history.”
When you had to film things on actual film, shoot things in camera, edit things with razor blades and tape, record music in the studio, and travel the world in smoke-filled aeroplanes, it was a comparatively expensive, arduous and time-consuming process.
So before you got the camera out of its case, or talked about making anything, you’d be properly industrious at the origination stage. You’d want to have a pretty good story to tell if you were going to go to the trouble of making it.
Or you’d use your time to experiment, get your hands properly dirty and patiently allow yourself to make mistakes in the refinement of something original.
When everything started to become available at the push of a button, we also started to luxuriate in that feeling of not having to try so hard.
Instant gratification has become as infectious as the tools that allow it.
So now, when technology has made it so easy to find a reference, create an image, or summon up something out of thin air, it does rather make putting in hour after hour perfecting a concept or trying to outdo your first thought a little redundant.
We’re all searching through the same results. We’re all accessing the same references. We’re all becoming slaves to an invisible predetermined library of ever-decreasing surprise.
"When everything started to become available at the push of a button, we also started to luxuriate in that feeling of not having to try so hard."
Popular culture has literally almost finished eating itself. But interestingly, it’s not true of every medium or creative artform.
While a 30 second spot for a brand can now be done at the push of a button, those who paint, write television series, compose soundtracks still seem to demand a comparatively significant amount of human endeavour.
And maybe that is why it feels like creativity is alive in some quarters. But dying in others.
Particularly, in ours.
Still, in the commercial world of advertising and design, there are true creative individuals who put in the effort to advance what’s gone before. To go beyond the obvious. To outdo their previous attempts. To put pressure on themselves to do something they’ve never done.
And those people tend to be the ones we seek to recognise with significant awards each year.
Remarkably, in the 60 years since Robert Brownjohn’s recognition, only 102 other black pencils have been given out.
Because D&AD has the same standard it set all those years ago. And that is why it stands the test of time.
It’s fair to say not everything manages to be as good as Goldfinger.
But having a bar that is set this high makes trying to reach it feel as valid and worthwhile and meaningful today as it always has been.
Having something to aim for that is beyond our wildest imaginations means we still have reason to have wild imaginations.
And that’s why I think creativity is still alive.