I have driven the all electric Nissan Leaf for just short of three months. And -other than the range- the topic of choice has been its near silence. So we decided to use it as a moving studio. We recorded Joost Biesheuvel and Croon Parade on the backseat of the Nissan for Bright.nl and the result is amazing. The camerawork and editing was done by Marten van Gelder from Geschikte Gasten.

Bright #43 is about to hit the shelves. For a preview you can visit Bright Night this evening. I wrote an update on the Nissan Leaf longterm test, an item on the electric DeLorean and an article on the Nissan GT-R. With photography by Roelof Bos. Other highlights include the Bright 25 for 2011 (with the Nissan Leaf as one of the entries) and a nice piece on The Internet of Things. Jaron Lanier would not be pleased.

The University Medical Center Groningen is looking for medical students to enter their programme to become specialists. Together with Sander Tiekstra, who has been flying solo for a couple of months now, I have come up with a way to make a campaign site within the new UMCG site.

Last tuesday at 2 o’clock in the morning Roger Muskee, Ronnie Zeemering and me drove off to Frankfurt for the IAA, the biggest stage for the car industry in the world. We wanted to make a video that didn’t just rehash the presentations, the concept cars and the booth babes, but an impression of what cars are and what the auto industry is today. So our Ford S-Max became our time capsule in travelling and the Messe became our microcosm of the market economy. The result is as confusing as real life.

With the boys from Schwung Visuell I headed to Beesd to try and kill Volvo’s PR lady with the car that she lent us. This is what happened.

Thanks to Hein Braaksma and the Schwung Visuell boys I was fortunate enough to find myself at the table of Ingeborg Walinga, Marcel Mandos and Roelof Voorintholt, who are running the NNO (Noord Nederlands Orkest) – the classical orchestra that calls Groningen its home. The question on the table being: how do we get a different and younger audience to attend the NNO concerts. A question that a lot of institutes with a long history are asking; museums and churches find themselves facing exactly the same problem. We’ve seen plenty of marketing ploys, add-ons and superficial modernizing in all these institutions, but rarely something that lasts. The trouble often is that the add-ons have nothing to do with the principle the institution is based on. Why that is? You will rarely find any institution (or company for that matter) that has a clear cut, well definied raison d’etre. And while that is lacking, there is a big door with a huge sill in the form of an aging audience that a young customer does not feel part of, content that is hard to interpret and few contemporaries that can lead you into this world. So even when the quality is fantastic, the musicians are top notch, and you organize a collaboration with Steve Vai or Armin van Buuren, that does not take away all of the things withholding people from being part of classical music. Your audience needs a sense of ownership and the very first step is getting hold of the keys to the door for at least once. Roger, Ronnie and I will be test piloting the current offerings of the NNO in the months to come and hope to be adding ideas together with Hein after that. We’ll keep you posted, just to make sure you feel part of it. Ideas on the subject are welcome.

Earlier this year I drove the Mazda MX-5 in an ice race in Sweden. You might remember me posting about it three times. Well, it was not easy to make a video out of the material that was partly shot by Mazda and partly by my frozen hands with my iPhone. Fortunately four months was just enough for Ronnie to make something nice out of it. So while people were enjoying 30 degrees + here in the Netherlands we debuted the ice race video as a nice way to cool off.

Peter Schreyer is the designer responsible for the original Audi TT. A modern day icon of design. Nowadays he works for Korean car manufacturer Kia. Previously known mostly for it’s impressive 7 year warranties, with Schreyer at the helm people might start buying Kias for their looks. His Kia Sportage and Optima have both won Red Dot design awards. For a Bright feature about little known design legends I went to Frankfurt to talk to him. The most interesting point of discussion is how conceptually rigid the Audi TT is, were as most other car designs are more thematically cohesive. Read all about it in Bright in a couple of months.

P.S. I know, he doesn’t look too happy on the picture, but I guarantee he liked the interview.

I apologize for the long wait, but I can safely say that it was worth it. The Audi A6 video is online at www.bright.nl and it’s getting rave reviews:

That’s how you make video on cars.
Finally something of Top Gear quality
without imitating their style. Bravo!

— Arjaan

A very nice review, not too long,
not too short. Beautiful shots and
nice editing and effects.

— Robot

Well to be honest, Ronnie at Schwung Visuell and me have been honing our skills in a series of movies, from the Porsche Panamera to the Nissan Leaf. And we’re trying to find our own voice and style that will also please the Bright audience. Some of which are gearheads, some are gadgetfreaks, other diehard geeks. So pleasing all of them or even most of them is quite a daunting task. It seems we’ve pulled it off this time.

So here’s a post that is not about cars. I was surfing the web yesterday and ran into my own website. Always a treat. But it gave me the impression I have done little else than slide cars on ice, look at cars from strange angles and driven cars on maffia turf. So I checked my weblog against my calendar and it seems there are a lot of omissions. I’ve been working on an iPad presentation tool together with web maestro Sander Tiekstra. As soon as we can we will show you some results. The visual identity of Drents Archief is also coming along nicely and will be available for a sneak preview soon. Then there’s the CBK Groningen for whom I will be an external advisor for the second time running. A project about the heart of the city needs a gifted student from Groningen. None of these involve cars. Just wanted to let you know.