It’s Friday, but don’t let that fool you for a second into thinking that the Mavericks here at Reel Sweet Vids aren’t working just as hard to bring you the video you need.
Maverick!
Maverick!
Maverick!
Normally I’d say something about what Mavericks Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein are for taking time away from their ad agency (Goodby, Silverstein & Partners) to make this video, but let me give you the Straight Talk instead. This is just one of so many videos this election season that people from all walks of life have taken time to make supporting their candidate. I think that says something about the passion involved on both sides during this election. I also think that underscores why it’s so important to vote this year. As a half man half robot blogging machine, Blogtron5000 isn’t eligible to vote, but chances are you can, and should, because it will effect you in the next four years.
People naturally gravitate towards things that are excellent in quality or provide an excellent value. On the web, where free content is king, you have to be good to get noticed. And that’s exactly what this video is, good frickin’ awesome. Amazing stop motion work from Carlos Lascano that is not only beautiful to watch, but also emotionally compelling. As we’ve said before, connecting on an emotional level is the hardest thing to do. Music by the awe inspiring Sigur Ros (song: Hoppipolla) whom I recently had the opportunity to see in concert. Just a perfect combination for this piece. See the behind the scenes shots on how all of this was done stop motion style (yes, everything) at Carlos’ site. Take a look:
It’s a hot topic these days, but why aren’t more businesses making use of it? Sure, a lot of big companies have blogs and facebook pages, and myspace pages, and twitter feeds and so on and so forth, but surely they can’t prove it actually creates value for them, right?
Wrong.
Companies like Comcast, Dell and Kodak are using twitter to communicate directly with customers to solve their problems. Companies like Southwest, Microsoft and Apple are leveraging Facebook pages to help communicate with their fanbase about deals and new products. Naturally, one has to wonder when this sort of thinking will trickle down to the small business level. And who will be there to guide them through the process.
Small business might not be able to afford (or have the staff) to man all the fronts of the social media landscape, but perhaps they can see what tactics best leverage their business or best suit their customers. Just what are people doing online these days, here’s a slide from the presentation “What is social media and why should I care?” by David Griner, a social media expert from Luckie & Co. advertising agency and author of The Social Path blog.
Who's watching your videos?
The businesses best suited for success in the future will be the ones that embrace the way communicaiton will happen in the future today. Find out how Reel Motion Media can get your business moving at the speed of social media today.
Just when you think you’ve seen everything… you get on the internet for about five seconds and see something completely new. Kung-fu Election is basically Mortal Kombat meets the 2008 candidates. It’s also totally awesome and actually pretty hard (Palin’s hockey stick is brutal!) The detail and depth of this game is really taken to another level. And load times? Almost non-existent, which is impressive for such a detail rich game environment. Some serious time and effort was put into this and that pays off when visitors spend serious time on the site. Surprisingly (and thankfully) I’m not seeing a clear “sponsor”, although the Comedy Central Indecision 2008 logo is in the upper right hand corner and there is a banner ad at the top of the page.
McCain has never looked better.
I think the biggest thing this underscores is the need to constantly be evolving in your content. If you want your company / cause to catch the attention of the public you can’t do it in the old ways. A billboard and an ad in the newspaper aren’t going to cut it anymore, even for local businesses. You need a web presence (not just a site, but a presence) and it needs to be interactive. Those B&W newspaper ads you’ve been running for years aren’t going to cut it either (but your marketing company probably already told you that. What? They don’t measure effectiveness?) Today’s social environment requires solutions in mediums like video, interactive web and social media. Are you on the offensive or defensive when it comes to growing your business?
Every commercial / film / video worth its weight in pixels tries to make an emotional “connection” with those who view it.
Few do though.
Why is it so hard? That’s the $64,000 question.
I think sometimes people just try too hard. They try to get inside the head of their subject and overthink the problem. It’s easy to get caught up in all the facts you’re trying to get across or the cool new equipment the director wants to try out or the awesome effects the editor wants to apply in post.
Sometimes the hardest part is keeping it simple.
That’s what this Nike Football (silly Americans, not that kind of football) ad does so well. It keeps it simple. Want to get inside a player’s head? Act as if the camera was the players head. Give the audience a front row seat in the player’s head, literally. Of course, having Guy Ritchie direct the spot also helps to make it great, but with a concept this simple and brilliant even I could make a kick-ass spot. Ok, maybe not me, but I bet the guys over at Reel Motion Video could.
When two geniuses get together something good often happens. Charlie Kaufman joins forces with Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Synecdoche NY (that’s si-nek-duh-kee, hear it pronounced here) which is written and directed by Kaufman. The story is just as bizarre and brilliant as Kaufman’s past masterpieces (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) as Hoffman plays Caden, a playwright who’s latest work is done in a full size mock-up of NY inside a warehouse in NY. I started to paraphrase the plot, but there’s just too much going on here. Here’s how IMDB describes it:
Theater director Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is mounting a new play. Fresh off of a successful production of Death of a Salesman, he has traded in the suburban blue-hairs and regional theater of Schenectady for the cultured audiences and bright footlights of Broadway. Armed with a MacArthur grant and determined to create a piece of brutal realism and honesty, something into which he can put his whole self, he gathers an ensemble cast into a warehouse in Manhattan’s theater district. He directs them in a celebration of the mundane, instructing each to live out their constructed lives in a small mockup of the city outside. As the city inside the warehouse grows, Caden’s own life veers wildly off the tracks…
…As the years rapidly pass, Caden buries himself deeper into his masterpiece. Populating the cast and crew with doppelgangers, he steadily blurs the line between the world of the play and that of his own deteriorating reality.
I love the fact that Synecdoche is not all that far off from the real city of Schenectady, of which both are destined to forever be mis-pronounced.
One thing for sure, my ass will be in a seat the first day this thing hits a theater near me, it opens in LA and NYC October 24th.
OK. Bill Maher gets to hang out at the Playboy Mansion 4 nights a week and openly talk about his habitual, I mean medicinal (he does live in CA) , weed consumption. I’m sarcastic, short and Jewish. I should’ve been a comedian political analyst. Bill Maher has really stepped up here to make it happen for an individual who is definitlely kind of caught in a little pickle. Click HERE to see his exemplary philanthropy.
