Screen Magazine - Index

Screen Magazine - Screen Magazine: Vol. 29, Issue 16 - Index

Well, it’s almost last call for one of the most venerable
institutions in the US. Anheuser Busch, the country’s
largest brewery, has been sold to the Belgian
conglomerate InBev. Now our beloved Budweiser,
“The Famous Budweiser Beer,” is controlled by
a remote camp of low-country wafflemakers.
Although the transaction should not affect the taste
of the old longneck, it’s a buzz kill on happy hour.
Marketing firms got the most worry. InBev will likely
spend less on everything from local sponsorships to
Super Bowl commercials. Even worse, they expect
sales to hold because the US beer market is “flat.”
After all, nobody sees a Budweiser commercial
and thinks, “maybe I’ll try that kind.” It’s common
business sense.
But the thing is, common sense means little to
people who drink alcohol.
And to those who drink beer, it means nothing at
all. Here is a consumer who argues politics with
the same passion that he supports “Girls Gone
Wild.” Who can explain the mathematical nuances
of gambling and recite a lexicon of synoyms for
vomiting. Try to gain insight into his preferences and
he might take a swing at you. But tell him a fart joke
and he’s docile as a toddler. Common sense does
not play into these buying habits: beer drinkers love
whatever sounds good when they’re drinking, and
sometimes this means things that a brand is not.
And Budweiser, simply, is not a European
microbrew.
Of course, this is not news to anyone, really. We all
know that offering a fruit-flavored draft to a Bud
drinker is like begging him to insult your mother.
That’s not the point. The challenge is predicting
what Bud drinkers will do when Budweiser stops
rubbing their endless gut for the carbonation of life
so gratuitously.
Marketing professionals already feel discomfort. To
them, InBev is a stranger in the local tavern who
bought all the beer and now wants to re-sell it to the
regulars. In bars, lounges, liquor stores and VFW halls
throughout the republic, every sip is another tip in
the jar of an expanding foreign mega-corporation
with an incredibly dull name.
But longneck enthusiasts do not to feel the weight of
such baggage. The backwash of InBev’s absentee
landlordism might even create more time for
watching “COPS,” and that’s all beer drinkers really
care about.
At least until that day when they wonder, “What
happened to all the Super Bowl commercials?”
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Detroit Invaded By Lizards With Electric Six
By Mark Carr
Detroit has been invaded by Lizard Men who are kidnapping
citizens to become brainwashed and forced to clean up the city!
It’s not the plotline for a late-night movie, it’s the latest music video
from Electric Six titled “Formula 409,” who collaborated with friends
at Under the Radar Productions (Los Angeles). The video premiered
on the band’s own MySpace page at http://www.myspace.
com/electricsixmusic and produced by Under The Radar director
Anthony Garth and director of photography Christos Moseides,
and edited by Mad River Post’s (Detroit) Chris Chynoweth. The
video was editted using Final Cut Pro, and Chynoweth worked
in collaboration with colorist and VFX artist Jon Merrifield and
assistant Kym Caporosso, both of Mosa FX (Royal Oak, Mich.).
The highly amusing video tells the story of the band getting
kidnapped, one by one, by men with lizard heads dressed in
suits, and thrown into a white truck. The band is transported to a
laboratory, where the members undergo experiments involving
being shocked, doing jumping jacks, learning the accordion,
flossing teeth, and features the lizard men playing a song with
an inflatable guitar and saxophone. After the experiments, the
band is set out to clean Detroit using 409 spray bottles ,wearing
multicolored clothing including green hair and red Speedos. The
video looks just as crazy as it sounds, with VFX lighting and floating
heads singing with a tie-dye motif in the background.
Director Anthony Garth and the team had quite a homework
assignment in front of them. “I get this phone call at two in the
morning,” recalls the director, “and it was Tyler, the band’s leader,
and he’s like, ‘I want to do a video. All I have is two things to include:
I just want to be hypnotized or brainwashed, and I want to be
brainwashed by some type of lizard,’ And that’s all he said.” Garth
then formulated the idea of a lizard organization, and the band
was all for it.
The team was
given a lot of
creative freedom
to do what they
wanted. Garth
mentions that,
“The great thing
about Electric Six
and Mad Dog is
that there are no boundaries. Whatever you say or whatever comes
in your head, as long as they like it, it’s do-able. I had the idea of
[something] like, ‘Tyler, I want to put you in a Speedo’ and he’s like,
‘Cool, I’m size 32.’ They really give the freedom to get a vision across
and have the attitude of ‘lets just have fun, let’s not over think this
and lets do something that’s entertaining and really stands out.’”
Chris Chynoweth of Mad River Post also had the challenge of
making this unusual piece come to life in the editing room. “Every
time I edit,” recalls Chynoweth, “whether it is a commercial, music
video or short film, I always tend to immerse myself in that particular
project. I think about it all day long, take it home with me and
basically live it until it’s finished.”
The video is going strong on MySpace and YouTube with over 8,000
hits.
//www.madriverpost.com
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