Background Noise: Tenderly, Chet Baker
Last website visited: TBS: Very Funny
Mood: he he.
Right now i want...

So that treatment from Friday? I still love it and hopefully Barb and I will be able to do it later this summer, but it really deserves to be more than 3 minutes long. Which leads me to...

... another treatment! this on is called NAB: Very Funny and will be a spoof of the TBS commercials. Like it? Let me know! :) Want to be in it? again, let me know!

Background:

The “Very Funny” Commercials on TBS feature everyday type people who call a magic hotline at TBS (a white lecture hall type room) filled with workers (also in white) sitting at iMac G5s (with the Apple logo replaced with the TBS logo) with white headsets furiously typing and taking calls supposedly trying to figure out if the scenarios being posed to them are funny.     

Anyways.

The commercial we are spoofing has a cubicle farm employee (girl on the right) asking if her boss mistakenly calling her coworker by the wrong name is funny. After a few questions, and a lecture that she is enjoying her coworker’s pain a bit too much, the man in white reassures her that the situation is funny and is worthy of her laughter.

The entire interaction lasts about two and a half minutes. There are even nifty-spiffy graphics on the i-swear-i’m-not-an-iMac iMac showing the computer determining through some algorithm if the situation is funny. (Cue: Motion).  

Basically i’m going for a cheaper version of this setup. Instead of the large lecture hall, our Phone Jockey in White will be working at the coffee shop down the street -- he’s calling this one in, taking a break from the chaos that is the office, etc, etc. Still dressed in his white shirt, he’s wearing jeans to “blend in.” His iMac is now a Power Book, and he’s using Desktop Manager to flip between his email and the magic-funny application (generated with Motion). Basically he’s hiding from the office, slacking off. He doesn’t want this call.

Our secretary is going to be replaced with a Marketing Chick preparing for NAB. She has just found out that Avid has just purchased Pinnacle, in a move to supposedly counteract Apple’s kick ass line of consumer, pro-sumer, and professional applications. But Avid customers hate Pinnacle customers and vice-versa. NAB (a convention of 100,000+ people) will be a highly tense environment as these foes try to play nice. Think what would happen if the University of Michigan and Ohio State decided to combine their football teams.

She wonders, is this funny? She wants to chuckle - maybe even point and laugh from the show floor, and is just making sure.

She wonders why she hears a coffee machine in the background.

After some sparring, our Phone Jockey and Marketing Chick determine that, yes, NAB is going to be Very FunnyTM.

Location:

    Coffee Shop: Starbucks, or something like it. There is a big window, with a table and a comfortable chair. It’s sunny. Our Phone Jockey has his headset on, but he’s not talking to anyone. He’s drinking coffee from a “for here” cup, his laptop is on the table. He’s surfing the net. Outside the window it’s green and leafy. He’s relaxed, comfortable, legs loosely crossed.

There should only be two framed shots here: looking at the Phone Jockey, his computer, etc, framed against the purple plush high backed chair and the leafy green trees, and one looking over his shoulder at the laptop. For the record he’s running tiger with a beautiful desktop image, and Desktop Manager with two screens: iChat and Safari, and one with Magic Motion App (hopefully we can do this compositing later).

    Marketing Chick’s Office: Our Marketing Chick has an incredible view. All windows, blue sky, some mountains in the background. Her office is nicely decorated - toys everywhere, maybe some fish, a nice computer. She’s worked hard to get this office. She is bright and lively. We only need one real camera setup here, sun on her face, computer and cork board at her back, leaning back in her chair, playing with the cord on her phone.