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.
Netflix Series “The Leopard” Spots Classic Italian Novel, Remakes It As A Sumptuous Period Drama
"The Leopard," a new Netflix series, takes the classic Italian novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and transforms it into a sumptuous period piece showing the struggles of the aristocracy in 19th-century Sicily, during tumultuous social upheavals as their way of life is crumbling around them.
Tom Shankland, who directs four of the eight episodes, had the courage to attempt his own version of what is one of the most popular films in Italian history. The 1963 movie "The Leopard," directed by Luchino Visconti, starring Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale, won the Palme d'Or in Cannes.
One Italian critic said that it would be the equivalent of a director in the United States taking "Gone with the Wind" and turning it into a series, but Shankland wasn't the least bit intimidated.
He said that he didn't think of anything other than his own passion for the project, which grew out of his love of the book. His father was a university professor of Italian literature in England, and as a child, he loved the book and traveling to Sicily with his family.
The book tells the story of Don Fabrizio Corbera, the Prince of Salina, a tall, handsome, wealthy aristocrat who owns palaces and land across Sicily.
His comfortable world is shaken with the invasion of Sicily in 1860 by Giuseppe Garibaldi, who was to overthrow the Bourbon king in Naples and bring about the Unification of Italy.
The prince's family leads an opulent life in their magnificent palaces with servants and peasants kowtowing to their every need. They spend their time at opulent banquets and lavish balls with their fellow aristocrats.
Shankland has made the series into a visual feast with tables heaped with food, elaborate gardens and sensuous costumes.... Read More