Categories
Title Design Viral Video

22 Bond Intros in 1 Minute

My favourite part of this Bond split-screen video is the sound of 22 MGM lions roaring in unison.

For audiences of different generations, both the Leo the lion and the Bond theme are iconic.

So when somebody had the idea of doing the first 22 James Bond intros at the same time, you get two for the price of one.

It’s an interesting visual experiment as you can see how little has changed since Dr. No (1962).

That Bond film still has the best opening titles, which were designed by Maurice Binder.

> Find out more about MGM and the James Bond franchise at Wikipedia
> Art of the Title

Categories
Viral Video

Ferris Bueller Honda Commercial

The new Ferris Bueller themed Honda commercial is sure to upset some but is actually well executed.

After a short teaser that surfaced online last week (cleverly building anticipation) Honda has now released its full Ferris Bueller Super Bowl commercial.

An interesting aspect is that these days Superbowl commercials are screened before the actual game, which tells you quite a lot about how advertising has changed over the years.

It has already prompted cries of sell out (just check out some of the YouTube comments) but at least the agency responsible crafted something for genuine fans of the film.

See if you can spot all the references to the original John Hughes movie, which was the 10th highest grossing film of 1986 (US gross was $70m on just a $5m production budget) and went on to become a huge audience favourite in the VHS era.

The most eerie aspect is how little Matthew Broderick seems to have aged since the original release.

Interestingly, the 25th anniversary release last June prompted The Atlantic to write an article which essentially argued that fans of the film need to ‘get over’ their love for a story about an entitled brat from the North Shore of Chicago.

If you scroll down to the first reader comment by a user named Spadaque, there is this astute reply which hints at the film’s enduring appeal to all audiences:

I’m a 28 year old Haitian immigrant in New York. I came to America when I was about 4 or 5 years old.  “Ferris Buellers Day Of”‘ came out when I was 3, my first time seeing it was many years later as part of a Saturday movie matinee that played on a local channel in Queens. We didn’t have cable and we didn’t go to the movies (It was really the only way my brothers and I got to see any movies) and we certainly didn’t own any Ferrari’s, unless my stepfathers taxi qualifies?. To say we weren’t privileged would be an understatement akin to saying BP had a “little” leak in the gulf. But watching “FBDO” for the first time as a 12 year old boy I instantly fell in love with it. To me, the movie was a fantasy. Ferris was well liked, cunning, mischievous, popular, and smart; all the things an often bullied immigrant kid with a super strict mother wanted to be. I even adored the awkward musical number in the middle; it made me happy. Yet, even back then I knew there was no way I could ever be Ferris or do the things Ferris did. I wouldn’t have a dummy fool my parents into thinking I was sick and in bed, I wouldn’t ride on a float in Chicago singing “Shake it up baby”, and I wouldn’t crash my best friends parents Ferrari.  Ferris is a character that could never exist in real life and in hindsight there should have been more, ahem, color in the movie. But that was 25 years ago. Seeing black and Hispanic people portrayed as thieves or poor gangsters is not a crime exclusive to that movie. To this little black, poor Haitian boy “Ferris Buellers Day Off” wasn’t about all that, it was about being a teenager from the land of fantasy and having the most fantastically perfect day of your life. That is why I’ll never get over it.

> Find out more about Ferris Bueller’s Day Off at Wikipedia
> Washington Post article about the cultural influence of Ferris Bueller

Categories
Interesting Viral Video

Dragon Tattoo Hard Copy Viral

As part of the viral campaign for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Sony have released an ingenious recreation of a 1990s TV show.

It has never ceased to amaze me how badly big budget movies have traditionally executed on screen news graphics (e.g. that ‘news report’ during climax of Spiderman 3).

But David Fincher isn’t the kind of director to allow sloppy visuals into his movies.

Even if he just oversaw it, his noted perfectionism and knowledge of various video formats may have influenced the final result, due to his extensive work in commercials and music videos since the 1980s.

So perhaps that was why this fantastic recreation of Hard Copy appeared on YouTube recently:

Those who have read the book, or seen the Swedish film, will note how events from the plot are woven into the news segment.

But check out the audio and visual fidelity to the original show.

It appears the look they were going for was a VHS copy recorded to TV, transferred to a computer and then uploaded to YouTube – note the tracking lines and period commercials.

Digital editing programs now it easier to recreate this older look but it is still an impressive feat, along with some (possible) Easter eggs for the eagle-eyed.

If you want to compare it with the actual show, check out this actual clip from September 1989:

If you don’t remember it, Hard Copy was a US tabloid news show that ran from 1989 to 1999.

Like a sleazy tabloid cousin of 60 Minutes, it wasn’t afraid of sneaky tactics and attracted controversy due its airing of violent material.

In short, a perfect fit for the dark world of Steig Larsson‘s book.

Note that the channel is called Mouth Taped Shut, which is also the blog which has been hosting various production photos and viral tidbits.

One intriguing episode of Hard Copy was their investigation into the notorious Nine Inch Nails video for Down In It:

Given that NIN frontman Trent Reznor is actually scoring Fincher’s new film, was this whole concept inspired by his past appearance on the show?

