Rock out as this band of flying robots made by KMel Robotics plays the “2001: A Space Odyssey” theme song, “Carol of the Bells”, and the U.S. national anthem the “Star Spangled Banner.” The group will be playing live this weekend at the USA Science and Engineering Festival in Washington D.C.

He keeps it simple and brief, but legendary actor, director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival Robert Redford offers some invaluable advice for anyone who wants to follow in his footsteps. (Hint: It doesn’t require the backing of a major studio or even a WiFi connection.)

Redford, 77, has won two Academy Awards — in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and in 2002 for Lifetime Achievement. His Sundance Institute is celebrating the 30-year anniversary of the Sundance Film Festival, held each January in Park City, Utah.

When considering who most influenced his life, Robert Redford, who has performed with Hollywood’s finest and mentored independent cinema’s rising stars, cites a “mixed bag” of people who helped him along the way.

“There is power in an idea that you will stay with, against the odds,” he tells TIME Managing Editor Nancy Gibbs in this short interview. Whether it’s called ego or drive or stubbornness or vision, Redford endorses the impulse to “keep pushing through” in spite of the obstacles. Even failure, he notes, can be valuable, even “fun.”

Apple’s haters like to say the company is only successful because of marketing. The masses are so entranced by Apple advertising that they’re blind to the existence of other, potentially better products.

But this line of thinking falls apart when you look at some of Apple’s best ads over the last few years. They aren’t deceptive (with some alleged exceptions), they aren’t flashy, and they don’t rely on gimmicks to get your attention. Maybe you could level those criticisms against Apple’s iconic “1984” campaign, or its “Get a Mac” campaign from the mid-aughts, but today Apple ads are plain and straightforward by comparison. There’s nothing particularly magical about them, and yet they work.

The newly-launched “Powerful” ad is a great example. For 90 seconds, only one thing happens: People use their iPhones. There’s no narration, no explanation and no interruption. It’s just people using their iPhones in ways that are interesting.

Sure, most of us use our smartphones for duller purposes: checking e-mail, looking at Instagram, posting something on Facebook, browsing the web. We’re not all musicians, artists, videographers or international explorers. In that sense, the ad is aspirational, like a beer commercial with beautiful people partying in lavish environments. But while the beer commercial rubs in your face what you could never have, the iPhone ad sends a different message: You can do all these interesting things. You just need to download a few good apps.

It’s no surprise that immediately after launching the ad, Apple put up a web page with links to the App Store for several of the featured apps. You just learned what you can do with the iPhone. Now do it.

This idea, of advertisement as tutorial, has been done by Apple before. Here’s an ad from 2012 that’s basically a demonstration of how to use the iPhone 5′s panoramic photo feature:

Apple’s iPhone 3GS ad campaign in 2009 coined the phrase “There’s an app for that,” again illustrating what users could do with their phones. It also included this quasi-tutorial on how to use copy and paste, then a new feature:

Even Apple’s first ads for Siri, which drew mixed reactions for relying on celebrities, served a rather basic purpose of showing what you could do with the virtual assistant:

Apple’s detractors might argue that other phones offer features and apps that are similar to the ones Apple advertises. But that’s beside the point. Tech enthusiasts (myself included) can often lose sight of how new and unfamiliar these devices can be to the average user. Many people are still learning to use their smartphones, the functions of which are not always second-nature. These users may not be inclined to go exploring for new tricks and features, so Apple’s ads are providing a little push.

And don’t think Apple is only aiming its ads at people who don’t own iPhones. The U.S. smartphone market is approaching saturation, which means most people are on their first, second or even third smartphones. And in the United States, roughly half of those people are using iPhones. Ads like “Powerful” are as much about showing iPhone users what they’ve got as they are about showing non-iPhone users what they’re missing.

Pharrell’s G I R L is probably going to be synonymous forever with his omnipresent soundtrack cut-turned-No. 1 hit “Happy,” but its follow-up and opening track “Marilyn Monroe” might be an even better encapsulation of the album. In one song, it’s got the opulence of Justin Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience: a Hans Zimmer string section like the one on “Pusher Love Girl,” which quickly becomes a disco string section; the loopy retro-disco that’s been a Neptunes hallmark from Kelis on; the New Age law-of-attraction horniness that finds its way into almost all of Pharrell’s work. (Think “like the legend of the phoenix” — basically, if a lyric sounds like a spiritual pamphlet reworked into a pickup line, it was probably written by Pharrell Williams.)

Marilyn Monroe, of course, is the most be-metaphored woman in pictures; even if you limit your scope to urban music of this decade alone, you’ll be able to find Marilyn-themed songs by Nicki Minaj, Brianna Perry and Chrisette Michelle, at least. But “Marilyn Monroe” isn’t really about Marilyn Monroe: it’s about all the ladies who are not Marilyn Monroe, but that’s OK, Pharrell doesn’t judge. This concept both lets Pharrell say “girl” (and G I R L) a lot, and lets him get a lot of girls into the video (most of whom look nothing like Marilyn Monroe), in a lot of settings and a lot of outfits, runway to risqué.

The video, directed by Luis Cervero, wisely doesn’t try to outdo the 24-hour-long shenanigans of the “Happy” video, opting instead for the playfully raunchy low-concept vibe of “Blurred Lines,” back when all anyone was saying about that clip was that it was “playfully raunchy.” (Put another way: If “Happy” was directed to launch a thousand GIFs, “Marilyn Monroe” was directed to launch a thousand well-timed screencaps. Of girls.) It’s the kind of video where large portions are set on a goofy lavender moonscape, where Pharrell’s hats practically get a feature credit, and where Kelly Osbourne interrupts the proceedings from nowhere, like she does on the track, to go on about the groove and disappear. Like G I R L, it knows that pop ubiquity should never be taken too seriously.

Watch the video above.