SniperTwins AT&T Spoof (BP Oil Spill)

Posted by Matt Lambert


SniperTwins AT&T Spoof (BP Oil Spill)

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Matt Lambert

/ www.dielamb.com
NYC / London
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32 Comments

Igor Sordokhonov

what’s going on with youtube version? here’s mpc version http://www.moving-picture.com/index.php/los-angeles/877-atat-blanket.html

Matt Lambert

It’s a re-work addressing the BP oil spill.

rinla

very compelling adaption – thanks for posting. i’ve been watching this video feed from frequency on the spill – hard to watch, hard to look away: http://www.frequency.com/topic/bp-oil-spill/18217

JC3D

I think I like the original one better…

jsmith

Motionographer should be embarrassed for posting this.

oeuf

I think a few of you missed the point.

Sniper Twins

Thanks very much Matt for posting this. We agree with oeuf about a few missing the point. We made the spot with the same spirit the rig made the mess. We moved quick, did it sloppy, and destroyed something that was originally beautiful. It is our hope that more artists take beautiful content, ruin it, put it out there and thank BP for the inspiration.

We think Jsmith works for BP.

-SNIPER TWINS

Bran Dougherty-Johnson

Great work, Sniper Twins. I think the commentary is great and the sloppiness of it has exactly the intended affect.

I hadn’t seen the AT&T ad yet though. Now looking at the original, I wonder if the estate of Christo was consulted for that spot? I guess it’s par for the course, but still disturbing to see someone else’s ouvre mined for a commercial project like that.

drd

No, I don’t think these guys are missing the point. They’re pointing out how strange it is that Motionographer is listing a mediocre concept and an abomination of an execution on their typically higher end list of work.

You’re keying black into BRIGHT ORANGE. I don’t know if a vfx student could even key that poorly using default keying settings.

Thumbs down.

thewilliamwallace

Bad keying is the point…

Sniper Twins

NO, Igor Sordokhonov, first comment, missed the point. Read his comment. He missed the point.

And fine, mediocre concept and terrible vfx, thanks. But what did you do to make a statement about the oil spill lately besides criticize your fellow “artist”?

Igor Sordokhonov

yeah, my bad. sorry!

Sniper Twins

No prob Igor. Just needed something to argue drd who said no one missed the point. We’re fighting for our lives against all these pro designers and vfx extraordinaires and need any fodder we can get.

drd

I think what I’m going to be doing next week, going down to the gulf coast and helping the cleanup effort, is by far, a more proactive solution to this problem.
Thank’s for the unsolicited personal attack.

This spot would have been better if it were a BP spot, not an AT&T spot, that spoke directly about their commitment to environmental protection, rewritten, reshot, re-anything. The AT&T spot is not creatively relevant, other than a device that you used in a less-than-appealing way to convey the message. The message that everyone knows already. There is a continuing oil spill, the effects of which are continuing to be devastating.

Now to address the relevance of your comments against your “fellow artists”, I was merely staying on topic in my criticism. You can spend all day pointing fingers about “what did you do to help with the oil spill crisis”, but at the end of the day this forum is about analyzing the merits of the work showcased here. If someone criticizes your work, instead of personally attacking them about their “socially conscious motion graphics contributions”, it’s better to take it as a challenge and make your work better.

Sniper Twins

We’re glad you’re going down there. But how can you be sure your contribution is “far more proactive”? How can you quantify that? What if our spoof got 8 people to go down there, and you never make it down there because of flight delays?

Attack was solicited when you did the whole “thumbs down” thing to give us a visual of you sitting there with your king hat and your thumbs pointed down, disapproving two innocent Sniper Twins who had their hearts in the right place. Anyone so entitled to point their thumbs down at us or our work deserves at least that, c’mon, forget about it, respect, check this:

The AT&T spot is in itself a mediocre bite on two artists, we all know very well, to sell AT&T’s service, another corporation who is just as bad as any other giant corporation. Do they do anything to protect their customers from brain cancer from cell phones? To take their commercial, and make it look like crap, is truly a wonderful thing to do. Bansky would have been proud. Sure he would have taken more time and done better, but we didn’t want to take the time, because no matter how perfect we did it, it’s the same idea. You get it, whether perfect or crappy. And crappy seemed very much in the spirit of the crisis. We feel crappy, BP’s crappy, their work is crappy, everything’s crappy.

I disagree. When you knock someone’s personal work that they made to look like crap in order to catch the eye of tip top designers who are used to seeing wonderful things, it’s apparent you want to miss the point and not understand that of course they could do this better if they wanted, of course they could key orange from a low res file better, but that’s not really the goal here. Motionographer gets this. They have a sense of humor. And they obviously know how the original spot looked. They probably weren’t so thrilled by that spot, if they didn’t post it like federimanu says, and they were happy to see someone crap on it. I don’t see many remixes / reworks out there. We were hoping people would be inspired and do more of this kind of thing better than us. We would like every spot on motionographer to be fantastic reactions to the oil crisis. That’s why I go “off topic” and say, you’re not looking at the big picture here. You’re focused on the froth of the saliva on your toes as opposed to the giant bear standing above you with his mouth wide open.

I don’t know even know what I just said. But “socially conscious motion graphics contributions” is pretty funny. Listen, we won’t do this again. We apologize. We’ve moved on to more interactive stuff like this: http://www.snipertwins.com/oil

federimanu

The idea is cool. But using other people’s hard work to create it and not credit them is wrong. They have should included a link to the original post. Its also rather strange that the original spot was not featured on Motionographer but the spoof was.