It’s a very effective viral campaign but also suprisingly mischievous and playful – a bit like Fincher and Reznor perhaps?

> Mouth Taped Shut
> Details on the soundtrack
> More on the Stieg Larsson novel and Hard Copy at Wikipedia

Categories
Viral Video

The Fenton Viral Video

A viral video of a dog chasing deer in Richmond Park has already prompted thousands of views and several mashups.

Captured on a smartphone last Sunday, it shows a tranquil scene being interrupted by a dog called Fenton chasing deer and his owner frantically screaming his name several times (“Fenton! Jesus Christ!”).

It was captured by 13-year-old Jake Goodyear and his dad Ali, but the owner is still a mystery (although probably not for long).

As I write this it has 751,358 views on YouTube, but how does an accidental video like this go viral?

Here are the points I would suggest:

  • The Nature of the Video: It captures a specific moment in time that would be almost impossible to restage. David Lean would love the shot of several deer sprinting across an autumnal park, whilst the natural comedy of his owner screaming his name is almost too perfect (note that it takes a second glance to really notice the dog). It climaxes with an almost eerie precision, as the fleeing deer run across the busy road in the park and force vehicles to stop as different elements collide at just the right moment. Some have speculated that it is a stunt, but if it is then it involves world-class CGI and a comedy brain that leaves many professionals trailing in the dust.
  • The Dog Factor: We all know cats rule the world of internet viral videos but a lot of people can relate to owning and walking a dog, especially the struggle to control it in a public space. Newspapers also traditional love animal stories as they provide light relief from all the doom and gloom on the front pages.
  • The Name Fenton: The first I heard about this video when I was reading the Twitter feed of the FT’s media correspondent Ben Fenton, who has been providing updates of the Leveson inquiry. He wondered why Danny Baker was mentioning his name over Twitter. In fact, Baker was referring to the dog Fenton and it was just a coincidence that a journalist shared his name. The fact that a lot of people initially misheard Fenton as ‘Benton’ only added to the mystery.
  • Influencers: For something to go truly viral you need sites like Reddit and Twitter users with large followings to give it a boost. When Fenton made the front page of Reddit and people like Stephen Fry (Twitter patron saint), Graham Linehan (comedy writer and massively influential Tweeter) and Jeremy Vine (Radio 2 presenter with a huge audience) linked to it, viral success was assured.
  • The National Media: When national newspapers – who obsess over Twitter for various reasons – picked it up, another level of awareness ensured more views. A Google News search shows you how it has played amongst different outlets.

Then of course are the are the mashups, which take the audio of the original and recut it to different films.

Made possible by cheaper video editing software and the instant distribution of YouTube, my favourites so far are Jurassic Park, Alien and – of course – Bambi.

Can someone do The Deer Hunter please?

> The original video on YouTube
> Media Guardian on the video

Categories
Interesting Viral Video

Tarantino on Revival Houses

Back in February 2010, Quentin Tarantino spoke about the New Beverly Cinema, the revival house he owns in Los Angeles.

It was during a panel at the Santa Barbara international film festival and, in an age of increasingly on demand home entertainment, was such a passionate defence of the theatrical experience that I had to make the following video of it.

For people in Los Angeles between Dec 9th and Dec 16th, Edgar Wright be screening various films as part of his latest season ‘Movies Edgar Has Never Seen’.

> New Beverly Cinema
> Connect with them on Facebook and Twitter
> The Wright Stuff III: ‘Movies Edgar Has Never Seen’ at the New Beverly

Categories
Viral Video

All the President’s Men vs The Beastie Boys

What do you get when you mix Alan Pakula’s classic political drama with Sabotage from the Beastie Boys?

It turns out you get this mashup courtesy of Jeff Yorkes:

For others check out his Vimeo page.

[via Devour]

> All the President’s Men at Wikipedia
> RSS feed of mashups by Jeff Yorkes

Categories
music Viral Video

The Great Dictator meets Inception

Hans Zimmer’s Inception score makes for a stirring backdrop to Charlie Chaplin‘s climactic speech from The Great Dictator (1940).

Chaplin’s first talking picture was ahead of its time: a stirring condemnation of Hitler and facism, it was initially banned by the UK government due to the appeasement policy with Nazi Germany, although later became a hit, partly due to its wartime propaganda value.

There were many odd parallels between Chaplin and Hitler: both were born in April 1889, Chaplin’s Tramp character and Hitler had a similar moustache and both struggled in poverty before reaching global fame.

Chaplin’s son later described how his father was haunted by the similarities:

“Their destinies were poles apart. One was to make millions weep, while the other was to set the whole world laughing. Dad could never think of Hitler without a shudder, half of horror, half of fascination.”

The film was bold in its ridicule of Nazism and its depiction of an anti-Semitic authoritarian regime.

Watch this appreciation by The New Yorker’s Richard Brody from earlier this year:

In addition to writing, directing and producing, Chaplin played the titular dictator ‘Adenoid Hynkel’ (a thinly-veiled substitute for Adolf Hitler) and a look-alike Jewish barber persecuted by the regime.

