Product Placement & Racing Movie update

Just watched the Island last weekend, and was actually expecting worse to tell you the truth. Mind you I am a fan of Ewan McGregor’s work, so I suppose that brought it up for me.

One item I did find quite amusing, is that you have all these hover trains, hover buses, jet bikes(I WANT ONE BY THE WAY!!!!) and yet the former “Delta Forces” etc are riding around in helicopters that still need rotors. I reckon he could have thrown some blue LED lights on the skids, bulked up the skids a bit, and had the computer guys take out the rotors later on, would have looked quite cool!

Anyway, the Island made me think about product placement. If you have seen the movie you will know why ;-). It is one of those necessary things in movies nowadays to help reduce costs, I truly have no problem with that as long as it works within the story. Hell even if it is only a small change, but does not affect overall story, and helps get the movie made, truly to me, no biggie. People do drink Coke and Pepsi, they do drive cars, etc so it can be a great symbiosis, however, I think there should be some ground rules so as the viewing public stop throwing items at the screen during the show.

Here are mine, feel free to add some more in comments.

1. There are other PC’s in the world besides Dell.

2. There are Apple computers, which are attractive, and widely used in graphical and creative work. However, they are not well known for running world wide nuclear plant and satellite networks. Keep the Macs for the writers in Starbucks.

3. Even though Dell computers are available wireless, they do not automatically logon onto Advanced Alien organic, crystal, 10000 year in the future technology. Well not very easily, normally you have to reboot once or twice.

4. If you have to place your product in a gritty, grungy, post apocalyptic world to make it look cool, make sure your product has not just had the Martha Stewart makeover and stands out like dogs balls, this actually detracts from its “street cred”. Unless of course it is a prison setting, then by all means it can have the Martha Stewart makeover.

5. Classic Coke was never drunk by anyone, and therefore should not appear anywhere.

6. Supermodels don’t drink full strength coke, unless it is white and mixed with champagne. This can be called a coke spritzer, however, I do think if you put the Coca Cola logo on the champagne glass you will have some trouble with the family lobby groups in the US.

7. The name you call your product now, is NOT going to be the same name in the year 3036. At the very least modify it slightly, to give the impression you are at least trying.

8. The family where the father is the sole bread winner by delivering pizzas, wife stays at home, and they ahve 5 kids, cannot afford to even put gas into the latest BMW X5 SUV, so don’t think he can have one sitting in the drive way.

9. Said pizza guy can not live in Trump towers, unless it is a remake of Brewster’s Millions.

10. Feel free to send me all possible products for me to evaluate and suggest how they are best placed. BMW, I do have room for the X5, the kids don’t need their rooms that bad.

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Racing Movie

Did some investigation into who might have movie rights to this book I read, as in the last 5 pages or so, the main character, tells how he and the main ringleader sold the movie rights, but he thinks it was a dodgy deal. I don't want to spend a heap of time on this if we cannot get those rights, or be involved with the person who has them, etc.

Anyway, going off the inside of the book, found publisher on web, then found publisher that had bought that publisher, found the rights department, emailed them. Got response, and then went searching for who they thought might have them still, as he had held them last they knew.

Looked up this guy, and found his office(10mins from my work!), mobile and email, all this was done on the web.

How long did this all take.

1 hour, in between jobs. Did I mention I love the internet.

To top it off, the guy who we think holds the rights, is now a manager and director for an internationally known Aussie TV star, who is bigger in the US then Oz. So yes, this guy has the potential to get the whole thing off the ground as well.

My meeting with the guy who has the court records is tonight, he got delayed Tuesday night unfortunately. Will run all this past him and see what he thinks. If he likes the idea of adapting the book (which I gave him earlier this week to read) and using his court records I will approach this manager with the angle of hey, how about we go away for 6 months see if we come up with something you like, and if so, how about we do something with it. Here lets sign this piece of paper to say we wont get our balls ripped out, etc. and we can all be happy.

Book is only 166 pages long, so it is not a huge thing to wade through which is good. I could see this being a made for TV movie......and the catchphrase that keeps coming into my head is The Conman just got conned. I think that is the basis of the whole story. Setup how this guy was a likeable conman, and then show him getting conned and left holding the bag. So to speak.

Will keep you posted.

Cheers
Dave.