Spoofs, Parodies, Homages…Its all cool, just credit and link to the original spot. Or ask permission to the studio that made it. Since after all, you are profiting from it. YES profiting by monetizing hits.

Sniper Twins

Not profiting. No monetizing hits. We haven’t seen a cent.

Also, we tried to credit in a response video and couldn’t do it. Plus, we figured everyone had seen this spot on TV a thousand times like we had. We’ll add something in the youtube write up and credit you too.

federimanu

You are driving traffic to your site using other people’s work. Just credit the original work or ask for permission next time.

Sniper Twins

federimanu, all people have been credited now! Even you! Thanks Fed. That won’t happen again.

thewilliamwallace

This is amazing… Y’all need to relax.

nonplussed

Sorry this is not amazing. This is a somewhat interesting concept with lame execution.I spent half the video wondering if my media player plug-in was broken. I applaud anyone who uses their time and energy to make a social critique, but I come to Motionographer for exceptional work, which this is not.

Sniper Twins

Lame execution? Your name is “nonplussed” and you’re nonplussed!! You’re like a literal pigeon holding cliche caging yourself in nonplussedness!! Why not call yourself “Whatever” or “Pfft” so we know exactly what sort of comments we’re going to get. We come to motionographer to read good comments by people with good alter ego names, which yours is not!

illop

This oil spill is a catastrophe. The more people who are aware of it, through whatever means possible, the better. Props to sniper twins for making a statement about it.

jsmith

I just think that our standard (the mograph community) are getting lowered by the day and this is the perfect example of it. Yes I get the symbolic meaning of the piece…blah blah. This is more about the big picture of what we take as “good” in this industry and unfortunately a lot of people take Motionographer as god. When they post shit like this, (like many of their other posts) people start to think this is good and acceptable work. There has been a steady decline of the quality of work produced over the past few years and spots like this are not helping.

*** I will be soooo glad when this stop motion fad is over

thewilliamwallace

Steady decline in quality? Show us some “quality” work.

****biased?

jsmith

I would say Feed/Stash is a perfect example of maintaining their standards and showing quality work 90% of the time. They would never show something like this.

Sniper Twins

We’re more concerned about the environment than the mograph community. The fact you see this spot and are more concerned about motion graphic artists than the earth dying is upsetting. But rest assured, the best work always rises to the top. You shouldn’t be worried when you see stuff like this. No one wants to see crap like this constantly. People want to see beautiful aesthetically pleasing work. We do too. But every now and then, something like this just makes total sense. No one out there is looking at this and thinking, “Wow, this is acceptable and will be great to do for the next Iron Man!” People, warm positive people, I might add, look at this and appreciate the sentiment.

Bad spots, bad bands, bad movies always inspire me in that when I hit the scene with my stuff, it’s going to stick out. And sometimes when you’re surrounded by good looking stuff that doesn’t mean anything, like Iron Man, something crude and bad with just a little more substance conceptually, has a place, and makes an impact.

And never say never about Feed/Stash. This pedestal you put them on… one day, they’ll post something you consider bunk, and they’ll break your heart.

***Stop motion isn’t a fad. It’s been around since the beginning of film. It’s a tool. Used correctly, it can be a wonderful thing. Like you, a tool, when used correctly HAHAHAA. I kid, c’mon, everyone lighten up! Let’s go out for a drink before the world is covered in oil!!

jsmith

Well this is my last post about this because it’s getting old. As I said in my previous comment I know the spot was more about the message of the oil spill and how horrible it is. If I wanted to learn about protecting the environment I would visit the EPA’s website. I don’t think this was the place to be seeing a video like this unless it was executed well or half way decent at that.

I never did say never about Feed/Stash. I said 90% where as here it’s about 50% at best. I know that they won’t always be posting stuff that I think is amazing, but they consistently post quality work, not just everything that lands in their inbox.

**** And yes stop motion has become a fad. Yes it’s been around forever, but look at the 80’s coming back in a big way. How much you want to bet you won’t see people wearing spandex and acid washed jeans 5 years from now.

movecraft

This is good ole’ culture jamming and re-appropriation. This sort of thing was pretty popular amongst the literate-y when I was in school (Adbusters mag, No Logo, Ron English, etc) The point is in the volume, not the execution. The basic tenant of this sort of thing is that commercialism and branding has intruded into our lives to such an extent that you no longer need to ask permission to talk back.

As to craft and polish, I think Transformers 2 demonstrated that execution is useless without direction. If motionographer no longer had any editorial tone or voice and simply became a newsfeed for technical wizardry and press releases, I’d find it a lot less interesting.

One thing to me is certain, arguing on a message board won’t help the situation in the gulf.

I’ve always believed that great design can’t change the world, only people can.

jimmers073

Sniper Twins, you should just give up arguing. Some people will never get it. Even after you tell them it’s supposed to look bad and be a comment on corporations having control and leaving destruction in their wake, they won’t admit they’re wrong, because they didn’t get it the first time they watched the spot. Apparently, they’re happy being slaves to monster corporations their whole lives and never using their talent or wit to make a comment on issues they believe in, or don’t believe in. I for one, get it, and appreciate it. It’s nice seeing there are other people out there who are frustrated and will piss all over a spot like this to show it.

Sniper Twins

Really well put. We stopped checking last week and just checked back, and your comment and movecraft’s comment are great comments to end on.

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