At the climax of the film, the two have swapped positions and Chaplin directly addresses the audience in a speech which denounces facism, greed and intolerance in favour of liberty and human brotherhood.

A YouTube user DerPestmann had the idea of combining it with Hans Zimmer‘s epic track Time from the Inception score.

See what you think:

> Find out more about The Great Dictator at the IMDb, Wikipedia and Criterion
> Buy The Great Dictator on Blu-ray or DVD from Amazon
> Buy the Inception score from Amazon UK or iTunes

Categories
Amusing Viral Video

Star Wars meets Drive

A YouTube user has cut a rather brilliant trailer mashup of Star Wars (1977) and Drive (2011), with Hans Solo in the role of Ryan Gosling’s Driver.

For reference, here is the official trailer for Drive:

Now, here is the Star Wars remix:

The film opens in the US on September 16th and in the UK a week later on the 23rd.

> IMDb
> The real Drive trailer

Categories
News Viral Video

Murdoch Downfall

If someone told me seven days ago that the best-selling newspaper in the world was about to be shut down, I’d have dismissed the notion as a bizarre fantasy.

But this week, the long-running phone hacking scandal surrounding the News of the World exploded, forcing owner Rupert Murdoch to close his long-running Sunday tabloid.

Revelations that the newspaper targeted the mobile phones of teenage murder victims, relatives of dead soldiers and victims of the 7/7 bombings triggered widespread public and political outrage.

Apparently, even worse revelations are reportedly to come.

Bizarrely actor Hugh Grant had been ahead of much of the UK press, when he uncovered the sordid details with an investigative piece for the New Statesman.

His recent appearence on the BBC News channel challenging former tabloid hack Paul McMullan went viral.

But you know a scandal has truly taken hold when someone makes a Downfall parody about it.

YouTube mashups involving the 2004 film about Hitler’s final days have become an internet meme used to parody prominent figures or organisations brought low by topical events.

One scene in particular, in which Hitler (played by Bruno Ganz) realises that the war is essentially lost, has been re-subtitled countless times to fit a bewildering number of topics.

But now someone has ingeniousy re-cut other sequences from the film so that they fit with the News of the World phone hacking affair.

If you are unfamiliar with what’s been going on, just read the Wikipedia entry handily titled “News of the World phone hacking affair” to familiarise yourself with the details.

Then watch how Rupert Murdoch, Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson are weaved into this video:

Incidentally, Downfall director Oliver Hirschbiegel said last year that he not only finds all these parodies funny but that they actually serve to make a wider point:

“The point of the film was to kick these terrible people off the throne that made them demons, making them real and their actions into reality. I think it’s only fair if now it’s taken as part of our history, and used for whatever purposes people like.”

> The News of the World phone hacking affair at Wikipedia
> The Hugh Grant Tapes and his recent BBC appearences
> Recent stories by Nick Davies at The Guardian (the journalist who has led the way on this story)

Categories
Interesting Viral Video

A History of the World in 100 Seconds

Data from Wikipedia has been used in a video to visualise global historical events over 2,500 years.

It begins in 499 BC, when people in Europe started to record events, then goes to Asia and after 1492 the Americas light up as the image of the modern world begins to form.

Gareth Lloyd and Tom Martin used geotagged articles from Wikipedia with references to 14,238 historical events and this is the video:

On his Vimeo page Gareth writes:

Many wikipedia articles have coordinates. Many have references to historic events. Me (@godawful) and Tom Martin (@heychinaski) cross referenced the two to create a dynamic visualization of Wikipedia’s view of world history. Watch as empires fall, wars break out and continents are discovered.

This won “Best Visualization” at Matt Patterson’s History Hackday in January, 2011. To make it, we parsed an xml dump of all wikipedia articles (30Gb) and pulled out 424,000 articles with coordinates and 35,000 references to events. Cross referencing these produced 15,500 events with locations. Then we mapped them over time.

> Gareth Lloyd at Vimeo
> More information on the data
> The History of the World at Wikipedia

Categories
Amusing Viral Video

Star Wars vs The A-Team

This video mashup of the Star Wars series and The A-Team is A-grade stuff.

Notice the spot on use of fonts and footage.

YouTube user kalleanka71 has also done similar videos involving Airwolf and Magnum PI.

> More videos from kalleanka71 on YouTube
> Star Wars and The A-Team at Wikipedia

Categories
Interesting Viral Video

Kill Bill: Influences

A neat side-by-side comparison of the films that influenced Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill (2003-04).

Everything Is A Remix: KILL BILL from robgwilson.com on Vimeo.

> Kill Bill at Wikipedia
> Rob G Wilson at Vimeo

Categories
Interesting Viral Video

Everything is a Remix Part 2

Using archive clips and inventive graphics this video essay by Kirby Ferguson shows how different movies influence one another.

There is a particular focus on Avatar (2009), Star Wars (1977) and Kill Bill (2003/04).

Everything is a Remix Part 2 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.

By the way, notice the use of Clementine’s Loop at the beginning, a piece of music by Jon Brion which pops up in the first three films by Paul Thomas Anderson.

