by Anx » Thu Jan 17, 2013 3:35 am
Interesting idea... I think the first thing you need to figure out is who exactly the target market is for the video you want to make, and what kind of reaction you hope to evoke from them. If you want to make something compelling, it's about the story, and that really boils down to the human experience.
I think going for the traditional "This is the performance, blah blah blah" isn't that interesting or compelling - Top Gear already did that and you'll be hard pressed to do something better or that adds something to the equation that wasn't there before. Just because the car has a different engine or whatever doesn't matter as much because everyone under the sun is going to be telling that story. I think people miss the fact that it's not really the Atom that is the star of the Top Gear video - it's Jeremy Clarkson's very visual experience in the car - that's what people connect to. I think that's also why the original video garnered 10m+ views while the v8 one only got a fraction of it - it was a story we had already seen, sure, it's fun to see it again, but it's not nearly as dramatic.
I think the Ken Block videos are cool and fun to watch, but if you do something like that, it's just another "Check out this video that's like that Red Bull guy", you really have to be the first in order to capture the kind of zeitgeist Ken's did.
Personally, the direction I would go would be to tell the story about the people who love this unique vehicle - why the chose it and what they do with it. If you're looking to try to sell cars from the video, beyond the Top Gear video, this would probably be the best in my opinion, because you could cover several points of view, and each persons perspective is going to be different and will resonate with people in a different way.
For instance, I could easily see you making a documentary that's made up of several vignettes about different owners. Try to track down say 7 or 8 owners who are doing extreme things with their Atoms - the more diverse, the better. Figure that you'll end out using probably 6 of the people in the video - you'll have some B roll connector material, so each segment would be probably 7 minutes or so (the final target length being ~48 minutes so you could submit it to shows like POV or Independent Lens). Let's use some more concrete examples of the people - there's at least one guy who has done several cross country trips - so interview him, and if possible document a bit of his trip. Talk about what it's like doing a trip in something like the Atom - what drew it to him originally - what surprised him most about owning one, etc. Next, pick someone who has just purchased an Atom, and is planning to drive it back from the factory. Interview him before he leaves, show his arrival and picking up the car, some of the drive home, and then interview him a month later after he's had the car a while. Ask him a different set of questions - knowing what you know now, what would you do differently in regards to the atom - what aspects were more intense than you expected - etc. Obviously include someone who is racing with the car - ideally find someone who has a variety of other vehicles and show the evolution of how he ended up with an Atom. Show some track time with him, show some of the reactions it gets around the track, etc.
If you look at a film like Senna, it's the personification of this - they told a story about F1, but they told it from the perspective of a single driver in F1. If they hadn't done that, I don't think it would have been nearly as compelling (and there have been numerous F1 documentaries before this one that never garnered the recognition that it has).
Anyway, that's my 2c - I've been working on a pilot for the last few months and have been spending an inordinate amount of time on the subject of storytelling so it's at the front of my brain at the moment. Obviously what I describe would take more to pull off then grabbing a few cameras and setting them up around some track - but it also has a chance to appeal to a much broader audience and have some lasting merit. I think if you found some independent filmmaker and pitched them on the human side of the story instead of the machine side, you could probably make something very special and unique....
Oh, and can rest assured I'm doing everything in my power to work the Atom into the pilot I'm involved with...
Interesting idea... I think the first thing you need to figure out is who exactly the target market is for the video you want to make, and what kind of reaction you hope to evoke from them. If you want to make something compelling, it's about the story, and that really boils down to the human experience.
I think going for the traditional "This is the performance, blah blah blah" isn't that interesting or compelling - Top Gear already did that and you'll be hard pressed to do something better or that adds something to the equation that wasn't there before. Just because the car has a different engine or whatever doesn't matter as much because everyone under the sun is going to be telling that story. I think people miss the fact that it's not really the Atom that is the star of the Top Gear video - it's Jeremy Clarkson's very visual experience in the car - that's what people connect to. I think that's also why the original video garnered 10m+ views while the v8 one only got a fraction of it - it was a story we had already seen, sure, it's fun to see it again, but it's not nearly as dramatic.
I think the Ken Block videos are cool and fun to watch, but if you do something like that, it's just another "Check out this video that's like that Red Bull guy", you really have to be the first in order to capture the kind of zeitgeist Ken's did.
Personally, the direction I would go would be to tell the story about the people who love this unique vehicle - why the chose it and what they do with it. If you're looking to try to sell cars from the video, beyond the Top Gear video, this would probably be the best in my opinion, because you could cover several points of view, and each persons perspective is going to be different and will resonate with people in a different way.
For instance, I could easily see you making a documentary that's made up of several vignettes about different owners. Try to track down say 7 or 8 owners who are doing extreme things with their Atoms - the more diverse, the better. Figure that you'll end out using probably 6 of the people in the video - you'll have some B roll connector material, so each segment would be probably 7 minutes or so (the final target length being ~48 minutes so you could submit it to shows like POV or Independent Lens). Let's use some more concrete examples of the people - there's at least one guy who has done several cross country trips - so interview him, and if possible document a bit of his trip. Talk about what it's like doing a trip in something like the Atom - what drew it to him originally - what surprised him most about owning one, etc. Next, pick someone who has just purchased an Atom, and is planning to drive it back from the factory. Interview him before he leaves, show his arrival and picking up the car, some of the drive home, and then interview him a month later after he's had the car a while. Ask him a different set of questions - knowing what you know now, what would you do differently in regards to the atom - what aspects were more intense than you expected - etc. Obviously include someone who is racing with the car - ideally find someone who has a variety of other vehicles and show the evolution of how he ended up with an Atom. Show some track time with him, show some of the reactions it gets around the track, etc.
If you look at a film like Senna, it's the personification of this - they told a story about F1, but they told it from the perspective of a single driver in F1. If they hadn't done that, I don't think it would have been nearly as compelling (and there have been numerous F1 documentaries before this one that never garnered the recognition that it has).
Anyway, that's my 2c - I've been working on a pilot for the last few months and have been spending an inordinate amount of time on the subject of storytelling so it's at the front of my brain at the moment. Obviously what I describe would take more to pull off then grabbing a few cameras and setting them up around some track - but it also has a chance to appeal to a much broader audience and have some lasting merit. I think if you found some independent filmmaker and pitched them on the human side of the story instead of the machine side, you could probably make something very special and unique....
Oh, and can rest assured I'm doing everything in my power to work the Atom into the pilot I'm involved with... ;)