How to build a bitchin' Transformers standee, Quicksilver style

I thought I'd post something else for a change. Something wickedly cool, naturally (though admittedly, the video quality when posted on my blog leaves a lot to be desired). Me and my partner in promotional crime recently built this giant standee for the upcoming movie Transformers: Age of Extinction. It took us just over three hours to complete this daunting task, though you would not guess so from this little 11-second video. This footage gives a decent impression of the activities I usually engage in on Thursday afternoons on the job. Of course, most standees aren't nearly as big or complex as this particular specimen (which is why they don't get spiffy timelapse videos like this one). I can safely say that building this standee was much more fun than watching the actual movie. Considering its running time of 165 minutes, it would take up an equal amount of time too. I doubt many people would have the privilege of building this one though, as it sets the distributor back a whopping 2,500 euros, so not many have been produced. Which is why there's only two of these in the Netherlands, though you can spot its small sized counterpart (only about half as big) in most other commercial theaters. As the climax of the video flashes by in mere milliseconds, below you'll find a picture of the final product so you can experience its splendid detail and admire the craftsmanship that goes into building these huge standees.

It's gonna be a damn shame to tear this one down when the times comes. But hey, it's too big to take home with me by train...

Today's News: rise of the sustainable superhero

Another MS newsflash from mine own hand:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/153835/nieuwe_behind-the-scenes_featurettes_the_amazing_spider-man_2

Not much novel actual content from the movie itself here, except for some new snappy gags showing off Spidey's trademark sense of humour (sorely missed in Raimi's trilogy of Spider-films). Otherwise these are typical puff pieces, in which the cast and crew reminisce about how great it was to make this movie, how much they adored each other on set and how lucky they are to have these jobs. Which is the usual sort of thing for featurettes like these to show. They serve as little more than promotional pieces reminding you of how much you want to see this movie by displaying little new material but showing mostly 'the good times' from the set so you get the idea that these people have the greatest jobs imaginable, and therefore the resulting final film is a work of love, instead of mere business. The 'Sustainability' video is interesting in this regard too, as it reveals how much studios aim to appear as if they care about more than just the huge sums of money that are involved, in this particular case by 'going green'. Producing big blockbuster movies is after all a hugely wasteful exercise, and there's definite room for improvement there. Now that public sentiment towards ecological thinking turns ever more in the direction of widespread embrace by vast audience numbers, studios hop on this bandwagon to show the folks that are likely to buy tickets they care about the environment too. Especially in the case of giant multi-million dollar projects like this one, public relations are of the utmost importance, so the studio must appear as likeable and openminded as possible. You didn't think they were going green because it actually is the most responsible and sound thing to do, right? They're doing this because the audience needs to like their new movie in every way imaginable, and ecological thinking is "all the rage" right now. Sounds harsh? Maybe it is, but time must tell whether the current Hollywood fad of sustainable filmmaking leads to actual permanent changes in the industry and its general short-term way of thinking. That said, it's still a change in the right direction and as such a laudable objective. But I doubt most audiences will care really much about all this hard work on the sustainability front when they sit down in theaters to watch The Amazing Spider-Man 2. They just want to see their webslinging hero wisecracking around as he's kicking bad guy butt. Bad guys like the Green Goblin. See, there's some subverted ideological overtones right there...

Today's Column: life and death of theatrical advertisement

Got another column up at MovieScene:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/150228/column_leven_en_dood_van_filmreclame

As usual I handed in my column weeks in advance, and it promptly got put online, even though it basically wasn't my turn to post a column this week. Case being the guy posting the columns mistook my column for someone else's. That'll teach me to wait with getting my columns up too early: my rampant punctuality is getting people confused.

A personal topic this time. It so happens building standees and unwrapping promotional material is the one thing that I really like doing at work these days. Everything else has become an excruciatingly dull routine, but this is literally new each week. You never know what's in store for you, it remains a surprise each time. Too bad I normally only do it on Thursdays. It goes without saying that is my favorite day of the week in terms of work. Incidentally, the part about the Jurassic standee that can be found under my bed is actually true (except it's from Jurassic Park 3D, not Jurassic World 2 (though if I stay with my current job for long enough, that one may end up under my bed as well)). I wish I had display space for it, but I don't. I also wished I checked all the components for silverfish better: there has been a remarkable increase in the numbers of Thysanura in my house ever since I got that standee home...

You'll notice the titles of the films mentioned in this piece are fictional, they don't exist. In many cases I wish they would (I so want a Batman VS Predator film!), in others I just put them in for a joke. The Matrix Rebooted, really? Then again, you never know. There actually is a Titanic 2... And Harry Potter and the Winds of Winter... I would watch that immediately! Kudos to those that get the gag behind Nicolas Cage and Superman Lives. They even made a documentary about that one, so it shouldn't be so hard to puzzle out.

Now for the next column. I have no idea what it will be about, but that's what I say every time, and so far I have no trouble delivering the goodies on time. Inspiration will find me. But it can stay in bed for a few weeks longer this time.