I am just coming out of a coma inspired by some Pacifico beer and the new, highly-touted Domino's pizza - which tastes a bit more like Little Ceasar's and has enough grease and fat to make Lance Armstrong lethargic, regardless of the beer he drinks.
The game was f'n great. What a decade this has been for Superbowls, starting way back in 2000 with Rams-Titans. I mean, they haven't all been close (coughBears) but we've had some pretty awesome finishes in the last ten years. Keep up the good work NFL, and we'll continue to overlook the widespread gambling and the long-term physical consequences to ex-players!
Of course, what a lot of Los Angelenos (RE: people who could care less about football) will be discussing tomorrow are the commercials. This year's crop was, in my opinion, mostly disappointing. I thought that the "Bud Light Auto-tune one" was the best, with a few others that were decent. In my eyes, however, nothing will ever compare to the Budweiser Lizards of '97.
That ad campaign was awesome for so many reasons, and really the number one reason was that it actually told a story. It was also great because it felt special, like these commercial could only exist during the Superbowl. I like commercials that have that "big" feeling to them, that make them stand out from the junk that usually clogs up my TV viewing experience.
Top-shelf celebrities, blockbuster-scale spectacle, and lots of laughs are what make up the best ads for the Big Game. Another commercial from my youth that comes to mind is the amazingly inappropriate Pepsi ad with Britney Spears and Bob Dole. I also always thought the Career Builder monkey ads were great: I mean they're monkeys! Working in an office!
Oh well, maybe we'll have a better couple next year. I guess the only way to really get anything done right is to do it yourself.
Which reminds me, I've been really thrilled with the response to the Coke commercial. Gotten a lot of great compliments and I want to thank everyone who watched it and gave feedback. At the end of the day, just getting people to watch your stuff is the best thrill there is. Of course, in a CLOSE second would be winning the grand prize, but we're still a few weeks away from finding out about that.
Its been a real thrill and I'm very proud of all the USC Coke ads. I've mentioned this before, but its still pretty amazing, that out of the ten finalists, SEVEN are USC projects. I have no idea where the other three came from, though I think one is UCLA. No matter how it all turns out, I'm pretty sure that the final winner will be Trojan.
Anyway, just wanted to share a few more pictures, especially ones of El Toro Marine base in Irvine, CA where we shot for two of the days.
This first one is our wrap photo, from when we finished on Sunday. Its funny because I actually bought champagne to celebrate but, since the last shot was that great shot of the ice-cold Coca-Cola bottles in the cooler, once we finished everyone just instinctively grabbed a Coke and I realized that was the perfect celebratory beverage for our production. (I ended up giving the champagne to some other friends later that evening who were celebrating the screening of films they had worked on all semester. We also then participated in a tradition that I don't think I have mentioned on this blog yet but will....someday)
Anyway, enjoy these pics from El Toro (click on 'em to view the full-size version):
Most of these pics are courtesy of our talented and funny dolly-grip. I started with a picture of the crew again, because I cannot emphasize enough how fantastic everyone was. Any compliments concerning the professional look of the commercial is all because of everyone who worked on the project.
Working with everyone at El Toro was especially fun because there is a slight military mentality to the way a set is run and when we had to hustle to get a shot off before the sun went behind the clouds it was so cool to see everyone rush to their posts so we could go in time. There are few things as cool as barking out orders to a team of people in a giant aircraft hanger, especially over walkie-talkies.
Having such a big crew was great but also posed challenges. Parking, at least for our first day at the theater in Long Beach, was tricky. The base was great because, as you can gather from the pics, there was ample parking (day or night!).
Also, anytime you have people working on a shoot you need to feed them, and when you have a lot of people you need to feed ALL of them. For one of the days, we were given a VERY VERY VERY generous donation from Le Grand Orange restaurant in Santa Monica. Le Grande Orange is actually part owned by the Melman brothers, sons of Richard Melman - founder of Lettuce Entertain You Inc. I had been to Le Grande Orange before for a Chicago-Hollywood party and knew they were pro-Chicago. I was able to pitch one of the managers on myself and the project and they were totally down to help out.
They gave us lunch one day to feed our entire cast and crew (about 40 people) plus plenty of good breakfast bagels and muffins to start the day. I'm so grateful to them and, on the few occasions when I do eat out for a good meal, I try and go there, and will always recommend them to everybody.
Now that RENDEZVOUS is online I can finally kinda turn my focus back to school stuff and other things, but I wanted to put up a few more pics and give a little more behind-the-scenes on how everything went down with Coke last December.
And, speaking of closing old chapters and looking to the future, with this NFL season in the books and basketball and hockey coming up on their mid-season breaks, its already time again to look to the warm fields of Arizona where a certain baseball team's pitchers and catchers are only a mere ten days away from reporting for duty.
Cubs ..... in .......twenty....... ten?
I'll buy that.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment