During this year’s Super Bowl, Chrysler presented an ad that showed a lot of Detroit’s finest points (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKL254Y_jtc). The commercial was an instant hit with a lot of people, not just because it showed positive things, but it represented a city that is on the verge of resurrection. Detroit has long been associated with urban decay and corrupt government. The city has lost a million citizens and the businesses that were there to support it over the last 50 years, but it still presses on. I thought the commercial was very well written, narrated and presented. The filming of the commercial was very much “NYPD Blue,” with the camera wagging all over and having many little clips spliced together to form a single shot. The narration is all about how Detroit is its own entity and speaks loudly about the character of the city’s resilience. Detroit is best known for being the birthplace of the automobile assembly line and the production of cars since then. The music of the commercial starts off slow and subdued. It builds up through a continuous, choppy guitar 4-count strum to a choir on the Fox Theater stage crescendo. Musician, Eminem presents the pitch-point, “This is the Motor City and this is what we do,” just before a “Imported From Detroit” slogan appears on a white on black background over a Chrysler emblem.
Our assignment was to develop a “compelling” video, with a twist; try to stay away from the normal “Aww” and “Ooh” getters. As I struggled with this assignment I contemplated the absurd: a toilet paper commercial for related a body part (complete with music naming the location), but did not wish to offend my classmates, or professor. I also thought about the touchy-feely: a commercial that drums up support for your local fire department. I really had a hard time thinking of what I can do that is compelling, with a twist, without being gross, or sappy. It was not until late Friday night (10 February 2011) that the idea of twisting the Chrysler 200 ad hit me. BUT, when it did come to me, it was very clear how I wanted to shoot my portions and what items I wanted to include. The video I chose to shoot was contrary to Chrysler’s. We both intentionally set out to show a side of Detroit that needed to be displayed. Detroit has a lot to offer, but it also has a lot to avoid. I wanted my viewers to experience this through the imagery.
I called up a friend of mine and asked him to be my cameraman as I drove around Detroit, looking for items of opportunity. We strafed the neighborhoods, shooting targets of opportunity and used the Chrysler 200 commercial for a loose template on certain things (The Fist of Joe Louis, the flag pole left behind from Tiger Stadium at Michigan/Trumbull). The Chrysler Headquarters is up in Auburn Hills, but I had to drive past it on my way to Detroit, so it became fodder, plus, since I was making a parody of their commercial, fitting. We started filming at the Detroit Zoo and zigzagged our way through some of the neighborhoods looking for dilapidation and decay. It was not hard to find necessary footage. We were very happy when we came across a few dogs at a street corner. One of the dogs, as if on cue, started rummaging through a plastic bag on the ground, looking for food. We saw some graffiti that said, “Please Kill Me,” but we did not get a clear enough shot of it and I could not implement it into my video. Yhat would have fit very well into my version. As I was editing the footage we had just taken, I thought of closing out my parody with an M&M character as a twist on Chrysler using Eminem for their spokesman; just a weird sense of humor thrown in my video.
For my background music, I chose Black Sabbath’s, E5150, which is an intro to Mob Rules. The long, choppy guitar gave me ample time to narrate my question/story about Detroit. It took forever for me to play the song with Windows Media Player, record it with Audacity and convert it to a WAV file for usage. It was hard to get the music volume loud enough to be heard, without being competitive with the narration. After the background was established, I had to go back, switch around the footage pieces and make them fit the timing of the sound. It was quite the experience.
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