Fusing rap and tax returns is not for mainstream media, but it works very well online, Intuit demonstrated on April 15, when “It’s Just a Breeze G,” the $25,000 Grand Prize winning video in The TurboTax Tax Rap contest, played on YouTube.
“It’s pretty interesting for a financial company to feel comfortable doing this,” said Seth Greenberg, Intuit’s group manager of online advertising and Internet media. “The goal was to engage a broad array of tax payers.”
The idea wasn’t to create an ad from the winning video that can be played on TV, but a video that played on YouTube, which has an audience that rivals TV.
“We executed a home page takeover on YouTube on April 15 that drew over 10 million views and 250,000 downloaded the video,” Greenberg said.
YouTube also hosted the contest, which ran from February 8 to March 30 and drew 370 submissions. YouTube visitors selected the top 13 videos and Vanilla Ice, the popular rapper, chose the winner.
It’s a video by Zeke O’Donnell and Christian Pulfer, associate editors with Fluid, the New York-based music and editorial company that has done work for HP, Bank of America and Red Stripe Beer. O’Donnell shot the video, and Fluid composer Judson Crane wrote the rap music. Pulfer starred in the video as the rapper who uses TurboTax to get a big refund: “Cuz if you need a dollar, holler, cuz I got a lot back,” he sings, gleefully.
The crew used a Sony VX1000 camera to shoot the video throughout New York City, “from Soho to Redhook to Park Slope to the roof of fluid on Broadway,” Pulfer said. The video uses a combination of indoor and outdoor shots to follow the main character as he relates his experience and demonstrates how to use TurboTax. A number of “compositing tricks” were used, according to Pulfer, including reverse footage that shows money flying into Pulfer’s hands and the insertion of the TurboTax logo with After Effects.
The winning video played on Youtube on April 15, but the excitement continues with a rap off now taking place between Fluid and a team of rival video creators who believe they should have won. “It has an afterlife, with the rap off and the stories that are coming out,” Greenberg said. “They’re blogging about it. It’s the perfect example of using this channel in a way that resonates.”
Director Dag Johan Haugerud’s “Dreams (Sex Love)” Wins Top Prize At The Berlin Film Festival
A Norwegian film about love, desire and self-discovery won top honors at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival on Saturday.
A jury headed by American director Todd Haynes awarded the Golden Bear trophy to "Dreams (Sex Love)" by director Dag Johan Haugerud.
Haynes called it a "meditation on love" that "cuts you to the quick with its keen intelligence."
The film focuses on a teenager played by Ella Øverbyer, infatuated with her female French teacher, and the reactions of her mother and grandmother when they discover her private writings. It's the third part of a trilogy Haugerud has completed in the past year. "Sex" premiered at Berlin in 2024, and "Love" was screened at the 2024 Venice Film Festival.
The runner-up Silver Bear prize went to Brazilian director Gabriel Mascaro's dystopian drama "The Blue Trail." Argentine director Ivan Fund's rural saga "The Message" won the third-place Jury Prize.
The best director prize went to Huo Meng for "Living the Land," set in fast-changing 1990s China.
Rose Byrne was named best performer for her role as an overwhelmed mother in the Mary Bronstein-directed "If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You." Andrew Scott won the supporting performer trophy for playing composer Richard Rodgers in Richard Linklater's "Blue Moon."
The climax of the festival known as the Berlinale came on the eve of Germany's parliamentary elections after a campaign dominated by migration and the economy.
The national election is being held seven months early, after Chancellor Olaf Scholz's governing coalition collapsed in a dispute about how to revitalize the country's economy.
Efforts to curb migration have emerged as a central issue in the campaign — along with the question of how to handle the... Read More