[YouTube]

[YouTube]

In March 2009 a small town in Iceland was filled with speakers. The Seydisfjordur village was turned into an extraordinary sound-system for a week. Sounds by Richard Fearless ( Death in Vegas ) Mum, Bob Dylan, Toumani Diabate, Roberto Goyeneche, Murcof, Federico Cabral, Guillemots, etc.

Good idea but no Radiohead or Nine Inch Nails? [YouTube]

I spent 2 hours trying to upload this video onto YouTube with my 1.5MB Qualitynet connection and I couldn’t. Finally was able to upload it by connecting my Mac to my iPhone’s 3G connection. Took around an hour but at least its finally up. Anyway this is the final cut of the new Wataniya Airways commercial which we shot 10 days ago in Beirut. I uploaded the 720p version so make sure you click the HD button or click the following link for the best resolution. [YouTube - HD]

Last week when I was in Beirut I was there for work shooting a commercial for Wataniya Airways. One of the cool things about the shoot was that we were using the Phantom HD camera. The Phantom HD is a digital camera that can shoot up to 1500 frames per second (fps) at 720p resolution or 1000fps at 1080p.

I think we were one of the first people in the region to use this camera if not the first. Anyway just to explain what shooting at high speed means or does. Generally video runs at around 24fps. So that means if you shoot 1 second of footage at the speed of 1000fps, when you play it back at regular speed of 24fps, that 1 second of footage will last around 40 seconds. What this does is allow you to capture a lot of detail in that 1 second. It’s similar to the camera used on the Discovery Show, Time Warp. If you shoot a bullet in front of a high speed camera you will be able to see it flying through the air when played back. The camera slows down time.

Since the commercial is going to get released soon I was able to get permission to post one of my favorite takes. It’s a scene of a guy dressed in a dishdasha falling back onto the bed. What I liked about this shot is the way the dishdasha moves while in the air and also how the bed ripples when the guy lands. This scene is going to be in the final commercial except we will only be using around 2 seconds of this 47 second clip. [YouTube]

Note: I am trying to get my hands on a higher resolution footage, once I get that will update this post with it.

Update: I’ve updated the video with the higher quality version. Also added the picture below of the camera on set.

Pretty gruesome so don’t watch it if you can’t handle it. [YouTube]

[YouTube]

These commercials are a couple of years old but they still make me laugh every time I watch them. The one above is my favorite but here are two other executions which are also very funny. [First] and [Second]

Whoever did this anti-drugs spot must have been on drugs. [YouTube]

Coolest GPS commercial ever! [Vimeo]

Thanks miraclezdohappen!

This commercial is a couple of years old but I somehow missed it. There are two more parts [Here] and [Here] although I don’t think they’re as funny as the one above. [YouTube]

Thanks Katia!

[YouTube]

Two cool Nokia commercials created by JWT – China.

[YouTube]

Someone took a Mighty Putty commercial and dubbed over it and now its wayyy funnier. Some bad language so if you get easily offended don’t watch it. [YouTube]

Q8Life posted about how the ad above is a national disgrace due to the fact that the currency is torn in half. Does anyone else find it offensive? I personally don’t. [Link]

Right on the heels of Whopper Virgin comes Whopper Sacrifice, another super smart campaign by Burger King. Whopper Sacrifice is a Facebook application and unlike anything else on Facebook it isn’t trying to make you join a group, make more friends or spread the word, instead it asks you to delete 10 friends from your list and in return you get a free Whopper. Usually when you de-friend someone on Facebook its quiet and your friends might not even notice, not the case with Whopper Sacrifice. It will make sure your 10 friends know you ditched them for a whopper. Now it doesn’t work in Kuwait as in you won’t get a free Whopper here but its still fun to do. [Link]

This is one strange Korean commercial. It’s for fried chicken and stars a Korean version of Robocop and has spaghetti western music as the soundtrack! [YouTube]