Commercials

Ok, my dumb advertisement of the week.  I'm seeing an ad for FinallyFast.com show up again and again on cable channels.  They promise to get your computer running fast again by removing spyware and all those nasty little things that can slow down a computer on the internet.

A disclaimer on screen points out this only works on PC Computers.  (this is funny too, but more on that in a moment).  So why is this ad so dumb?  They prominently feature an iMac an an iBook.  Yes, an iBook.   In fact, the computer shown more than any other is the iMac.   

These Macs are not the newer Intel versions so you could make the argument, "Well you can run Windows on those machines." Nope, these are classic PowerPC computers that are relegated to the Mac OS only.  Sorry, this is just a dumb, bonehead, lazy move by the production company and the client to show two computers that can't even be used by the product that is being advertised.

Ok so first you have to win some festival awards or at least be an official selection. Then you have to be on Windows. That said here's a very cool application that will make the creation of festival laurels for your movie's poster, DVD box, etc very simple.

EZLeaves is a FREE application that allows to quickly and easily generate custom festival laurel leave images. Features include:

• Choose from four different laurel leave styles
• Use any system-defined font
• Export to JPG or BMP
• Define up to 10 lines of custom text
• Full control over the height and font settings of each
  line, or you can use one font and color for all lines

EZLeaves runs on Windows and requires at least 1024x768 desktop resolution. For more information, visit this site:

So there's been a lot of talk on the forums lately about Magic Bullet Looks now being available for use in editing systems and I'm even going to try it out shortly myself. But for those of you with Final Cut Studio 2, keep in mind you have probably the most powerful color grading software available for desktop computers in Color just sitting there. Yeah it's not perfect, there are some issues to work around, but I have to admit, even with the issues, the end results are nothing short of stunning.

Hi all,

At long last, my traning DVD for Apple's Color is now taking orders!  If you've been staring at this incredible color grading software for a while, it's time to start using it!  "Stop Staring, Start Grading with Apple Color" is what you need to get going.

Here's the sales page with all the details and an incredibly cool trailer.   It's my absolute pleasure to bring this title to you guys!

http://library.creativecow.net/articles/biscardi_walter/stopstaring.php 

Enjoy! 

This is Part 2 of a 4 Part series on Starting and Running your own business in the creative industry. In Part 1 of this series, I posed the question, “Are You Ready?” A link to Part 1 is at the end of this article in case you missed it. If you’ve thought long and hard on this and your answer is “Yes,” then let’s proceed with Part 2 of this 4-part trilogy. Here we’ll explore a lot of questions on setting up your company and getting ready to open those doors!

Hi everyone - I've been pretty silent for the last few months because I've been hard at work on a new Creative Cow Master Series DVD - "Internet Killed the Video Star: A guide to Creating Video for the Web." The 4.5 hour DVD will be available very shortly. Feel free to spread the word.

Here's the basic description of the DVD:

...who gets really bugged by typo's in advertising?

I'm thinking specifically about a certain little ad window that has been on the Cow for months. In fact as i type this - its right next to my text entry window.

I can't comment on the product, it looks pretty good but its winding me up with its blatantly incorrect spelling! If you insist on having a typo - please don't flash it to attract my attention

Fibremax / Promax - please take note....simultaneously has two l's. Not one.

Talking to a fellow media professional recently, and they commented that the type of art they prefer to do now is simply for artistic expression rather than for communication. And that got me thinking about what the role of art in our (often) very utilitarian profession is and should be. I guess I default towards art only being a worthwhile investment when it clearly communicates. And yet I'm beginning to feel that there may be value to self-expression that doesn't have as its primary goal communication.

I have been thinking about this for a couple of years.

My background is over ten years of still photography experience and only a couple in video/multimedia.

Watch this.When you first watch through the commercial, you hardly notice the faces, but on the second run, watch differently. Pause on the clearly seen face shots and identify whether the lighting is hard, soft, motivated, unmotivated, stylistic or natural. It's amazing how a light's color and texture can so tranform the feel of a scene.

It's not even a background, really. It's pretty explicitly the absence of a background. Even lighting, no shadows, almost adrift. Not in a bad way. Stephen Smith did a great job of covering this in the May-June issue of Creative COW Magazine, including why it's best to use chroma keys to acheive the look.

The most frequent place you're seeing it these days is the "I'm a Mac" ads. (Check the end of this entry for a great variation.) If you cast your mind back a little further, you might recall the same look in the Apple "switch" campaign. As an Oscar-maniac, I hope you saw the short film with this look in the 2006 Academy Awards show, one of the highlights of what I thought was the best Oscarcast in years.

...and I hate cleaning up afterwards. Just thinking about the massive clean-up effort after this Sony Bravia Commercial makes me tired.
But all that being said, when you see an amazingly executed commercial, do you ever wonder how they did it? Take a look at this behind the scenes short and you'll discover how.