A man plays to the camera in a YouTube-style makeshift video. The twist is he’s wearing a photo of former U.S. VP Al Gore as a face mask while awkwardly dancing–for seemingly no earthly reason.
However the Gore “disguise” and hoofer performance gain relevance when our masked man points to a sign on which the word ALGORITHM is written in capital letters. He puts his hand over the “ITHM” to feature “ALGOR,” the phonetic pronunciation of our former VP’s name. Next he covers over “ALGO” to accentuate “RITHM,” concluding his two-part visual explanation as to why he’s dancing while wearing a Gore headshot for a mask.
He then reveals the flipside of the card which defines ALGORITHM as “The Thingy That Gets You More Relevant Results.” And the state-of-the-art algorithm is the competitive edge of Ask.com, whose name appears on the last card he shows us.
“Algorithm” is part of a four spot campaign directed by Tim Godsall of Biscuit Filmworks, Los Angeles, for Fallon London. Biscuit and London house Independent–under the moniker Biscuit@Independent–produced the package of commercials. Shawn Lacy and Eric Stern (of Biscuit) and Richard Packer (of Independent) were exec producers. The DP was Steve Roach.
Fallon’s team included creative director Micah Walker, creative Ali Alvarez and producers Dionne Jackson and Lara Tait.
Editor was John Mayes of Marshall Street, London.
Does “Hundreds of Beavers” Reflect A New Path Forward In Cinema?
Hard as it may be to believe, changing the future of cinema was not on Mike Cheslik's mind when he was making "Hundreds of Beavers." Cheslik was in the Northwoods of Wisconsin with a crew of four, sometimes six, standing in snow and making his friend, Ryland Tews, fall down funny.
"When we were shooting, I kept thinking: It would be so stupid if this got mythologized," says Cheslik.
And yet, "Hundreds of Beavers" has accrued the stuff of, if not quite myth, then certainly lo-fi legend. Cheslik's film, made for just $150,000 and self-distributed in theaters, has managed to gnaw its way into a movie culture largely dominated by big-budget sequels.
"Hundreds of Beavers" is a wordless black-and-white bonanza of slapstick antics about a stranded 19th century applejack salesman (Tews) at war with a bevy of beavers, all of whom are played by actors in mascot costumes.
No one would call "Hundreds of Beavers" expensive looking, but it's far more inventive than much of what Hollywood produces. With some 1,500 effects shots Cheslik slaved over on his home computer, he crafted something like the human version of Donald Duck's snowball fight, and a low-budget heir to the waning tradition of Buster Keaton and "Naked Gun."
At a time when independent filmmaking is more challenged than ever, "Hundreds of Beavers" has, maybe, suggested a new path forward, albeit a particularly beaver-festooned path.
After no major distributor stepped forward, the filmmakers opted to launch the movie themselves, beginning with carnivalesque roadshow screenings. Since opening in January, "Hundreds of Beavers" has played in at least one theater every week of the year, though never more than 33 at once. (Blockbusters typically play in around 4,000 locations.)... Read More