Hip hop video culture has interested me for as long as I could remember: the theatrics, the sense of crew, the flash, the grit – elements a prep school kid from suburban Pennsylvania doesn’t see day to day. This summer I was lucky enough to meet Kevin Lopez, a new director at Fifth Column, and work with him as he hustled and grinded away on hip-hop music videos. The opportunity to work with Kevin taught me about how with the right resources and the right people, a high quality product can be made with a good prosumer camera and some creative innovation.

While some consider the music video a dead art as it relates to television, social networks like MySpace make the creation of videos and music content absolutely essential. They provide eye candy in a world where visuals are undeniably key to getting your message across. They influence our culture and fashion (from Soulja Boy’s “Crank That” dance to Slim Thug’s Gucci shades.) With the right amount of ingenuity, some music videos can be huge viral successes, such as Ok Go’s YouTube hit “Here It Goes Again” A digital camera, one static shot, and 4 treadmills = over 43 million views.

We recently completed “Hot Pair Nikes” an impressive low budget music produced and directed by Kevin and edited by myself with Kevin’s help. Shot on a Panasonic HVX200 and a digital SLR, it is a great example of innovation in our field. Be on the lookout for the next six months as Kevin and I continue to develop innovative music videos. For now, make sure to check out our latest music video for EJoox of the Bronx, “Hot Pair of Nikes.”

An interesting article in the London Financial Times last Friday discussed the growing trend of advertisers using user generated content to promote their product (Thanks @digprof). As a self described heretical and subversive organization, Fifth Column naturally embraces the increased use of fan produced content as a part of advertising strategy. While this won’t be the death nell of advertising or the modern advertising agency, there are a lot of positive results of this growing trend.

1) New Voices – UGC promotes content developers that don’t have other avenues to distribute their content to a mass audience. Allowing for the development of creatives in this manner promotes creative merit as well as allows new ideas and viewpoints to enter the creative advertising space.

2) Better Content – UGC forces traditional advertising agencies in to greater competition, not only with other agencies but potentially any content creator. This will result in better creative advertising.

3) Smaller Agencies – In order to compete with UGC, agencies are going to have to become smaller and leaner organizations, focusing on adapting quickly as the industry rapidly evolves.

Agencies have been rolling with the punches of new media for quite some time and I’m sure they will find a way to make UGC work for them (as many of them already have). But there certainly are some interesting effects to UGC proliferation. How do you think UGC will effect the advertising industry?

In 1936, Emilio Mola command of the Army of the North in the Spanish Civil War, led the effort to take Madrid from the Republican forces. In a radio address, he broadcast a message that the four columns of his forces outside the city would be supported by a “fifth column” of his supporters inside the city, intent on undermining the Republican government from within.

Since then this term has been used to mean “a separatist group working from within for change.” When Cordy and I began Fifth Column, we had the same aspiration of any recent college graduate: we wanted to change the world. Specifically the advertising world. We wanted to run our company differently from the companies that we had seen and worked at. Hopefully, our example would change the industry around us. That is why we use the name Fifth Column. After three years, while things have changed, I think we still endeavor to do the same things. Create a better business that is more effective for our clients and more beneficial for our employees.

Emilio’s “fifth column” was a great retorical flourish but for the most part had little effect on the outcome of the siege. Madrid held out until 1939 despite very heavy fighting. But we are hoping for a different outcome and, perhaps, we’ll change the world in the process.

Our latest commercial project was for Aquadeco Water, and was an intensely challenging and enjoyable experience for all of us. The challenge to the project was that we had less than two weeks between our creative pitch and delivery date, something we had never done for a project of this size. Fortunately we were gifted with a great crew and some amazing talent that made the job not only successful but also enjoyable. Our DP, Jamie Rosenberg, was nothing short of phenomenal. This was our first of what will be many times working together.

We should be releasing the spot sometime next week. In the meantime check out some of the production stills from the shoot.

“One advantage of talking to yourself is that you know at least somebody’s listening.” -  Franklin P. Jones

After a long hiatus, the Fifth Column blog is going to be making a triumphant return this week. We have some great amazing content planned that will be available here on our blog as well as on Twitter, YouTube, Vimeo and Facebook. We’ll be posting new post every day and new videos and pictures every week.

We hope that this content encourages you to not only check our site regularly but to engage in conversations with us about advertising, marketing, entertainment and social media. Tell us when you like what we are doing but also when you don’t like what we are doing. Most importantly, thanks for taking the time for seeing what we do and why we love doing it. We know your time is valuable and we endeavor to make the time you spend with us worthwhile.

Please check back often.

We apologize for the lapse in blog posts. Cordy and I have holed ourselves up in the conference room, leaving only for lunch meetings and pitch sessions. We have declared war and call our new space, the War Room.

Our tactics: spiderweb. Reach out to contacts, and contact referrals. Research and connect. Deploy and maintain. These are the vagaries of it all, but our tactics began as scrawls on a glass table top and are now mapped out and goal oriented.

Our outreach has met tremendous ends thus far. Excitement flourishes at Fifth Column. Be prepared though, for a blog blitz next week. We will have much to share.

We are Fifth Column: a separatist group working from within to change our culture and industry.

Our Vision: we’re a separatist group working from within to change culture and industry.

Vision, important right? Especially in film and advertising. Books, magazines, and great thinkers constantly speak on the value of vision with regard to driving a successful company. In sitting down with Joel Beckerman of Man Made Music, I was struck by how important it is to possess this intangible but absolutely crucial element. Joel very pointedly asked me, what’s your vision? I’ll admit it was difficult to articulate immediately because with all the loudest and most attention grabbing items in the day, vision does not scream for my attention.

As I want to know that my client’s possess a vision, I’m sure that they in fact want to know I have one, as well. A strong vision. Because a vision encourages our clients to sit down at the Fifth Column table and strike up a relationship. Well, first and foremost, sitting at the Fifth Column table is pretty cool. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that we are the cool table. If you know anything about our daily office life here you’d first be struck with just how many non-salaried individuals are vying for precious table space, not because we’re the local Kinkos, but rather we just seem to attract a plethora of deep thinkers and infectious creatives all thirsting for a chance to collaborate. We have artists, actors, writers, directors, and a dating coach; each with strong opinions. Suffice it to say, we’re a cool place to be. All these talented, motivated, high performance individuals that continue to walk through the door add to our aura of cool bodies and cool ideas. This isn’t necessarily a vision but in fact the result of the vision.

So again, what’s our vision? In drawing upon the definition of our name, we are a separatist group working from within to change the values of our culture and industry. Now, it took me a few gesticulations in order to finally communicate this to Joel. Yet, upon reflection, we certainly don’t apologize for being hell bent on dicing up the current advertising model through a branded entertainment campaign. When a client sits down at the table and laments that they don’t have enough money to pay for a 30 second spot, with a month long tv ad campaign, we don’t sit and commiserate with them. Instead, I jump at the chance to wreak havoc on their competitors through a lethal 5 episode branded content series delivered through an internet ad buy. The result: we deliver the highest value ad campaign just because we have the in house creative, the production talent, and the ad buy partnerships to make this guerrilla style campaign successful. We’re young (some of us young thinking) and scrappy.

In the three years of running this company with my partner, Sean Jaques, I’ve taken some big risks, bet the company on a few projects, and frankly taken an approach to some campaigns that weren’t always the safe profitable route for myself. The result: we’re the go to guys for highest value creative content (see the Awards Section on our websites About Us). We are a very dangerous combination and we simply play to win.

Thus, we are the cool table, but when we run out of seats I just push two tables together. So you’re welcome to sit down now or after you pick up your food.