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Superbowl Ads

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

The Super Bowl happened about a week ago and I still can't stop thinking about a few of their ads. Here were my three favorite ads played at this years super bowl.

1. Chrysler's Half Time Comercial


Chrysler took a big risk running this ad. Most commercials are 30 or 60 seconds, but this commercial was two minutes long. Even though it was two times longer than commercials it was very very well done and impressed me.

2. Chevy Sonic

Who does not like to see a car do a kickflip, bungee jump, make a music video, or parachute? I know I do. The thing that I like so much about this commercial is that it is in my opinion the best multi media ad campaign. Not only was it aired on TV but the TV ad sent you to watch more online. The commercial almost was more promoting you watch the videos online than it was the Chevy Sonic. How effective were the videos online? The music video that OK GO did while driving the Sonic has over 13 millon views after being online for 10 days - not to bad.

3. Budlight/Shazam/Half Time Show

When I first saw this ad I was confused on what I was trying to be sold. Like I said a while ago about joint advertising - this was a good example. It was a bud light commercial with Shazzam telling you about the half time show with LMFAO - or maybe it was a commercial by LMFAO telling you to watch the half time show and shazzam it at the same time. Or maybe it was a shazzam commercial with LMFAO and they were obligated to mention bud light? Who knows - but there were three things advertised in only the space of 30 seconds.

Sundnace 2012 - Part 2

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

So Sundance was a pretty awesome experience, I can't wait to go next year. The best part about the event was that everyone was involved in making it a great experience for everybody. It wasn't just a festival for film making, it was a festival for the arts. There were a lot of art galleries, photo galleries, and other creative outlets at Park City that added to the atmosphere of the event. I was able to find two original Andy Warhol paintings for sale (about $75,000 each).

The night I saw this was also the same night that I saw California Solo. This was a film about an ex brit-pop star who now works on an organic farm in California. Because of a DUI he faces deportation.

Afterwards I was able to talk to the director about the way that they filmed the entire film. The big thing that I noticed was the consistent shallow depth of field in the film. I was amazed because the focus puller did a good job keeping everything in focus.

What the director told me was that he wanted the film to be from the main characters perspective the whole time. He didn't want to go the route of other directors and shoot from over his shoulder. So he decided to stay with keeping him in focus and everything around him out of focus.

The other thing we talked about was filming on the RED M1 instead of film. He told me that he chose to shoot digital instead of film because of budget reasons. However he explained that he has worked with film before on his last film and would not go back to using film unless he has a 100 million dollar budget.

I feel like that is going to be the attitude of film making in the future, an increased pull towards shooing digital and not on film. Digital is a lot cheaper than film and with new cameras like the RED Epic, Arri Alexa, and Canon C300 digital quality is getting to look pretty good.

Sundance 2012 - Part 1

Friday, February 3, 2012

Last weekend I was able to do something that I have always wanted to do - attend the Sundance Film Festival. It was a really interesting experience and I had a good time going there and being surrounded by so many other people there that loved filmmaking as much as me, or probably even more so.

My favorite part about the experience was the Q & A with the directors about their films. The first film that I saw was the preimier for the movie Predisposed. I kind of liked it and gave it a 6.8 out of 10, but I'm not here to review the movie. I am here to talk about the Q & A session with the writer and Director of the film.

The question that I asked was how they filmed the argument scenes (which there were a lot of and usually involved three or more people). They explained that although it was scripted out they allowed for the actors to improvise and say their own words based on what concept needed to be said. I think that shows how great the actors are because it is a difficult task to improvise an argument, especially when it involves five people in a car.

Another thing I learned was the process this movie took to become made. Before it was a feature film it was a short film made in 2008. Twelve years before it premiered it became an idea of the writer and director of the film. A long time indeed for a film to be made.

The Future of Advertising?



I just saw this posted on a friend's facebook. What starts out as a commercial for bounce dryer sheets turns into a repeat of Old Spice's notorious ads. Funny as always Old Spice did do something new - an advertisement within an advertisement. Even though it was used as a joke may be the future of advertisement.

Collaboration is something I see all the time on blogs and YouTube channels so it wouldn't surprise me if more people went the way of Old Spice and worked with other companies with their advertisements. The path of going with interrupting peoples ads might only have Old Spice walking down it but I can see other ways that people use collaborated advertising:

1. Cereal Commercials
You need to use milk in that ad - will a milk company pay to be the milk used?

2. Any commercial filmed in a kitchen
Whenever a mom opens a cupboard to take out a paper towel to clean the mess a kid made who would pay to be the food in that cupboard.

3. Cell Phones
If you are a cell phone company why not pay to have your new cell phone be the one used by the actors in the commercial

4. Retail stores and Credit Cards
Credit Card companies are always showing people buy things at stores. How about Old Navy fronts part of the advertising cost to have them use the credit card at their store.

5. Beverages of any sort
I have this commercial where people are going on vacation to advertise online hotel deals. Guess what they drink during the entire commercial of their vacation. Your product!

These are just some examples and I am sure that more and more can be done.
So why do I think that this is going to happen? Well the average commercial used to be a minute. Then it got cut down to 30 seconds. Now we are seeing 15 second commercials. We might be able to get a commercial down to seven seconds.

The more and more media is competing for our attention shorter commercials become impractical. However adding spots in commercials allows for us to see the brand more and more without it being forced at us.

With the Super Bowl coming soon maybe we will see more ads like these. If not - I am going to watch the Old Spice commercials again.

Getting started as a blogger - Part 1

Everybody out there with a blog wants to drive more traffic to it. Some have the money to pay for it through advertising, others are able to do it through their vast array of social networks, and others can do it because they have been doing it forever.
For those starting out (and primarily with blogs) these are all imposible because:

1. We don't have money to spend on advertising besides the $75 credit we got for free from google adwords
2. Our social media circle consists of our friends, co-workers, and that random 60-year-old guy from Italy who is following us on Twitter
3.We have just started and barely have any content

So what are begging bloggers to do?

Find your niche
The purpose of finding a niche is to find viewers who want to and will come back to your site. Lets say that you have a blog on everything and anything. I get linked there because I am looking fora great peanut butter cheesecake recipe that you posted. I get the recipe and take a look around your site for a second. You have posts about arts and crafts, the recent Republican debate, and weather patterns in Nigeria. I'm only going to come back if I loose the recipe.
If however you are more focused on just food (like Our Best Bites does) I will be coming back to look for more recipes and keeping up to date with your new posts.
Your niche can be as specific as only soup recipes or a little bit broader as a thing like new technology, social media, and film making (like me)
Their are advantages and disadvantages to specific niches and broad niches.
For the soup blogger they will only get people specifically looking for soup recipes. However because that is all they do they are more likely to be found by people looking for soup recipes than if they did all sorts of cooking.
For someone like me I will get a wide array of people coming here because of the wider range of topics. Usually people interested in film making will be interested in new technology and media trends. However people looking to follow filmmakers will probably choose to follow Philip Bloom closer than me (and I don't blame them).
So - choose your niche and market towards them. Remember - it is better that your blog is read entirely by 10,000 people than briefly seen by 1,000,000 people.

 
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