Need to Know
07 : 03 : 19

London – Stink Studios has created a campaign to launch the sixth form school, which aims to help young people get into the film and tv industries.

The ad highlights the varied curriculum the London Screen Academy will offer, including cinematography, hair and make-up, editing and sound design. The film ends by telling potential students that the unique skills they’ve garnered as digital natives could drive their career. Based in Islington, the free school will open in September 2019 with room for up to 1,000 16–19-year-olds. The goal is to give young people from diverse backgrounds access to the screen industries – a sector facing skills shortages.

‘Our ambition is to show our audience that the things they are already doing can forge a path into the film and television industries; to flip the perception that youngsters are on their phones too much, when they might be London's next great screenwriter or director,’ says Jon Lawton, creative director at Stink Studios.

While they might be glued to their phones, today’s teenagers will become tomorrow's creatives. Read our interview with Ramaa Mosley to discover why brands should consider hiring a teenage director for their campaigns.

Los Angeles – Starring by Ted Gibson merges smart home technology with high-end hair styling and colouring services.

Celebrity stylist Ted Gibson aims to reinvent every touchpoint of the salon by installing five semi-private pods, known as clouds, in the place of traditional styling stations. Each cloud is integrated with Alexa-enabled Amazon tablets, smart speakers and ambient lighting options, allowing customers to shop on Amazon and control their surrounds while their hair is styled.

‘[We] wanted to create a state-of-the-art salon that merged cutting-edge technology with an unrivaled client experience,’ says Francisco Gonzalez Pulido, the salon’s designer. ‘The idea was to reinvent and spearhead the salon of the future before the industry even caught on that it was behind.’

With many hair salons stuck in a rut, innovators are reconfiguring the salon as a space in which clients can sit and stay a while.

Japan – The car manufacturer is exploring the importance of becoming a takumi – the highest level of artisan in Japan.

The feature-length documentary, titled A 60,000-hour Story on the Survival of Human Craft, will be available on Amazon Prime and will offer a glance into the world of a number of artisans, each of whom play a key role in delivering Lexus's luxury vehicles. It will pivot on the question of how human craft can be preserved in a world powered by machines and artificial intelligence.

In addition to the documentary, Lexus is creating a cut lasting 60,000 hours – the equivalent of 30 years – to represent the time it takes to be considered a master craftsperson in Japan. The 60,000-hour edit will loop scenes of the takumi to highlight the years of practice involved in the craft and refining their skills.

As we look to the next 30 years, the future workplace will require the skills and dexterity of humans and speed and learning capabilities of AI to work alongside one another in harmony.

Brexit is leaving British consumers ambivalent about their financial certainty, according to the Changing Consumer Prosperity report by Nielsen. The study found that 34% of Brits say they are financially better off today than five years ago, contradicting many preconceptions about how Brexit and the country’s political uncertainty is affecting consumer spending.

Yet many are still holding back when it comes to spending, with only 16% of respondents spending freely. A third report they are spending more on ‘essential categories’ – 36% of consumers spend more on groceries now than they did five years ago.

Explore our original series An Uncertain Future to discover how British consumers are preparing for the onset of Brexit.