The last 7 weeks of my life have been devoted largely to this five minute movie. Michael Figge and I created a Mario Kart parody film, using no greenscreens, shooting 13 nights, and spending over a 100 hours slaving over After Effects.
The project was part of a Harley-Davidson viral video competition, an experimental class held for the first time here at UCSB. Our Film Studies Dept. is hosting a page that includes all 10 projects that were made in the class. The top three voted films move on to Harley-Davidson where they will select a winner. They win $5,000.
Please check out our film, as well as some of the other projects. The voting closes Friday, June 8, at 4 pm. Here’s the link: http://www.invisibleharleys.com
There aren’t any unicycles in the movie though, I apologize!
Later,
Jess
p.s. tonight I exported a few old unicycling movies I made over a year ago. Hopefully they will pop up online soon…
I like your Invisible Harley video. Funny and fun and catchy. You’ve got a good chance of being in the top three, at least by my account.
The three I liked best are:
Invisible Harleys
How To Direct A commercial
(MOTOR)CYCLES
Harleys in tha Hood was interesting but the story wasn’t all that well put together. And how could they be so incompetent as to fail to deinterlace a video that gets put to the web?
The New Breed was all about the final line. The whole video relies on that one line. Would have been better as a quick 30 second or 45 second video shot as a short commercial.
Kid’s Play was interesting but it didn’t do it for me. It missed on fully developing the imagination aspect. It didn’t draw me in to the imagination.
Great vid! Funny comments from the Mario nerds. I never played Kart but I’ve played the original and can get the idea. Some parts seemed to stretch a bit long and the acting seemed a little exaggerated, but that is not necessarily a bad fit with the animation style.
I watched most of the other ones as well, and some were very well put together, but didn’t necessarily have great messages, or not so well put together with better messages. Like the kids one, where the kid doesn’t have the girl get on the bike with him at the end. What’s up with that? The Biker Babes one made no sense at all. Harleys are for lesbians surrounded by bizzare people?
I’ve ridden possibly every model of Harley, back in my days working for the motorcycle school, and know some of the associated Harley culture, which did not come through in many of the videos. Oddly enough, I think it did more in yours, even though we never saw one. The sound says it all. The “How to Direct a Commercial” one had the best connection to the culture, but it starts off with a Harley that supposedly isn’t working, which will never go over well with a company that has always suffered in reliability compared to most other brands.
Now to vote for your vid!
Oh, forgot to mention. I’ve done that sort of animation on a unicycle. My brother, with his old, feature-laden Super-8 camera did a “flying unicycle” film of me in 1980 or so. It involved lots of hopping. I rode along about 5" above the ground, and my wheel never turned. We did other films using that technique, which used to be called “pixelation.” The best one was a story called Easy Roller, where my friend Mike Kazaleh (designer of the Unicycle Factory logo) got chased around my back yard by a lawn roller with a mind of its own. After he tres to kill it several times, it finally ends up running him over and leaving just his clothes. Fun times.
Thanks for the comments everyone.
We made the top three, along with Kid’s Play and
Ode to the Money Shot. You can see the results on
the main video contest page. Now Harley will choose a winner
this week.
John Foss - Your 80s unicycle animation sounds awesome. I’d love to see that if you can dig it up. My Mom has an 8mm projector. Oh, and it’s still called pixelation
I’m using a chunk of the money from my side of winnings to fund a project I’ve been wanting to do for years: a low-budget recording studio. It will be used for voice over/narration/radioshow/podcasts/musical guests/sound effects/other stuff.
Here’s the final voting count:
Total votes: 2738
551 Invisible Harleys
422 Kid’s Play
401 Ode to the Money Shot
395 New Breed
271 Harleys in tha Hood
252 How to Direct a Commercial
144 Biker Babes
124 Kiss MY Harley
91 (MOTOR)CYCLES
58 Expedition Harley
i didnt get to see all of yours as the page froze 