Doug Spice / Psychic Bunny : Kinetica

Jack Daniel Stanley said:
I'm all for film acting being small but he neither changed in a way that suggested he was in the zone or that he knew the product. If his whole demeanor changed and he became curious or drawn to the machine in a way that would have been entirely inappropropriate "huh ... what's this?" while zombies were chasing you then that would clearly say "in the kinetica zone". The scoring you have supports this but it is too low in the mix I think. Cranking the mystical / "I'm in awe" scoring up would really support the in the zone idea.
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I completely agree. It didn't really seem as though the energy drink did anything for the man running from the zombies. I wish he was worn out at the beginning, then revitalized from Kinetica drink.

What you call minor, to me, undermines the ad. This was a problem for me in many of the ads, not just this one. As impressive as some may be technically, I'd much rather buy a lower quality ad that sells the product.
 
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Technically this is one of the top contenders for me. Cinematography, editing, music, color grading, integration of VFX, those were all top notch.
However, like others, I think the ending and selling of the product could be more effective.

CarlSpackler said:
It didn't really seem as though the energy drink did anything for the man running from the zombies. I wish he was worn out at the beginning, then revitalized from Kinetica drink.
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This I exactly what bothers me. We don't see anything change for the person as he drinks Kinetica, he just takes a subtle look back and continues to run away. You should see more of his exhaustion in the beginning and after the drinking he should look completely refreshed and ready to go on. There should be some more emphasis on what the product really does for him so that the viewer knows why to buy the drink.
 
I wish I was onboard with everyone else and liked Zombies. That's probably why I can't get into this ad. That opening shot with the fake smoke are fire threw me out of this one. Color grading was awesome and I liked the music. The makeup was good too.
 
Wow, thanks everyone! Glad everyone seems to like it. We did put a lot of hard work into it, and I'd especially like to thank the entire crew and cast for their efforts, which were done pretty bare-bones.

I'm pretty proud of this, but that doesn't mean I think it's perfection. Some of your criticisms are spot-on. Several of you have mentioned the editing and the music. I will make two excuses here and then be done with it!

1) I edited the damn thing myself. I hate editing. I don't think I'm a particularly good editor, and I don't like doing it. So there you have it.

2) I left town on the 24th of July and have been on the road for the past 9 days, shooting another project. Unfortunately it turns out this is not the best way to work with a composer! I think Austin did great work, but was crippled by how difficult it was for me to review his work and communicate. Without twelve hours on the road every day, I'm sure it would have been far better. But hey, that's how these things go. Excuses don't mean anything.

I want to address a couple specific comments:

JOE BLO said:
My only problem was that he was being chased and they were right behind him and then he has plenty of time to look at the machine, order a drink , and drink it. I wish he had outfoxed them momentarily, or hopped a fence that they couldn't climb, something that would give him a window of time to drink. Then they could bust through the fence, or re find him, and the chase continues.
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I tried to do this. We even tried to shoot a fence jumping. But there was no way to fit it into the edit, and ultimately "commercial logic" prevailed: a commercial can work as a sketch in a way that a narrative film cannot. As long as the dots are there, you have to be able to expect the audience to connect them into a line. I much preferred having the slower moments of pacing the discovery than of actually seeing him lose his pursuers.

Jason Ramsey said:
The only thing I would say is that you had a bit of a consistency problem revolving around the burning car. You see it off behind in the distance, and then you see it closer two times after that. The only reason I noticed it is b/c your effects were subtle and I wanted to go back and have a closer look at the burning car.
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Not true! Trust me. There are actually TWO burning cars. I know because I did a first version in which I attempted to get away without having the flames and smoke in one of the shots. Then, every time I watched it, it drove me crazy, so I stayed up another 4 hours and made sure it was all right. There is a bit of a time jump in the editing, but I assure you there's no lack of continuity in the setting.

Solomon Chase said:
So you forklifted in a vending machine?!
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Not quite. We loaded the machine in and set it up by hand, with about 5 or 6 people. Then, by the time we wrapped production, we no longer had the manpower to remove it! Fortunately, a guy at a warehouse next door grabbed a forklift and helped us load it back on the truck... but standing up! I've never had a more terrifying car ride in my life, than driving this thing back to our office. Shooting a movie about revolutionary war in Mexico was 100% less dangerous than hauling this machine around. At one point I was certain someone was about to get seriously hurt, or the truck destroyed. Fortunately we worked it out.

Ironically, after all that, the wide shot where you first see the machine is CG. That was a pick-up shot because we ran out of light, and we no longer had the machine, so I painted it back into the shot by hand!


Finally, about the performance: I didn't want to try anything ham-handed, and stayed far away from that territory. I hate commercials where the product gives the user cheesy super-powers, and I couldn't see any reason for our runner to become magically happy in this scenario. Maybe I played it too far in the opposite direction, I don't know. It doesn't bother me, really.


Thanks again to everyone who watched it! It was fun!
 
I wasn't so much talking about needing to see him running with smoke coming off his heals, I was more talking about a change when he saw the vending machine, either mesmerization or relief, that would have shown he was drawn into it and motivated the change in pace / pause.

But as you've just explained it was not conceived / shot that way and it is perhaps the lesser of two evils than having the other shot in there of them trying to get through the fence for the pacing cutting reasons you stated.

I do think that while you didn't need to show him with smoke coming off his feet a "no problem" knowing smile or take from him at the end vs the "here we go again" take would have gone far to suggest that the sports drink really gave him the upperhand in an almost magical though uncheesy way.

But glad you are proud of it as it is great work, a real standout.
 
Impressive. Funny how we take this stuff for granted. I loved it.

/The only thing I can think of is maybe adding some (post) camera shake in shots 1 & 4. The cam is a bit static there and it would add some excitement.
 
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dougspice said:
I hate commercials where the product gives the user cheesy super-powers...
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Hey Doug, guess you didn't vote for ours then, eh?:Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)

Obviously pro caliber. I felt like I was watching a prime-time network ad. I saw the word cliche used in an earlier post but I think that's a bit strong. I think it's more like an old formula that still works.

Great entry. Yours was one I voted for. :beer:
 
TowerFan said:
Hey Doug, guess you didn't vote for ours then, eh?
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Well yours isn't really the same thing, since the product IS supposed to give you super-powers. But you know what I mean... "Eat this delicious soup, you'll shoot lasers out of your eyes!" Actually, that sounds like a pretty awesome commercial. Hmm. I've got some calls to make.

Thanks for the kind words, guys!
 
This one was really fun to watch, very professional and most important, very entertaining, the old zombie formula seems to work just fine.

I still need to watch the other entries but this one for now is my number 1. congrats!

gv.
 
Very cool Doug! I really liked the color tone of this ad. The machine was very impressive too. I thought your concept was great. It reminded me of an ad that would have been on back in the 80's when Michael Jackson's Thriller was the hip thing.

great work!
 
hows it going. i shot this ad for doug, had a blast doing it. day 1 was tough because the sunset faster than we anticipated to we had to do a day of pickups, which i offered to doug ever so genouresly because i believed in the spot. we got it done. it was just tough pulling focus and operating on some of those complex shots. we better get a focus puller next time, or iam walking :)

but iam glad you guys like it.
 
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