The Juicers met again this week to share some more visual and audio treasures that we have found.
Here are this month’s highlights. Enjoy.
Honda – Keep Up
One of Bethan’s choices was this fantastic Honda commercial. As a Video Production company, it’s pretty common for us to use text over video footage, and we’re often urged to keep the text on-screen for longer to allow the viewer plenty of time to be able to read it. This commercial, albeit beautifully and carefully crafted, proves that rule to be wrong. As the text speeds up, we find ourselves trying to ‘keep up’ – a clever way to make sure a message is read and the viewer has fully engaged.
Olivia Dunn, Honda UK, Head of Marketing commented “Viewers will need to read at speeds up to 1000 words per minute in our faster shorter online films, which is definitely going to be a challenge whilst at the same time being fun.”
Juicers found we were able to read it pretty easily, what with the awesome rhythm and editing, we were glued to the screen. Job done.
Comic Book Heaven
I chose this short documentary about 81-year-old New-Yorker Joe Leisner. It’s a highly watchable, beautifully edited short-film about a highly opinionated, cantankerous character. I find it refreshing that even though he has spent his life selling comic books, he’s pretty disparaging about his own product and never loses sight of what’s really important in life. “The farmers had the right idea… they put the comics in the outhouses, to wipe their asses. And that’s all comics were really worth. But in this country, because there’s so many wealthy people, they make junk worth money.”
Murderball
Harry chose this BBC Four documentary about physically disabled athletes who play wheelchair rugby. It was shot on a very low budget, yet was nominated for Best Documentary Feature in the 78th Academy Awards. The clip we saw (8 mins in) featured on the angry and (warning!) foul-mouthed Joe Soares, arguably the best player in the world who was cut from the US team so went on to play for the Canadian team in the Wheelchair Rugby World Championship. He was then fired, so he moved on to coach the British team who also fired him, so he then went on to coach Germany.
Salavat Fidai
Bethan also showed us this incredible time-lapse footage of artist Salavat Fidai’s miniature sculptures… on the tip of pencil leads!
Sleep
Lastly, for those of you who may suffer from insomnia, here is Sleep. Max Richter has composed the longest ever piece of classical music, intended to be listened to whilst you slumber. Sleep is an 8-hour piece which Richter calls a ‘lullaby for a frenetic world’. Just like the music, this documentary is beautiful and calming and visually represents our high-speed, frenetic world contrasting beautifully with the slow-paced music. Interestingly, Max Richter intends to stage a live 8-hour performance, where the audience is encouraged to nod off!
