It looks like documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock is using his exploration of the advertising industry, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, as a blueprint for his new commercial business venture, Warpaint Productions.

Merging his NY-based prodco, Warrior Poets, with Greatest Movie co-producer Keith Calder‘s LA-based company, Snoot Entertainment, Warpaint is launching with the assistance of 16-year industry veteran, Shannon Lords. In a statement about the merge, Spurlock said, “After working directly with brands and advertising agencies in the placement expose ‘The Greatest Movie Ever Sold,’ as well as directing multiple commercial spots for other production companies, I saw an opportunity to create a much more director driven entity.”

Warpaint currently has nine directors signed on, including Spurlock (The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, JetBlue, Hunt’s, Ally), Rupert Wyatt (Rise of the Planet of the Apes), Gary Hustwit (Helvetica, Objectified, Apple), Adam Wingard (You’re Next), Liz Garbus (Bobby Fischer Against the World), Adam Lisegar (LonelySandwich.com), Michael Tucker (Fightville, Gunner Palace, Mastercard), Maggie Choo (Nike) and Damien Toogood (Olympus, Target, Pepsi). See more at Warpaint’s website here. Also, yes, Spurlock is using his work with POM Wonderful as a case study, so feel free to wonder aloud if this was Spurlock’s long-term plan with Greatest Movie all along.

In case you needed more of a Spurlock fix, check out our Media Beat interview with man himself, where he discusses producing/directing The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special in 3D on Ice!, offers video/filmmaking tips to journalists and reflects on making his breakthrough doc, Supersize Me.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

In a move that would make documentarian Morgan Spurlock start a vigorous slow clap, several Big Fuel New York staffers will attempt to live below the extreme poverty line for five days. Starting on Monday, May 7, Big Fuel managing director Holly Pavilka and several of her co-workers will be spending no more than $1.50 a day. The bottom line? No coffee (shudder).

The agency peeps are taking part in this social experiment as part of the “Live Below the Line” challenge, a charitable contest that has thus far raised over $44,000 for poverty-stricken citizens in developing countries. “Live Below the Line” is being co-sponsored by Unicef, the Global Poverty Project, and the United Nations Foundation’s Shot@Life initiative. According to a statement, Pavilka and co. are also using this challenge as a way to bring attention to social media’s impact on raising awareness for charitable initiatives.

Intrigued? Watch another video below that goes a little more in-depth about the challenge.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Grey New York’s work for Ally Bank since winning the brand’s business nearly nine months ago continues and so does the Candid Camera/Punk’d-like approach that the agency employed back in September. Morgan Spurlock once again takes over behind the camera and the same Grey creative team has returned for this latest Ally installment, which this time tries shows us how us humans are darn near irreplaceable in the customer service department. To be fair, though, couldn’t we have even gone with Johnny 5 instead of a simple blender? Credits after the jump.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

What would you do if some random stranger asked you to watch their briefcase that happens to be filled with $100,000? Well, that’s the premise of Grey’s new spot for Ally, which was directed by the seemingly ubiquitous Morgan Spurlock. The POM and Supersize Me auteur, who is also seeking members for something called the “Failure Club,” is deeming this a “social experiment” though we’ve seen the Candid Camera/Punk’d approach in ads before. But whatever the case, it’s nice to see there are still some trustworthy people out there. Credits after the jump.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Tell me if you’ve heard this once before…

Famous documentary filmmaker who once ate only McDonald’s for a whole month and had a short-lived FX TV show decides to take on advertising and corporate sponsorship in his newest film. He decides, as a sort of silly tongue-in-cheek joke, to finance his movie solely with money received through corporate sponsorship, with the highest bidder being a pomegranate juice brand that gets its name in the title. After the movie opens in theaters, the filmmaker, with a completely straight face, starts slinging the juice in television advertisements using a “Consumer Reports” tone.

Maybe I’m lost, but I guess I don’t understand where Morgan Spurlock‘s joke ends, which is generally something troublesome with a documentarian (unless you’re Bansky). And, while this clip was actually in the film Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, it’s also part of POM Wonderful’s new “Get Real” campaign. And, that sweepstakes POM is advertising on its website is actually a chance to get a private in-home screening of Spurlock’s film with Spurlock present, probably wearing that stupid suit he’s never seen without these days. Does this ad blitz create any goodwill toward Spurlock or POM, or just make them that much more annoying?

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

-Volkswagen’s Mini-Darth may have met his match. link

-R/GA San Francisco is hosting another Creative Connect series tonight, this time starring Barbarian Group co-founder Robert Hodgin. link; link

-BBDO Singapore creative duo Boyd Champness and Brad Wilson have returned to Australia. link

-The Morgan Spurlock media blitz continues. link

-Microsoft tapped Frank Holland to lead its global ad sales business.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

-Just in case you missed DDB Chicago’s spot for Capital One/March Madness (above), here you go.

