Four live action short films starring Tonya and Donya, two beautiful young women who know nothing about rally driving, are being used to promote the release of SEGA Rally Revo, the off road rally racing video game that debuts Oct. 9. In the videos, the women examine their nails and gossip about their looks as they drive a race car through city streets and offroad terrain.
“The Misadventures of Tonya and Donya” videos were written and directed by Clay Weiner and produced by Mekanism/San Francisco, with no agency involved.
“Sega wanted to find a way to promote the title in a clever, fun way to engage the audience and spread it virally,” said Mekanism president and executive producer Jason Harris. “They liked the idea of Tonya and Donya and the irony of anti-heroes.”
There is live game footage at the end of the videos, but the antics of Tonya and Donya predominate.
Mekanism shot the videos on a stage and on location at an off-road race park in Hollister, CA. “We shot the girls on the stage and green screened them so you can see them head on or from the side,” said Stef Smith, a Mekanism producer. “We mounted a VariCam on the truck and drove it up and down the roads for the location shots.” Each of the videos also features a car crash sequence near the end, which was licensed with stock footage, she said.
“It required building a green screen around the car and shooting all dialogue and performance while they were in uniform seated in the car,” Weiner said. “We composited it later with the driving footage through the terrain and matched the shots with shots out the back and side windows and shots of other cars ahead.”
Weiner cast the videos with two comedic actresses from Los Angeles, Natasha Leggero and Melinda Hill. “They know each other and it was important to find people who have a relationship, so the balance between them comes across,” he said.
Three of the one-and-a-half to three-minute videos, Breakout, Starting Line and Moguls, are playing now, with the fourth scheduled to start this week. They are playing at a Sega games site and a range of other sites, including YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo Video, Revver and Veoh. They are also playing at the actresses’ MySpace pages and video sharing sites that “will create conversations about the films, so they’ll be spread that way,” Harris said.
This is the second campaign Mekanism produced for Sega. It won a Cannes Gold Lion for its mybigball.com campaign that featured “The True Adventures of Chad.”
Oscar Nominees Delve Into The Art Of Editing At ACE Session
You couldn’t miss Sean Baker at this past Sunday’s Oscar ceremony where he won for Best Picture, Directing, Original Screenplay and Editing on the strength of Anora. However, earlier that weekend he was in transit from the Cesar Awards in Paris and thus couldn’t attend the American Cinema Editors (ACE) 25th annual panel of Academy Award-nominated film editors held at the Regal LA Live Auditorium on Saturday (3/1) in Los Angeles. While the eventual Oscar winner in the editing category was missed by those who turned out for the ACE “Invisible Art, Visible Artists” session, three of Baker’s fellow nominees were on hand--Dávid Jancsó, HSE for The Brutalist; Nick Emerson for Conclave; and Myron Kerstein, ACE for Wicked. Additionally, Juliette Welfling, who couldn’t appear in person due to the Cesar Awards, was present via an earlier recorded video interview to discuss her work on Emilia Pérez. The interview was conducted by ACE president and editor Sabrina Plisco, ACE who also moderated the live panel discussion. Kerstein said that he was the beneficiary of brilliant and generous collaborators, citing, among others, director Jon M. Chu, cinematographer Alice Brooks, and visual effects supervisor Pablo Helman. The editor added it always helps to have stellar acting performances, noting that hearing Cynthia Erivo, for example, sing live was a revelation. Kerstein recalled meeting Chu some eight years ago on a “blind Skype date” and it was an instant “bromance”--which began on Crazy Rich Asians, and then continued on such projects as the streaming series Home Before Dark and the feature In The Heights. Kerstein observed that Chu is expert in providing collaborators with... Read More