You stole my heart in 1, 2, 3

Wow, it's been awhile. February ate me and spit me back out, but I'm still kicking.

So for spring break I went home and got to watch TV for the first time in ages. I forgot how much I missed just lounging on the couch and watching mindless TV show...and even commercials.

My new favorite set of ads are the ones for Amazon's Kindle. I recently saw the 2nd one and as a result got hooked on the first.

The best part? These ads are NOT professionally produced. These ads are a result of a contest that Amazon hosted where people could submit homemade commercials. The top five were really good, but the winning commercial stood out. The ad uses stop motion, a favorite technique of mine.

The creator, Angela Kohler, described her creative process:

"My boyfriend, Ithyle Griffiths, and I had just purchased Kindles and were doing a lot of traveling when we got the e-mail about the contest. We were constantly approached in airports with questions about them. The best thing about the Kindle was that we no longer had to each pack five books in our luggage, and could pick and choose what book to open every time we boarded a flight. We wanted our commercial to reflect all the different books you can carry around in one device. On a plane from Japan to Thailand, we brainstormed ideas and sketched out little stories that our character could fall into following different literary genres. We scribbled out pictures on napkins and made a flip-book, putting the little scenes in different orders. The day of the shoot, we gutted a pillow to make clouds and smoke (a last-minute addition) and did the commercial in one seven-hour take. Our friend Annie Little starred in the spot, Sharon Williams was in charge of the wardrobe, Rachel DeSimone did the hair and makeup and we all worked together moving the scene inch by inch between shots. After we assembled the 300 or so frames, Ithyle wrote some music to accompany the clip, and that same day Annie sent over some lyrics that just happened to fit perfectly. They recorded it together the next day. We are so thrilled to have won both prizes because it means our film resonates with both Amazon corporate and their customers. We are really looking forward to attending the Gen Art Film Festival, and having our video recognized at the event is definitely icing on the cake." From Two If By See

One of the collaborators, Annie Little, wrote and performed "Fly Me Away" for the original commercial. The second commercial in the series features the same stop motion style with a new song, "Stole Your Heart", from Annie Little and Marcus Ashley.

I find that much of user generated content is more interesting than industry created content, whether it's an ad, a program, or something else.

x,
Chace
The Faux-hattanite