"Up There".

If you live in New York or Los Angeles you're probably familiar with the hand-painted billboard. Part art, part selling stuff it hangs above the urban landscape as a sweet reminder to a bygone era while still try to sell stuff.

Stella Artois has created this truly wonderful branded piece (12 minutes, every moment worth it, like the beer actually) that celebrates this dying art. We are introduced to some of the painters, part dare-devils, part artists who share with us their experiences over the years and their passion for this wall painting tradition.

And it documents, here's the branded part, just how painstaking this process is as artists create fifty-foot ads for Stella. It took them three weeks to paint the ads. It's quite a contrast to the heady world most of us live in, where things usually get accomplished at the speed of a click. Sometimes amazing things come to those who take their time. Oh wait I'm mixing my beer messages.

Here's a quick taste.



Lots of kudos to go around. Stella Artois, Mother, Mekanism, director Malcolm Murry and The Album Leaf for creating the perfect soundtrack. "Into the Blue Again" is unquestionably one of my favorite albums of all time.

And of course special kudos to the painters themselves. For more of their work over the years, check this out.


(Sharing credit to psfk)