GoDaddy.com is renowned for its risque Super Bowl spots, but it is taking that attitude into the broadband arena with a videopodcast at www.Frenchmaidtv.com. Frenchmaidtv, the brain child of Tim Street, is a series of how-to videopodcasts in which three scantily clad French maids teach viewers how to perform tasks such as registering domain names, which is where GoDaddy comes in.
“It’s goofy Benny Hill comedy that explains a variety of services, so it’s ideal for companies like GoDaddy to reach 18-34 year old males,” Street said. He founded Frenchmaidtv in 2005 and ran a few non-ad supported videopodcasts on iTunes, which were highly rated. “It got the ball rolling and we’re in business now,” he said.
He works with Podtrac, the podcasting network that sells ads to major companies. Mark McCrery, CEO and co-founder of Podtrac, sold Frenchmaidtv to GoDaddy. “It’s a great environment for advertisers to get their messages across to a target audience, especially when it comes to technical services that are complex for users,” McCrery said.
The format of the videopodcasts is two to four-minute episodes that start with casual shots of the maids before they begin their how-to lesson, which is told in alluring French accents with on-screen graphics that illustrate the steps.
Street says the main challenge in producing the videopodcasts is to name them so they will be found through videopodcast search. “Clients often want to use the name of the product, but people don’t always search by product name,” he said. “We chose ‘How to Register a Domain Name’ for GoDaddy and once we had that I wrote the script and sent it to GoDaddy and Podtrac for comments. We shot it in a hotel room with some location shots as well.”
Barb Rechterman, executive VP of marketing for GoDaddy, says she relies on podcasters to create their own programs. “We let them be the creative force because they’re able to cater their content to their audience. It’s safe for us because it’s coming from the heart of the podcasters. We guided the creative copy with Frenchmaidtv, but aside from that it’s all coming from them,” she said.
“The uniqueness of the voice of the podcast” is its highlight, according to Rechterman. “You can’t get it on TV, because it’s all scripted acting.”
Frenchmaidtv’s videopodcasts play on iTunes and Frenchmaidtv.com. GoDaddy’s also plays on its website (click “View all others” and “Our customers.”)
Craig Henighan Sounds Off On “Deadpool & Wolverine”
Hollywood lore has it that character actor Edmund Gwenn--while on his deathbed--quipped, “Dying is easy, comedy is hard.”
The second part of that darkly witty utterance remains all too true today as Craig Henighan--a Best Achievement in Sound Mixing Oscar nominee in 2019 for Roma--can attest in that he had to grapple with the sonic of being comic for this year’s box office hit, Deadpool & Wolverine (20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios).
The degree of inherent difficulty was ramped up even further because Deadpool & Wolverine had to seamlessly bring together high action-adventure exploits with moments and dialogue that tickled the funny bone. There’s a mesh of humorous banter--a staple of the franchise--along with major spectacle replete with explosions, fights, an impactful score and off-the-wall musical numbers.
Henighan explained that among the prime challenges for him from a sound perspective was having to make sure every joke landed within the construct of a superhero film. The tendency for a tentpole movie of this variety, he noted, is to gravitate towards big, loud audio spanning music, dialogue and sound effects. But the unique comedic element of Deadpool & Wolverine necessitated that re-recording mixer and supervising sound editor Henighan strike a delicate balance. “You need to get out of the way for the comedy,” he related. The jokes in a superhero film become “a real dance” as Henighan had to establish a rhythm that did justice to both the comedy and the action as the narrative moves back and forth between them--and sometimes the funny and the high energy, high decibel superhero dynamic unfold simultaneously in a scene or sequence. The “sonic fabric” has to... Read More