> Kirby Ferguson at Vimeo
> Everything is a Remix Part 1

Categories
Amusing Viral Video

The Lost Boys Michael Edit

Dan Nixon has re-edited The Lost Boys (1987) so that every line of dialogue is Michael.

If you haven’t seen Joel Schumacher’s vampire film, it is about two Arizonan brothers (Jason Patric and Corey Haim) who move to California and end up fighting a gang of teenage vampires )led by Kiefer Sutherland).

Bizarrely, Andrew Lloyd Webber is a big fan.

As you can see from the following video, the word ‘Michael’ is used a lot.

> The Lost Boys at the IMDb
> The story of The Lost Boys at Total Film

Categories
Interesting Viral Video

One Year in Two Minutes

Eirik Solheim has created a timelapse video from more than 3500 high resolution photos shot over a year.

Over 2010 he took a photo a day on his old Canon 400D from his window every 30 minutes for 12 months, giving him around 16,000 images to work with.

He then culled them to 3,500, and put them together to create this film.

> Download and explore how the video was made
> Music of Magnus Gangstad

Categories
Amusing Viral Video

Ghostbusters vs Inception

Someone has recut the Ghostbusters trailer with the Zack Hemsey track ‘Mind Heist‘, which was used on the Inception trailer.

Although this meme played itself out during the summer, with mashups of Heat, The Dark Knight and The IT Crowd, this is a pretty slick edit job.

More proof, if any were needed, that Zack Hemsey’s music can make almost any trailer sound more dramatic.

> Original trailer for Ghostbusters
> Zack Hemsey

Categories
News Viral Video

The Man with the Golden Radio Voice

A reporter from the Columbus Dispatch in Ohio recently came across a homeless man named Ted Williams with an incredible voice for TV and radio.

The result, which feels like a real life remake of The Soloist, was this video in which Williams demonstrated his vocal skills and described how he fell on hard times.

It has since gone viral on YouTube and been picked up by mainstream media outlets.

A thread on Reddit has the latest details on the story:

So, a homeless guy down on his luck may find redemption thanks to the good will of people on the web.

Someone has got to snap up the rights and make this into a feel-good movie, right?

For the latest, check out the Reddit thread here or the latest stories on Google News.

UPDATE 05/01/10:

Here is his appearance on the Dave and Jimmy morning radio show on WNCI in Columbus:

The Early Show on CBS interviewed Ted Williams:The Cleveland Cavaliers have offered Ted a full-time job and a house.

> Columbus Dispatch
> CBS News on the story
> Doral Chenoweth on Vimeo

Categories
Amusing Technology Viral Video

Tron Legacy 8-bit version

Animator Pierre Manry has re-imagined Tron: Legacy as an 8-bit videogame, complete with a converted Daft Punk score.

[via Gizmodo]

> Tron: Legacy review
> The Legacy of Tron
> 8 bit at Wikipedia

Categories
Viral Video

Cinema 2010

It is that time of year when film compilations start cropping up on YouTube and this one by Kees van Dijkhuizen does a good job of distilling the year in movies down to 5 minutes and 38 seconds.

> 2010 in Film at Wikipedia
> The Best Films of 2010

Categories
Random Viral Video

We’re Not In Kansas Anymore

The famous line ‘We’re not in Kansas anymore’ from The Wizard of Oz has cropped up in a lot of films.

Uttered by Dorothy (Judy Garland) to her dog Toto when she first arrives in Oz, the phrase came 4th in the AFI’s list of the top 100 movie quotations in American cinema.

But this video shows the extent to which it has firmly embedded itself in pop culture.

Here is the full list of films and TV shows in this video:

  • The Wizard of Oz
  • Sex and the City 2
  • Spring Break
  • South Beach Academy
  • Entourage
  • Talons of the Eagle
  • Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
  • Population 436
  • Inkheart
  • Highway to Hell
  • Crocodile
  • Passport to Paris
  • New York Minute
  • The Ben Stiller Show
  • Married…with Children
  • Stargate SG-1
  • Criminal Minds
  • Captain Planet and the Planeteers
  • Sliders
  • Grey’s Anatomy
  • Ghosts of the Abyss
  • Brothers at War
  • Mysterious Skin
  • Swingers
  • Fat Actress
  • Spiders
  • The Man with the Screaming Brain
  • Blonde Ambition
  • Lifepod
  • Supernatural
  • Lois and Clark
  • Pretender
  • Supergator
  • Trancers 4
  • Camp Slaughter
  • Vamp
  • Alien Species
  • Sailor Moon
  • Swamp Thing
  • Iron Eagle II
  • Little Shop of Horrors
  • The Matrix
  • Fanscape
  • Smallville
  • Jack of All Trades
  • Avatar
  • Volcano
  • CSI: Miami
  • Real Time with Bill Maher
  • Happy Town
  • Gilmore Girls
  • Bones
  • Scooby Doo and the Loch Ness Monster
  • Anamaniacs
  • America’s Next Top Model
  • Ugly Betty
  • Shutter Island
  • Stargate SG-1

[Via Buzzfeed and Four Four]

> The Wizard of Oz at Wikipedia
> AFI 100 Years 100 Movie Quotes

Categories
Amusing Viral Video

The Digital Story of the Nativity

The story of the nativity has been retold by a video which gives it a new twist for the digital era.

