Karate Kop, the viral video Lucky Brand Jeans is using to promote a holiday in-store sale, is a throwback to the blaxploitation films of the 1970s, with the main character a take-off on legendary icons like Shaft.
“It’s a comedic satire of the ’70’s B movie trailer,” said Scott Cohn, creative director at Night Agency/New York, which created and produced the one minute and twenty-seven second video. “We don’t consider it to be a direct selling spot. It’s an entertaining buzz piece to spread the word about the special offer.”
It’s actually the second film in a series, the first being a take-off on horror movies from the ’70s like Friday the 13th. “’70s movies are a fun aesthetic, they come with their own set of cultural references, which are pretty well established and easy to work in and execute,” Cohn said.
The cultural references exploited in Karate Kop are the slick black cop and laid back white guys whom the cop confronts as they try to take advantage of special deals on hip clothes, which of course aren’t as good as the one they can get on Lucky Brand Jeans. The cop assaults a group of deadbeats before walking away with the cool chick who thinks he’s sexy.
Baron Vaughn, a comedian from New York, plays the karate kop.
Night shot the film in November in New York, “downtown near our office,” Cohn said. It was shot with a Panasonic HVX200 camera in DVCproHD, edited in Final Cut Pro with post work in Adobe After Effects. “We shot it at 60 frames per second at 720p to do some basic speed and scaling effects, and to help us achieve a film look,” Cohn said. “The rest of the film degradation was done in After Effects.”
Shooting a film for the web is different from a TV shoot. “We focus on the foreground and don’t use too many complicated frames,” he said.
He also said shooting satires of ’70s films works well on the web. “It’s one of the reasons we chose the B movie theme. We can do it without complicated equipment and production values, so it’s probably the same as when they were shooting the movies in the ’70s,” he said.
The film plays at www.karatecop.com, a Lucky Brand Jeans site. It will also play at a range of fashion sites Cohn named in a media buy, including fashionista.com, racked.com, thebudgetfashionista.com and catwalkqueen.tv.
Apple and Google Face UK Investigation Into Mobile Browser Dominance
Apple and Google aren't giving consumers a genuine choice of mobile web browsers, a British watchdog said Friday in a report that recommends they face an investigation under new U.K. digital rules taking effect next year.
The Competition and Markets Authority took aim at Apple, saying the iPhone maker's tactics hold back innovation by stopping rivals from giving users new features like faster webpage loading. Apple does this by restricting progressive web apps, which don't need to be downloaded from an app store and aren't subject to app store commissions, the report said.
"This technology is not able to fully take off on iOS devices," the watchdog said in a provisional report on its investigation into mobile browsers that it opened after an initial study concluded that Apple and Google effectively have a chokehold on "mobile ecosystems."
The CMA's report also found that Apple and Google manipulate the choices given to mobile phone users to make their own browsers "the clearest or easiest option."
And it said that the a revenue-sharing deal between the two U.S. Big Tech companies "significantly reduces their financial incentives" to compete in mobile browsers on Apple's iOS operating system for iPhones.
Both companies said they will "engage constructively" with the CMA.
Apple said it disagreed with the findings and said it was concerned that the recommendations would undermine user privacy and security.
Google said the openness of its Android mobile operating system "has helped to expand choice, reduce prices and democratize access to smartphones and apps" and that it's "committed to open platforms that empower consumers."
It's the latest move by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to crack down on the... Read More