foreign — » Ad Nauseam

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-PKIvKltDU&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2F2009%2F06%2F13%2Firan-demonstrations-viole_n_215189.html&feature=player_embedded] A friend sent me this (thanks, Nick). Having worked on foreign elections, I found it interesting for its sophistication -- both in message and style. For a place that stands with the "axis of evil", those are some progressive issues being tossed about. There's something that feels very western about the ad. The music, for instance, sounds like something from an Obama video.

The video style, as far as I know, was first used in this Bob Dylan video. I think I first saw it when I was kid in this Inxs video -- which I thought was wicked cool (and didn't realize it was a homage). You can see a list of other imitations here.

Has it been done before? I guess, but its done well here, and I think it works. This spot is emotional. The shots are really vivid, and it's hard to shoot wide like that. Great choice of backgrounds.

A teacher of mine at film school (not Boris this time) told us, "If you see something you like in a movie or commercial, steal it." The point wasn't to just copy something, but by taking an element from something else, you can make it your own.

I heard an interesting interview with Steven Soderbergh on one of my favorite podcasts, Filmspotting. Soderbergh was saying there are two kinds of creativity -- there's making things up from scratch, being original, and then there's taking something you've seen or heard, and putting a new spin on it. Both are equally valid. (He put himself in that second group.)

This is a look I'm putting into my itunes library to remember to use someday. If it's ok for Steven Soderbergh to do it, I can, too.