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.”
Review: Drew Hancock Makes Feature Directorial Debut With “Companion”
"Iris, wake up!"
Early in "Companion," lovely Iris and her nerdy-nice boyfriend Josh are driving to a secluded lake house for a stay with friends. Iris wakes from a nap and lovingly tells Josh she was dreaming about him. They reminisce about how they first met at the supermarket. All those oranges tumbling onto the floor! Ha ha.
In 20 minutes, absolutely everything about this sweet scene will be turned on its head in a terrifying and sinister manner. You will be surprised and shocked. Unless you saw the trailer, which reveals the whole thing.
And so we begin with a dilemma, dear moviegoer. "Companion," an exceedingly clever and entertaining sci-fi-horror-thriller-comedy by Drew Hancock in his feature debut, has more twists and turns than a corkscrew. But it's utterly impossible to write about the film without revealing the first of those twists.
So if you like coming in totally cold to a movie, then we're sorry to see you go, but stop reading! Otherwise, stay with us — we promise there'll be more surprises to come.
Moving on: Iris (Sophie Thatcher) and Josh (Jack Quaid) arrive at the estate. A nervous Iris stops at the door, worried that Josh's friends won't like her. He urges her to simply brighten up and act happy.
Kat (Megan Suri), Josh's ex, greets them. She is gorgeous, and frosty to Iris. Eli (Harvey Guillén) and his handsome boyfriend Patrick (Lukas Gage) are nicer. Then there's Sergey (Rupert Friend), Kat's aloof Russian boyfriend — sugar daddy, really — and owner of the house. The password to his devices is Stalin's birthday, which tells you something.
Things get dark, quickly. The next morning, someone dies. They will not be the first — this is a horror movie. And suddenly Iris, caked in blood,... Read More