Comcast is promoting a new website and on demand channel for horror content with a spooky video that features an eery organ dealer handling bloody body parts.
Urban Legend, created by Goodby Silverstein & Partners/San Francisco, and produced by Tool of North America, Santa Monica, Calif., is an interview with the organ dealer who begins by telling the story of “the guy who gets his kidney stolen,” who we ultimately see lying on the floor behind him, his body vivisected, as the narrator puts bloody body parts into plastic bags on his desk. “Make it believable. Make it scary,” the video concludes, offering viewers a part in an upcoming Lionsgate horror film if they submit the winning entry in the Ziddio.com video contest.
The campaign for Ziddio.com and FEARnet “supports Comcast’s new media initiatives,” said Paul Foulkes, an associate creative director at Goodby. “Ziddio promotes user-generated content for more serious filmmakers and FEARnet is an on demand channel with original horror movies and clips.”
The video tells an urban legend to generate similar legend videos from contest participants. “What if we took the premise and twisted it and made it from the point of view of the person telling you the story being an insider to the story,” Foulkes said. “It’s like you heard the urban legend from the source and there’s a great reveal at the end.”
Director Geordie Stephens of Tool of North America shot the film on 24p video and reshot it as it played back on a TV monitor. “The quality of the video is so high, it looks polished and cinematic. We wanted it to be gritty and low tech,” he said. “So we played it on a large monitor and videotaped it, so it downgraded in resolution. We color corrected it so it looks the way we wanted it, blown out and contrasty.”
It was shot in Van Nuys [Calif.] in the [San Fernando] Valley, “in a tiny grungy motel off the freeway,” Stephens said. “We created the scene where it might have happened. The outdoor scenes were shot in the surrounding area and the bar scenes were shot in a little bar we found nearby.”
The main character and the other actors in the video were non-union talent. “They’d never been seen in commercials before and we wanted to make sure it was original,” Stephens said. “We worked with them on the script to make sure they had it down pat. No teleprompters” (for lines like: “Kidneys are like flank steak compared to what you can get for a good pair of lungs.”).
The video is currently running on YouTube and various blogs.
Supreme Court Allows Multibillion-Dollar Class Action Lawsuit To Proceed Against Meta
The Supreme Court is allowing a multibillion-dollar class action investors' lawsuit to proceed against Facebook parent Meta, stemming from the privacy scandal involving the Cambridge Analytica political consulting firm.
The justices heard arguments in November in Meta's bid to shut down the lawsuit. On Friday, they decided that they were wrong to take up the case in the first place.
The high court dismissed the company's appeal, leaving in place an appellate ruling allowing the case to go forward.
Investors allege that Meta did not fully disclose the risks that Facebook users' personal information would be misused by Cambridge Analytica, a firm that supported Donald Trump 's first successful Republican presidential campaign in 2016.
Inadequacy of the disclosures led to two significant price drops in the price of the company's shares in 2018, after the public learned about the extent of the privacy scandal, the investors say.
Meta spokesman Andy Stone said the company was disappointed by the court's action. "The plaintiff's claims are baseless and we will continue to defend ourselves as this case is considered by the District Court," Stone said in an emailed statement.
Meta already has paid a $5.1 billion fine and reached a $725 million privacy settlement with users.
Cambridge Analytica had ties to Trump political strategist Steve Bannon. It had paid a Facebook app developer for access to the personal information of about 87 million Facebook users. That data was then used to target U.S. voters during the 2016 campaign.
The lawsuit is one of two high court cases involving class-action lawsuits against tech companies. The justices also are wrestling with whether to shut down a class action against Nvidia.... Read More