The Grand Budapest Hotel

TikTok's Wes Anderson trend: why the quirky director's style is ripe for social media parody

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, May 11, 2023
The Darjeeling Limited, Timothée Chalamet, Oscar, Life, Friends, PST, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Wilson, Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Quarterlife, Bottle Rocket, Sound, Meditation, Personality, McDowell, Gesture, Longevity, Maya Hawke, The French Dispatch, Mental health, Family, Social media, Safety, Book, Film industry, Asteroid City

Three weeks ago, during a habitual morning scroll through social media, I kept coming across highly stylised video montages of people going about their every day lives.

Key Points: 
  • Three weeks ago, during a habitual morning scroll through social media, I kept coming across highly stylised video montages of people going about their every day lives.
  • In one video, a man documented himself working in his wood shop.
  • The short, 24-second video features a number of tropes which are instantly recognisable to anyone familiar with Anderson’s style.

The Anderson look and sound

    • Wes Anderson emerged from Houston, Texas with his modestly budgeted first feature, Bottle Rocket.
    • This article is part of Quarter Life, a series about issues affecting those of us in our twenties and thirties.
    • It was, however, 2001’s The Royal Tenenbaums that earned Anderson an Oscar nomination for best original screenplay.
    • But with each film, Anderson widens his circle, drawing in up-and-comers such as Maya Hawke and Timothée Chalamet, as well as established stars like Bruce Willis and Ralph Fiennes.
    • The work of Wes Anderson is distinct in its look, feel and sound.

A natural TikTok aesthetic

    • For TikTok users, and online content creators more broadly, a recognisable personality or style is important currency.
    • If choosing to imitate the style of a director, who better than one whose work is also immediately recognisable?
    • TikTok isn’t the first video-focused social media platform, just the most recent.

Wes Anderson has an obsessive, systematic repetition of stylistic choices. He’s perfect for this TikTok meme

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, May 11, 2023
The French Dispatch, Cannes Film Festival, Theatricality, Classical Hollywood cinema, Symmetry, Futura, Walking, Anderson, Wes Anderson, Lunch, Budget, The Grand Budapest Hotel, AI, Dispatch, House of Medici, Kogonada, Social media, Television, Film industry, Telescopic sight, Sales, Asteroid City

I always feel like any character from one of my movies could walk into another one of the movies and be at home there.

Key Points: 
  • I always feel like any character from one of my movies could walk into another one of the movies and be at home there.
  • With the premiere of Asteroid City at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival next week, fans have been doing just that – walking themselves into faux Anderson movies.
  • TikTokers are creatively “Wes-Andersonifying” their everyday lives: at lunch, at the hotel pool or at the bookstore.

Reimagining a film style

    • Stanley Kubrick once said a film director is a “taste machine”, which Anderson revels in to excess.
    • Symmetry within the frame is perhaps the most obvious element of the Anderson film style and one easy to replicate in the TikToks.
    • This staging style is a departure from the mainstream visual style of film and television today which situates the camera at oblique angles to the actors, enhancing the layers of foreground, midground and background – closer to the way we see and experience the world.
    • Colour is another aspect of Wes Anderson’s visual style, which spills across the TikToks.

Where to next?

    • But these are isolated shots rather than Anderson’s obsessive, systematic repetition of stylistic choices within each film and across his oeuvre.
    • In filmmaking, moving the camera is often expensive, separating the amateur from the professional.
    • As part of his film style, Anderson uses the Classical Hollywood ratio of 4:3 seen in The French Dispatch.
    • And as generative AI representations of film style wash across social media there’s a new set of questions altogether.

Travel Oregon Showcases State's Regions and Attractions in National Advertising Campaign: Extraordinary is Ordinary

Retrieved on: 
Monday, September 19, 2022
Haze, Columbia Sportswear, Advertising, Beauty, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Travel, Painting, Oregon Tourism Commission, Water, Beer, World Athletics, Game of Thrones, Tourism, IPA, Soil

PORTLAND, Ore., Sept. 19, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Oregon Tourism Commission, dba Travel Oregon, has initiated its second push of its advertising campaign, Extraordinary is Ordinary. Promoting the state's stunning natural beauty, the campaign is set to drive tourism to its seven geographical regions and help to continue the state's recovery from the pandemic while supporting shoulder season travel. The campaign, produced by the creative team at Portland's Wieden + Kennedy, kicked off with national broadcast commercials and global exposure during the World Athletics Championships Oregon22 this past July. The strategy behind the fall campaign is to reengage with the audiences reached this summer and invite them to visit during shoulder season.

Key Points: 
  • PORTLAND, Ore., Sept. 19, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Oregon Tourism Commission, dba Travel Oregon , has initiated its second push of its advertising campaign, Extraordinary is Ordinary .
  • The campaign, produced by the creative team at Portland's Wieden + Kennedy, kicked off with national broadcast commercials and global exposure during the World Athletics Championships Oregon22 this past July.
  • "Oregon is a state where you can feel and experience things you can't anywhere else," said Todd Davidson, Travel Oregon CEO.
  • "It's a place where beauty is commonplace and even the most ordinary things provide magical experiences.