-Tribal DDB, meanwhile, is behind two new online promotions at McDonalds.com. link

-SRG nabbed CP+B’s Joe Salvati to serve as its director of digital strategy/MD. link

-Aflac has enlisted the help of Monster to find a new spokesduck. link

-You can probably take a guess as to what Morgan Spurlock discussed with Fast Company. link

-An interior designer shows off pics of the LBi and Mother London offices. link

-Apple pulled the “Gay Cure” app. link

-Groupon’s president is stepping down. link

-Are celebrity tweets really paying off? link

-How could we forget Firefox 4 Day? link

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Er, excuse us. What we meant to say was, POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. Have to give POM Wonderful what they paid for, right?

After making a splash at Sundance in January and SXSW Film last week, Morgan Spurlock of Super Size Me! fame is about to release his new film which will target, what else, the advertising industry. Along with virtually erasing ad clutter in Times Square, Spurlock succeeded in financing the entire movie through corporate sponsorships from companies including Hyatt, JetBlue, and Old Navy. And, as Spurlock happily announces in this newly released extended trailer, his film will go down in history as the first documentary to have its own collectors’ cups. What, you mean Batman wasn’t real?

The film will open in the U.S. on April 22. And, to ad execs reading this, looks like Ban’s marketing department needs some help with their product, doesn’t it?

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

-Anomaly London and Unit9 are spearheading the “One Thousand Cranes” project to help Japan. link

-Alex Bogusky‘s guess: “CPB decided it was time to part with BK.” Call us shocked. link

-Of course, the fast-food chain isn’t the only brand hammering away at Crispin. Talk about a bad week. link

-Should agencies think like software companies? link

-Amber Edwards joined Draftfcb Healthcare as EVP/group management director.

-Mette Walter joined the New York office of creative content/communications shop Gravity as staff producer on commercial, feature and digital projects.

-Morgan Spurlock now has the attention of the “ad nerds.” link

-ICANN puts its final stamp of approval on .XXX. link

-Directors Mikael Salomon and Frank Samuel joined the roster of bi-coastal prodco, Original Film.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

And so it begins, well, technically yesterday, but we here at AS have touched down for this year’s SXSW Interactive after sharing a way too early flight out of JFK with the likes of Morgan Spurlock, writers for CNBC and of course, mediabistro staff. The SXSW folks have already run out of pocket guides so we’ll somehow manage, and have thus far toured the huge Screenburn arcade, checked out the Beacon Lounge from which we type and now it’s on to the panels and parties (where we’re hoping to gain the real juicy info). Pray for us, but if you happen to be here, contact us as well at agencyspy@gmail.com and say hi to the fellow in the fedora. FYI, we will be posting from time to time today and tomorrow and per usual on Monday before we head back home. Suffice to say, it’s overwhelming.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

-Wunderman alum David Sable is replacing Hamish McLennan as global CEO of Y&R. link

-AAA picked iCrossing as its digital AOR. link

-The Super Bowl hangover has yet to wear off, apparently. Here’s another ad winners/losers take. link

-Joel Ewanick talks GM’s global strategy. link

-Morgan Spurlock calls the plagiarism claims surrounding his sponsor-addled flick, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, “preposterous.” link

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Inspired by the lack of outdoor advertising in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the Barbarian Group has teamed up with Super Size Me‘s star and creator Morgan Spurlock to virtually eliminate advertising from Times Square in Manhattan.

The project/website is called NoAdNY, which may be a reference to the city’s venerable No New York no wave compilation from the early 80s (but probably not). The website allows users to access a panoramic few of Times Square, allowing them to edit out the advertising using image editing tools one frame at a time. Yeah, it might take a while, but at least you can do the city and its tourists a favor by getting rid of the massive poster for Spider-man: Turn off the Dark. The site offers a wealth of building materials to fill in the now-empty ad space, so you can quickly edit your image, save it to NoAdNY’s website (or print it out to hang on the fridge), and continue onto the next image.

Considering that Times Square is one of the only places in the world where a ton of outdoor advertising actually looks pretty cool, NoAdNY might seem like a peculiar idea, that is until you realize it’s probably a marketing ploy being used to drum up hype for Spurlock’s new documentary about advertising, “The Greatest Movie Ever Sold.” Is it hypocritical of Spurlock to “destroy” advertising as a meta-promotional tool, or is it actually the most appropriate way to capture the movie’s subject matter?

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.