Titled ‘The Digital Story of the Nativity’, it was created by Excentric, a Lisbon-based digital marketing company, and reimagines the Christmas story using modern tools such as Google Maps, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Foursquare.

So far, it has got over 2 million views on YouTube.

> The Nativity of Jesus at Wikipedia
> Excentric

Categories
Viral Video

Filmography 2010

270 films released in 2010 have been edited to form this extended six minute montage.

YouTube user Gen I has cut them to six music tracks and the result is impressive:

Music Used

1. Ratatat – Nostrand [Link]
2. Kanye West – Power [Link]
3. Rooney – Not In My House [Link]
4. Apartment – Fall Into Place [Link]
5. Civil Twilight – Letters from the Sky [Link]
6. SUNBEARS! – Little Baby Pines [Link]

Full list of films (in order of appearance)

01. Iron Man 2
02. The Social Network
03. Saw 3D
04. TRON: Legacy
05. Never Let Me Go
06. Legion
07. The Book of Eli
08. Easy A
09. The Runaways
10. Farewell
11. Kick-Ass
12. Jonah Hex
13. Harry Brown
14. The Sorceror’s Apprentice
15. Percy Jackson & The Olympics: The Lightning Thief
16. Despicable Me
17. Stone
18. Dinner For Schmucks
19. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
20. Hereafter
21. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
22. Black Swan
23. Howl
24. Faster
25. Casino Jack
26. Casino Jack and the United States of Money
27. Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist, and Rebel
28. Waiting for Superman
29. Inception
30. Resident Evil: Afterlife
31. The Town
32. The Expendables
33. The A-Team
34. The American
35. The Concert
36. The Tempest
37. Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang
38. The Tourist
39. Metropia
40. Burlesque
41. Love Ranch
42. Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer
43. The Warrior’s Way
44. Twelve
45. Going The Distance
46. Chain Letter
47. Catfish
48. Machete
49. Step Up 3D
50. Devil
51. Clash of the Titans
52. Countdown to Zero
53. Jackass 3D
54. Alice in Wonderland
55. Buried
56. Red
57. Mesrine
58. Predators
59. MacGruber
60. Robin Hood
61. Green Zone
62. The Way Back
63. Due Date
64. Daybreakers
65. Knight and Day
66. Heartbreaker
67. The Karate Kid
68. Secretariat
69. Middle Men
70. Repo Men
71. Hot Tub Time Machine
72. All Good Things
73. Skyline
74. Animal Kingdom
75. Fair Game
76. Paper Man
77. Eclipse
78. Megamind
79. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
80. True Grit
81. Accidents Happen
82. Date Night
83. Perrier’s Bounty
84. Killers
85. How To Train Your Dragon
86. The Other Guys
87. Unstoppable
88. Leap Year
89. Cop Out
90. When In Rome
91. Centurion
92. Salt
93. Takers
94. Barney’s Version
95. Diary of a Wimpy Kid
96. The Winning Season
97. Just Wright
98. Legendary
99. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest
100. Ong Bak 3
101. Rogues Gallery
102. Defendor
103. District 13: Ultimatum
104. Conviction
105. The Losers
106. The Disappearance of Alice Creed
107. Brooklyn’s Finest
108. Wild Target
109. Four Lions
110. The King’s Speech
111. Boogie Woogie
112. 127 Hours
113. Somewhere
114. Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll
115. Letters to Juliet
116. The Kids are All Right
117. Sex and the City 2
118. Vampires Suck
119. Love and Other Drugs
120. Life As We Know It
121. Blue Valentine
122. Jolene
123. The Extra Man
124. The Last Song
125. Our Family Wedding
126. Morning Glory
127. Greenberg
128. Remember Me
129. Please Give
130. Certified Copy
131. The Last Exorcism
132. Peacock
133. Flipped
134. Cemetery Junction
135. I Love You Phillip Morris
136. Toy Story 3
137. The Romantics
138. Welcome to the Rileys
139. I’m Still Here
140. Get Him To The Greek
141. The Yellow Handkerchief
142. The Greatest
143. The Virginity Hit
144. Furry Vengeance
145. Eat Pray Love
146. Don McKay
147. Solitary Man
148. Cyrus
149. Case 39
150. Dear John
151. The Good Guy
152. Jack Goes Boating
153. You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger
154. Leaves of Grass
155. How Do You Know
156. Death at a Funeral
157. Tamara Drewe
158. The Killer Inside Me
159. The Back-Up Plan
160. Another Year
161. Great Directors
162. The Ghost Writer
163. Splice
164. Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale
165. The Wolfman
166. Piranha
167. A Nightmare on Elm Street
168. Charlie St. Cloud
169. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
170. Biutiful
171. The Lovely Bones
172. Monsters
173. Cairo Time
174. The Crazies
175. Valhalla Rising
176. Ondine
177. It’s Kind Of A Funny Story
178. Stolen Lives
179. Creation
180. Chloe
181. The Debt
182. Princess Ka’iulani
183. Like Dandelion Dust
184. Shutter Island
185. Inhale
186. Heartless
187. Rabbit Hole
188. Let Me In
189. Hemingway’s Garden of Eden
190. The Fighter
191. From Paris With Love
192. Shrek Forever After
193. The Next Three Days
194. Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole
195. Spring Fever
196. Stonewall Uprising
197. Smash His Camera
198. My Soul To Take
199. Life During Wartime
200. The Joneses
201. Mr. Nobody
202. The Good Heart
203. The Lottery
204. Leaving
205. Night Catches Us
206. Nowhere Boy
207. Babies
208. Barry Munday
209. Tooth Fairy
210. Yogi Bear
211. The Borrowers
212. You Again
213. Standing Ovation
214. Soul Kitchen
215. Multiple Sarcasms
216. The Nutcracker in 3D
217. The Last Airbender
218. Youth in Revolt
219. Edge of Darkness
220. Last Night
221. Extraordinary Measures
222. Ramona and Beezus
223. Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore
224. Alpha and Omega
225. Tangled
226. Marmaduke
227. Grown Ups
228. Inside Job
229. Gulliver’s Travels
230. The Spy Next Door
231. The Dry Land
232. Tiny Furniture
233. La mission
234. City Island
235. Letters to God
236. She’s Out of My League
237. Lottery Ticket
238. Wonderful World
239. The Infidel
240. Holy Rollers
241. Why Did I Get Married Too?
242. Paranormal Activity 2
243. Frozen
244. The Switch
245. Finding Bliss
246. Made in Dagenham
247. For Colored Girls
248. Crazy on the Outside
249. The Last Station
250. The Bounty Hunter
251. I’m Here
252. I Am Love
253. Red Hill
254. Country Strong
255. Peepli Live
256. Oceans
257. Sanctum
258. Little Fockers
259. Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
260. Exit Through The Gift Shop
261. Winter’s Bone
262. Get Low
263. Fish Tank
264. Valentine’s Day
265. The Tillman Story
266. The Company Men
267. Tales from Earthsea
268. Spoken Word
269. To Save A Life
270. Hubble 3D

