Here’s a round-up of the videos I featured on the Twitter feed this last week.
Trumpet - Simplifying Summer - Togs or Undies?: Trumpet, an Australian ice cream company explores the moment when “togs” (speedos) switch from being a swimsuit to underwear in everyday life.
Discovery Channel - I Love the World: A fun, well-done ad that simultaneously makes you smile in fascination and joy at the world we live in and want to watch more Discovery Channel.
National Australia Bank - Climb Every Mountain: A man faces challenges and pursues his dreams while everyone around him sings an inspirational, semi-operatic score.
Nike - Defy: A beautiful, visually poetic piece of athletes going airborne.
Apple - Think Different: This is one of my favorite ads of all time. On the surface it has nothing to do with computers, but it works on a deeper level to connect emotionally with the viewer and to tie that emotional connection to Apple. The “Think Different” campaign is considered to be the marketing campaign that helped save Apple and restored it’s reputation in the late 90’s.
One of the first special effects I ever did when I started making videos was to shoot a sequence of two guys fighting with wood lightsabers and then frame-by-frame add in the glowing blade. I’ve done it a couple of other times since then and it never ceases to be cool. Even if it’s just you and a couple of friends beating each other with sticks, once you add in the lightsaber effect, it becomes cool.
That being said, there’s a really fun collection of 10 great lightsaber mash-ups in which people have added lightsabers into movies like Lord of the Rings, 300, The Princess Bride, and more over at Videogum. Below is a clip someone put together from Pirates of the Caribbean. Click here for the full list.
This last week I focused on advertisements for candy. It seems to me that candy commercials have, of late, become more and more quirky, odd, and random. I don’t know if they’re trying to reach for a different, perhaps slightly older and more ironic market (maybe assuming that younger kids are going to eat candy regardless); or if they’re trying to create commercials that become a little more buzz-worthy and viral online. Either way, there has been some strange and creative ads coming out recently. Here are a few of them.
Skittles - Touch: A slightly tragic ad of a man who has the power to turn everything he touches to Skittles.
Starburst - Berries and Cream: Oh the “Little Lad Dance” - brilliant and odd. If you want to learn how to do it, click here.
Skittles - Long Beard: This one is so weird and slightly disturbing - and yet it still makes me laugh.
Skittles - Singing Rabbit: Another somewhat tragic story from Skittles. This time it’s about the wisdom in trading your Skittles for a singing rabbit.
Snickers - Get Some Nuts!: How can you go wrong with Mr. T in a tank barking lines like, “If I ever catch you actin’ like a crazy fool again, you’re gonna meet my friend Pain!”? You can’t.
Last week I featured four Sony Bravia ads and an ad for Guinness (which was somewhat related). The Sony Bravia “Colour Like No Other” campaign has been absolutely remarkable. From the first in the series, “Balls”, the campaign has set itself apart by creating visually captivating ads that don’t rely on computer-generated special effects. In fact several of them have making-of featurettes that show off all that went into pulling off the incredible visuals.
Sony Bravia - Balls: This ad has won numerous awards and I’m stoked to have found the longer version to show you here. I think I’ve watched it dozens of times, but every single time I get sucked into the beautiful interplay between the music and the visuals. It’s amazing to watch 250,000 bouncy balls flying down the streets of San Francisco. If you’re interested the making-of can be found here.
Sony Bravia - Paint: It’s like a fireworks show with paint. It manages to follow up the “Balls” ad while remaining completely it’s own entity (not an easy feat). The making-of can be found here.
Sony Bravia - Bunnies: This is a remarkable and well-executed use of stop-motion animation. When I first saw this ad, I thought that parts, if not most, of the animation was computer generated and then placed into stop-motion footage because I thought, “No way they were able to do this in reality”. But after watching the making-of teaser, I realized the only major thing they messed with in post was to remove the braces holding the jumping bunnies in the air.
Sony Bravia - Pyramid: This is one that hasn’t appeared on the European Bravia site (which is where the others were featured) and from what I’ve read, might be exclusively for the Egypt market. Either way, it’s still fun and continues the feel of the campaign well.
Guinness - Tipping Point: From the same director who created the Sony Bravia “Balls” ad, comes this fantastic ad featuring a large, village-wide domino-effect chain reaction.
Here’s a couple more that I featured at the beginning of this week (and then I left town and slacked on putting up any more for the week). They continue in the Rube Goldberg Machine-esque theme of the Guinness ad.
Honda - Cog: A brilliantly amazing ad that took 605 takes to get right.
