DICE is an annual convention held in Las Vegas which hosts the “who’s who” of developers in the video game industry. Basically, it’s a week of fun which ends with an award show honoring the industries best works from the previous year. This piece was used as an interstitial between seminars and live events which played throughout the convention.
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Aaah, the 80′s. Recently we were blessed with the privilege of meeting Ed Logg, the creator of Atari’s most successful video games: Asteroids, Centipede and Gauntlet.
During our post-production research we came upon this gem of a commercial which epitomizes the essence of 1980′s advertising: beach babes, Ray-Bans, boom boxes, and blue skies standing in for blue screen. Video game history in motion.
Did you know?
Ice cubes in beverage advertisements are typically made of acrylic so they won’t melt under hot photography lights or move around. Bubbles are made by adding detergent, and water is added so light will filter through better.
MOTIONMAVEN GOES VIRAL!!!
Late one night in the edit bay, a group of mavens decided to test a recurring theory that had recently been discussed around the water cooler. They hypothesized that a ‘viral video’ must contain three specific ingredients in order to ensure that it attracts the appropriate number of eyeballs to justify the classification.
Celebrity, controversy, and sex.
If you ask us, that is the perfect recipe for magnetizing any demographic to the screen. To prove our hypothesis, we gathered photos from celebrity/party photographer markthecobrasnake, featuring what we thought were the most conventionally sexy girls and edited them to the controversial lyrics of Mickey Avalon’s song, So Rich So Pretty.
At the time, there were no other videos like it. Now, with over 2 million views and several imitations later, our inboxes are still receiving comments to this day. The video has been a success in multiple countries and even outgrew the official music video for the song. There’s nothing special about it, no fancy editing, no vfx, no budget, just three important ingredients: celebrity, controversy, and sex. That’s what we call, virus in motion. You can watch the video, here.
After months and months of filming nothing but commercials, we decided to get out of the office and simply tell a story. You know, the real reason why filmmakers move to Hollywood. So, in five short hours on a Saturday morning in downtown L.A., a splinter unit of mavens gathered on the 6th street bridge and began filming the chance encounter of two soon-to-be enemies, Mark & Tom.
Did you know?
Maven is a Yiddish word meaning accumulator of knowledge.
Street Mavens in Mozambique.
On Location: Blood Diamond
In 2006, while working on the HBO First Look special for Warner Brothers film, Blood Diamond, both talent and crew members were staying in the capital city of Maputo, Mozambique. If you were to wander the streets in your off-hours it would’ve been hard to ignore the clusters of street vendors who spent entire days shuffling up and down the sidewalks. They were all hunting for tourists, hoping to offload a souvenir in exchange for cash. They were painters, craftsmen, salesmen, hustlers and in our eyes…mavens.
Each one of them had siblings to support, children to feed, housing to pay for and we were told they did it all while only making $40 a month.
Sympathetic, a couple of us decided to film this short piece which will introduce you to three of them. After filming, we gave them each $40.