Categories
Interesting Viral Video

Inception in Real-Time

Someone has edited together the different sections of Inception so that they play in real-time.

If the climax confused you then it is a neat way of seeing how the film played around with slow motion and time.

(As there are some heavy spoilers in this video, you shouldn’t watch it unless you’ve seen the film)

[Via Buzzfeed]

> Inception Blu-ray review
> Infographic explaining the levels of Inception (spoilers)

Categories
Amusing Viral Video

Charlie Chaplin Viral Video

A video showing something unusual in Charlie Chaplin’s 1928 film ‘The Circus‘ has gone viral on the web.

Earlier today I noticed that ‘Charlie Chaplin’ was trending on Twitter – not exactly the first online destination I would associate with the great silent comedian.

It turns out all the fuss was about a YouTube video which has amassed over 1.5 million views.

Posted by George Clarke from Belfast, it shows a woman in the Chaplin film holding something to her head.

On his YouTube page he says:

“My only theory – as well as many others – is simple… a time traveller on a mobile phone”

Amazingly his theory that this could be evidence of time travel (!) has been picked up by the likes of BBC News, who have the story under the ludicrous headline ‘Has Belfast film-maker found time travel evidence?’

I know that Deloreans were built in Northern Ireland but is he really suggesting that this woman actually went back in time?

And why are people quoting him like there might be a shred of truth to this?

The AP offer a more sensible explanation:

It’s likely the actor is holding a hearing aid, but that hasn’t stopped the video from amassing more than two million views on YouTube.

I’m sure the fact that some Charlie Chaplin DVDs are released in a couple of weeks is a total and utter coincidence (notice he mentions the name of the DVD label).

> Charlie Chaplin at Wikipedia
> The Circus at the IMDb

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Viral Video

Space Balloon

A New Yorker recently attached a video camera to a helium balloon and launched it into the atmosphere.

Luke Geissbuhler and his son Max from Brooklyn, launched the ‘space balloon’ which rose 19 miles above the earth and captured some remarkable footage, which you can see in this annotated video:

Homemade Spacecraft from Luke Geissbuhler on Vimeo.

> Brooklyn Space Program
> Find out more about the Earth’s Atmosphere at Wikipedia

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Amusing Viral Video

Inception as 1950s B Movie

What if Inception had been made as a B movie in the 1950s?

This video gives us some idea:

[Via Movieline]

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Amusing Viral Video

Star Wars vs The Town

Star Wars and Ben Affleck’s new crime drama The Town might not seem the obvious material for a trailer mashup but this is brilliantly done.

[Via Buzzfeed]

> The Town at the IMDb
> Star Wars at Wikipedia

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Amusing Viral Video

Google Instant meets Billy Joel

Google Instant is the latest feature on the search engine which predicts your search query as you type it.

