{"id":5459,"date":"2012-08-23T13:16:04","date_gmt":"2012-08-23T17:16:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mondomark.com\/wordpress\/?p=3413"},"modified":"2012-08-23T13:16:04","modified_gmt":"2012-08-23T17:16:04","slug":"packaged-goods-the-art-of-the-edit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=5459","title":{"rendered":"Packaged Goods: The Art of the Edit"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Doesn't everyone wish to be as interesting as me?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The latest entry in TIFF Bell Lightbox\u2019s Packaged Goods series, The Art of the Edit<\/a>, ran this past Wednesday and featured a strong selection of ads, promos, and a pair music videos.<\/p>\n

Running about an hour, the 39 short-form films – of which many were culled from the AICE Awards list of winners & finalists – were designed to sell cars, beer, phones, phone service, anti-virus security software, web browsers, TV series, and dairy products. The art of the Edit is perhaps the strongest programme in the series, and many of the 1 minute entries relied on humour as well as filmmaking techniques to make a precise impact on the viewer.<\/p>\n

Audi\u2019s \u201cAhab\u201d featured a tow-truck operator pining to catch the most elusive vehicle on his hit-list; Heineken beer initially poked fun at the creaky handlebar moustache until its wearer proved his strength in the boxing ring to the delight of many women; and Samsung sharply spoofed the Mac cult by having early birders waiting in line for a product launch teased by owners of Samsung \u201cNext Big Thing\u201d phone (which is at present ironic, given the merits of Apple\u2019s patent infringement lawsuit against Samsung is currently being deliberated by a jury, after closing arguments ended Tuesday<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Cravendale Milk\u2019s \u201cCats with Thumbs\u201d is simply brilliant for building on the paranoia from a simple question: What do cats think when they seen us consuming milk? and AVG correlates the strength of millions of users in defending computer viruses with a cage comprised of millions of toothpicks protecting enclosed humans from hungry tigers in the jungle wilds. There\u2019s also Old Navy\u2019s satirical poke at pretentious designers with \u201cSuper Tool\u201d (\u201cDress like a man!\u201d), and three hysterical entries in \u2018The Most Interesting Man in the World<\/a>\u2019 campaign from Dos Equis beer which feature extreme absurdism.<\/p>\n

DirectTV equates cable TV with dooming your daughter and grandson to social miscreants, and Canal + proves even a bear rug, with the right amount of determination, can become an internationally respected director. The British Weetabix campaign shows us a hard day from the perspective of dam, mom, and a shrill infant; and the Canadian Film Festival folded a neat little premise of a \u2018forced bank heist\u2019 into one minute.<\/p>\n

Clint Eastwood was hired by Dodge to promote their Ram trucks by building on his cranky old fart persona from Gran Torino<\/a><\/strong> (minus his character\u2019s racism) with highly nationalistic prose that builds to an \u201cImported from Detroit\u201d tagline. It\u2019s outright manipulation, but well done, and perhaps more effective in stirring up emotions than the attack ads by political parties because the Ram ad tells Americans quite simply that its greatness lies in getting up and rebuilding itself, instead of poking its siblings and neighbours\u00a0 in the eyes with divisive missives.<\/p>\n

Other dramatic highlights include the National Ballet of Canada\u2019s artful \u201cLost in Motion\u201d promo with a male dancer\u2019s movements creating small swirls within a watery environment; Radiolab\u2019s \u201cSymmetry\u201d montage; and a reappearance of VW\u2019s engagement ring proposal vignette, which was part of the prior Girls on Film<\/a> programme.<\/p>\n

Music videos were reduced to two: Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs\u2019 \u201cTrouble\u201d (nicely contrasting couch-level ennui in an environment of sleazy seventies leisure characters with experimental film effects in the finale), and Raphael Saadiq\u2019s \u201cStone Rollin\u2019\u201d with slo-mo hot babes walking to and around the band during performance. (One could also include the Lady Gaga \/ Google Chrome promo, as well as David Attenborough speaking the lyrics to \u201cWonderful World\u201d over a montage of BBC nature docs.)<\/p>\n

Lurpak\u2019s butter ad shows us the vegetable\u2019s POV during dinner making, and Fiat\u2019s lengthy music ad brilliantly parallels human routines (waking up, showering, dressing, breakfast) with the assembly of a car in what\u2019s probably the programme\u2019s best edited piece.<\/p>\n

After the screening, curator Rae Ann Fera<\/a> hosted a Q&A with Chris Franklin of Big Sky Edit<\/a>, New York. Roughly billed as \u2018the world\u2019s most award-winning AICE editor in history, Franklin discussed his work within specific ads that were seen in a reel (including one for Conan O\u2019Brien, AMEX, Ellen DeGeneres\u2019 riff on talking to animals, and the trailer for Bryan Buckley\u2019s short film Asad<\/strong>, which won an award at the Tribeca Film Festival<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Franklin\u2019s other credits (many done with Buckley) span several Super Bowl ads, and he covered his craft with straight shop talk (the audience was heavily comprised of several editors, several from local houses). Some the personal axioms shared with the audience included \u201cYou can\u2019t rely on imagination when screening for people\u201d (the neatness of HD footage mandates sonic accompaniment to make the best possible first impression), and \u201cSound is 80% of any edit\u201d (in terms of a cut\u2019s success aided by a simple yet perfectly used sound effect or music cue).<\/p>\n

Running a full 2 hours, The Art of the Edit enjoyed a decent turnout, and Fera\u2019s next curated installment will cover the evolution of the music video via the influence of YouTube and other online media venues.<\/p>\n

A full tally of the AICE winners & finalists (with archived videos) is available at their site<\/a> which, if you go to their main page, looks an awful lot like TIFF\u2019s recently tweaked site<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One can only presume it\u2019s a clear case of utter coincidence, and maybe a deep passion among film organizations to use the orange-grey-white palette, as evidenced by the Film Society Lincoln Center\u2019s own site<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

The message is clear: if you add a single primary colour to your layout design, you are in violation of the Belgium-Berlin Cineastic Agreement of 2001<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Ahem.<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor
\nKQEK.com <\/strong>( Main Site<\/a> \/ Mobile Site<\/a> )<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Blog & review of the latest installment of the TIFF Bell Lightbox’s Packaged Goods, “The Art of the Edit,” which screened this past Wednesday, and featured a Q&A with award-winning editor Chris Franklin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[1510,1511,927,1360,658],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-1q3","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5459"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5459\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}