Brylcreem - Effortless: I’m in awe of the timing, skill, and choreography that went into producing this ad. You can watch them make it here.
Here’s film #5 of the 12 Films in 12 Months. It’s my film for May, “I Don’t Want To Live On The Moon”. Enjoy.
Production Credits:
Song Performed by Sherman Thomas
Directed by Ian Robertson
Production Crew:
Lori Gossett - Playback Operator
Christina Robertson - Lighting Operator
This film has definitely been the most technically complex of the films that I’ve made for this project so far. It is also significantly different in terms of how I’m creating and telling the story visually. I’m using everything from motion graphics to composited green screen footage to live performance mixed with projected images and so on. Whereas the other films have all been shot over the course of a day, this one took two days of shooting a week apart to get all the footage I needed.
The first day was entirely shot against a green screen. I was somewhat nervous going into this shoot. I’ve worked with green screens in the past and I’ve never had great luck getting a really good key from them (for the not-so-tech-minded, a “key” is used to separate the subject from the background - in this case, green - and replace it with a different background). The critical element when shooting against a green screen is getting even light across the green. If the background is lighter in one place and darker in another, it gets really hard to pull a good key without loosing pieces of the subject as well. It took about an hour and a half or so to get the lights set up and positioned well; but when it was all done, I’m happy to say that I ended up with a pretty well-lit green screen. I was stoked.
We spent a couple hours shooting against the green and got a good batch of footage. I then spent the next week working with the footage in preparation for the second shoot. The second day of shooting consisted of one more green screen shot and then the musical performance section of the video. I set Sherman Thomas (the artist performing the song in the video) up in front a plain, white wall in my living room and aimed a projector at him. All of the motion graphic and compositing work I had been doing over the last week was run through the projector as he performed. We also had a pair of lights focused on him and run through a dimmer pack and control board so we could bring him in and out of the projected image by brightening and dimming the lights. Visually, I’m really pleased with how it all turned out. I think this is going to be a fun video.
I shot a few pictures over the course of the two days of filming and put them up on Flickr here.
I realize that we are well into June (by 4 days even) and there’s still no sign of Film #5 from May. My goal is to have it up by Sunday, but in the meantime let me fill you in on some of what’s been going on with the production.
Since I’m doing a music video this month, I decided to venture out of shooting a straight narrative and do some work with motion graphics and compositing, as well as (I hope) a fun approach to how we’ve incorporated it into the performance of the song itself. The song is performed by a friend of mine named Sherman Thomas. We got together a couple of weeks ago and did the first round of shooting entirely against a green screen. I then spent a good chunk of last week working with the green screen footage to do a bunch of compositing and motion graphic work for the verses and choruses of the song. Then this last Sunday, we got together again and did the second round of shooting to incorporate some of the motion graphics and pull together the final look of the video.
So now I’m working on a little more compositing work for the bridge of the song as well as syncing and color-correcting the footage to get the final music video. I’m excited for how it’s coming together.
This last week, I continued the music video theme with a selection of videos from director, Spike Jonze. He’s another great music video director featured in the Directors Label DVD collection. In fact, all five of these videos can be found on his Directors Label DVD. Enjoy.
Beastie Boys - Sabotage: Such a fun video. It’s a great take-off/homage to the old cop shows of the 70’s and 80’s.
Wax - California: A mesmerizing slow-motion single-shot of a man running through the streets on fire.
Weezer - Buddy Holly: The first single off of Weezer’s self-titled “blue” album, this clever video seamlessly combines footage of the band and the TV show “Happy Days” to wonderful effect.
Bjork - It’s Oh So Quiet: I love the fun and whimsy in this video. There’s a wonderful play between the quiet, soft verses and the loud, musical dance-number chorus that only gets better when you add the video to it.
Fatboy Slim - Weapon of Choice: Who’s idea was it to feature Christopher Walken solo in a dance number for an entire music video? Brilliant.
I just finished my second day of shooting for Film #5. The first shoot day was last Sunday and primarily consisted of shooting against a green screen. I was able to get a hold of some green screen fabric and some good lights, and so we spent around three hours shooting different scenes against green in my living room. Since then, I’ve spent what time I’ve had this last week doing all sorts of compositing and motion graphic work to get ready for the shoot today. Everything is turning out really good. I’m excited for this one. It’s definitely different then the other films I’ve produced this year in that it’s not a straight narrative and it’s involving a ton of post-production work. But so far, so good. I can’t wait to get it all finished.