Although they claim it will save time, I’ve had to turn it off for the moment as it was starting to melt my brain.

However, this video mashup from Urlesque featuring Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire makes good use of the song and the technology.

> Google Instant
> We Didn’t Start the Fire at Wikipedia

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Viral Video

Stairway to Heaven (Climbing Towers)

A six-minute video showing transmission workers climbing a pylon has become a huge viral hit on the web.

Called Stairway to Heaven (Climbing Towers) it was shot using a helmet camera and follows two engineers as they scale a 1,768ft pylon, which is taller than the largest skyscraper in the US.

The effect of the helmet cam gives the perspective of the climbers and also highlights how they have to make do without a safety harness, whilst also carrying a tool bag weighing up to 30lbs.

The video was originally posted on an industry website TheOnlineEngineer.org, before surfacing on YouTube.

Different versions have been removed due to a copyright claim, although the popularity is such that it has been reposted many times.

(If the above video doesn’t work, you can watch it at Sky News here).

> TheOnlineEngineer
> Blog post explaining the video

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Amusing Viral Video

Star Wars Prequels vs Bohemian Rhapsody

This mashup of the Star Wars prequels and Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody is arguably more entertaining than the films themselves.

Titled ‘Midichlorian Rhapsody’ someone clearly spent a long time getting the lyrics to match with scenes from the trilogy.

[via Buzzfeed]

> Star Wars prequels at Wikipedia
> Bohemian Rhapsody

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Interesting Viral Video

Blade Runner Revisited >3.6 Gigapixels

This experimental short film by François Vautier is a stunning tribute to Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner.

Made as a unique picture with a resolution of 3.6 gigapixels, it uses 167,819 frames from Blade Runner: The Final Cut.

BLADE RUNNER revisited >3.6 gigapixels from françois vautier on Vimeo.

Vautier describes how he put it together:

1> First Step : The “Picture” of the film
I extracted the 167,819 frames from ‘Blade Runner’ (final cut version,1h51mn52s19i). Then I assembled all these images to obtain one gigantic image of colossal dimensions : a square of approximately 60,000 pixels on one side alone, 3.5 gigapixels (3500 million pixels)

2> Second Step : An Illusion
I placed a virtual camera above this big picture. So what you see is like an illusion, because contrary to appearances there is only one image. It is in fact the relative movement of the virtual camera flying over this massive image which creates the animated film, like a film in front of a projector.

Notice how the whole concept echoes one of the signature scenes from the film where Deckard enhances an image via voice recognition software.

> Blade Runner at Wikipedia
> More videos by François Vautier on Vimeo

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Amusing Viral Video

Inception vs The IT Crowd

There are plenty of Inception trailer mash-ups on YouTube, but this one should please fans of The IT Crowd.

UPDATE: The creator of this video is Stefan Zurich. Follow him on Twitter (@StefSOFT) or check out his blog here.

> Original Inception trailer
> The IT Crowd at Wikipedia

Categories
Viral Video

Dancing at the Movies

This compilation of dancing sequences from various movies set to Footloose by Kenny Loggins is a fairly slick and polished affair.

Can you name all the films included in it?

Random fact: One of the dancers pulling off all the difficult moves at the climax of Flashdance was actually a guy.

[via Buzzfeed]

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Interesting Viral Video

Epic Beard Man

Earlier this year a video filmed on a bus in Oakland revealed much about how modern life can be filmed and processed by the public.

When a fight broke out in February aboard a transit bus in Oakland, California, it might not have seemed an especially unusual incident to anyone familiar with public transport in a major city.

What made this this particular one interesting was the way in which the decision to film and upload the footage to the web (itself a modern compulsion) opened up particularly post-modern can of worms including issues of race, violence, the Vietnam war and modern technology.

This ‘Know Your Meme’ video from Rocketboom explains how the footage became a viral phenomenon and how one of the men involved became known as ‘Epic Beard Man’:

The man that threw the punches gave his side of the story here:

The man who got punched gave his version of events to a local radio station here:

As you can see, they don’t quite match up and just provoke further questions about the incident and those involved.

When you take into account the tsunami of comments online about the affair, along with the endless parodies and interpretations, it only becomes harder to get a handle on what went on and what it all means.

There is even a Mortal Kombat version of the fight:

There is a fairly detailed Wikipedia entry titled AC Transit Bus fight but it isn’t exactly conclusive.

When much of contemporary ‘reality television’ consists of carefully constructed narratives, there is a strong case to say that this incident feels more real, as what was a confusing and messy fight gets endlessly reinterpreted through different voices on the web.

> Know Your Meme at Rocketboom
> The AC Transit Bus fight on Wikipedia

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Interesting Viral Video

The Last Exorcism on Chatroulette

Movie marketing via social media sites doesn’t always work but the use of Chatroulette to plug The Last Exorcism was both clever and effective.

Over the last few years Lionsgate have got used to marketing horror films in a savvy way and some, especially the Saw franchise, have proved hugely profitable for the studio.

The Last Exorcism was their most recent US release and part of the concept is that what you are watching is ‘found footage‘, a technique used in previous films such as The Blair Witch ProjectREC and Paranormal Activity.

This kills two birds with one stone, as it enhances the realism of the material and helps keep costs down as audiences buy into the idea of the spooky, low quality footage at the heart of the film.

Made for around $2 million and acquired by Lionsgate for under $1 million, this was one to keep the studio accountants happy, even though they would have spent a fair amount giving it a wide release across the US.

Part of the marketing campaign was to freak out users on Chatroulette, a site where people can randomly video chat with strangers, and it proved an inspired way to create buzz.

This edited compilation of the best reactions has so far got over 2.5 million views on YouTube:

Although the film is currently neck and neck with Takers for the number 1 slot this weekend, it will still earn around $21 million this weekend.

The Last Exorcism opens in the UK on Friday 3rd September

> The Last Exorcism at the IMDb

> Chatroulette at Wikipedia

Categories
Viral Video

Inception Viral Marketing

The online marketing campaign for Inception featured a clever use of Facebook and even a YouTube video featuring director Christopher Nolan and the best digital marketing companies.

Although it is now an established international hit, the film was a tricky one to market despite an A-list director and star.

For a big summer release it is unusual in that it wasn’t based on an established property (like a comic book or TV show) and the story isn’t that easy to explain in one line (although I’d go for Ocean’s Eleven meets The Matrix).

For Warner Bros this presented a challenge and Michael Tritter, Senior VP for Interactive Marketing at the studio, recently explained to KCRW how they dealt with it:

You have this movie which is going to have a pretty big built in fanbase …but you also have a movie that you are trying to keep very secret.

Chris [Nolan] really likes people to see his movies in a theater and not see it all beforehand so everything that you do to market that – at least early on – is with an eye to feeding the interest of fans.

So out of the idea that they had to drip feed the fans whilst also maintaining an air of mystery, they created an online game called ‘Mind Crime’ in which people could play and unlock various hints and pieces of information about the film.

As part of this campaign they used an official Facebook page to get people discussing what they had found and what the film might ultimately be about (this also paid off when the film came out and many wanted to discuss it further).

Facebook has a large number of gamers (think Farmville and Scrabble), so the ‘Mind Crime‘ game was a neat way of building viral buzz about the film whilst not explaining too much.

Another intriguing aspect within this campaign was a YouTube video entitled “Chris Nolan Research Footage” which was ‘leaked’ and saw the director interview three dream experts, in what appears to be his office.

It popped up back in late April under the username eclectic10167 and Nolan can be seen speaking to three dream researchers, two of whom are real whilst the other is an actress.

When she starts talking about ‘military research’ – an allusion to the world of Inception – funny things start to happen.

If you look closely you will see a poster for Nolan’s debut film Following in the background (a film also featuring a lead character called Cobb) and what appear to be a lot of Blu-rays on a shelf, although it is hard to be sure.

It should also be remembered that Warner Bros spent millions on outdoor posters, internet banners, trailers and TV spots, so where does the interactive element fit in to the wider campaign?

Of the balance between them, Tritter says:

I think there is not one without the other.

There is a level of engagement that a certain amount of the audience is going to expect, and that you really want to engage with.

And at the same time I think you would never not want the broad, mainstream part of it too.

In a sense, the marketing complemented the nature of the film. But I think that the very nature of the film itself was perhaps the most effective marketing tool.

It was complex and clever for a summer blockbuster, but executed in such a way that made you think constructively about what was going on.

The added bonus for Warner Bros was that people wanted to talk about it (and spread word-of-mouth via friends) and see it again (thus boosting the box office).

> Listen to Michael Tritter on KCRW’s The Business
> Econsultancy article on the marketing of Inception

Categories
Amusing Viral Video

The Double Rainbow Meme

Rocketboom have produced a nice breakdown of the Double Rainbow video which recently became an unlikely viral sensation.

If you haven’t seen the original, it has over 9 million views on YouTube:

For Stanley Kubrick fans, this 2001 remix is especially impressive:

> Rocketboom’s Know Your Meme series
> More on the Double Rainbow at Mashable

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Amusing Viral Video

Ferris Club

A clever video mashup of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) off and Fight Club (1999) that seems to have originated from a discussion on Metafilter.

[Via Buzzfeed]

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Amusing Viral Video

Star Wars Subway

Those clever folks at Improv Everywhere have staged a re-enactment of a scene from Star Wars featuring Princess Leia and Darth Vader on the New York City subway.

It is always interesting to observe how the public react to this kind of unexpected, live theatre. Note how many of the passengers start filming on their own cameras.

There is a behind-the-scenes feature explaining more about how they did the scene on Improv Everywhere’s website here.

Based in New York they have previously staged plenty of others like this, including one where they got around 200 people to freeze in Grand Central Station, the video of which has been viewed over 22 million times on YouTube.

> Improv Everywhere
> YouTube Channel

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Amusing Viral Video

Iron Man vs Patrick Swayze

I’m not really sure what to make of this bizarre Iron Man meets Dirty Dancing mash up, but it was the AC/DC music that made me laugh.