5 Behind-The-Scenes Shots That Take The Glamour Out Of Ads
All commercials are a least a little weird.
All commercials are at least a little weird. We just don't question the fact that society is powered by 30-second glimpses into bizarre alternate universes where people are disturbingly excited to eat bran. But if the ads themselves are a bit stupid, the ways in which they're created are even stupider.
Commercials Featuring Hands Look Absurd Zoomed Out
So here's a typical ad for jewelry or necks or whatever.
But if we zoom out, the shoot looks like an impractical kung fu attack.
Hand models are used in certain commercials, because you can be blessed with a perfect face and body but have hands with unsightly imperfections that would limit watch sales to a mere 150,000 units instead of 200,000. But capturing the platonic ideal of a hand can be tricky if you want to avoid reminding viewers of the everyday human being attached to it. Which is how a shot like this ...
... requires lounging around like this.
There's really no limit to how moronically unnatural it can end up looking, all in the name of convincing you that one brand of toaster is better than another.
Behind-the-scenes photos like these can help hand models grow their career, and we assume it ruins the mystique for fetishists, so learning more about the process is a win-win.
A Unicorn Shitting Ice Cream Looks Even Dumber Behind The Scenes
The Squatty Potty is a toilet stool to put your feet on while you do your business, because we're supposedly so bad at pooping that we need a $25 piece of plastic to correct our posture. But whether you need one or not (you almost certainly don't) isn't the issue here, because the potential inanity of the product is nothing compared to the absolute insanity of its commercials.
You obviously need a certain level of creativity when advertising a poop stool. Squatty Potty opted for a three-minute treatise featuring a unicorn that shits rainbow ice cream, which is arguably beyond creativity and goes into fetishism.
And just like with Quentin Tarantino, that fetish is being forced on everyone who has to work on the project. So here's what it looks like to force ice cream out of the anus of a bisected unicorn while trying not to make it too obvious that you're reconsidering every career choice that has led you to this point:
Squatty PottyAlso, sorry about all the ice cream you won't find appetizing anymore.
Man, now that we've seen that, we're starting to reconsider our plans to buy an 80-buck shit stool that would supposedly bring "sophistication and style" to our bathroom.
Hair Product Commercials Involve Green Screens And Guys With Sticks
We all know that hair commercials cheat, because you can spend eight hours carefully tending to every single strand on your head and still look like you just woke up from a hangover compared to the models in ads. But the precise methods of their chicanery are far weirder -- and far stupider -- than you might have imagined.
For starters, as much hair as possible will be shoved toward the camera, because few shampoo commercials make a big deal out of how great their product will be for the nape of your neck. A woman in a commercial may look like she has 20 pounds of hair flowing at the camera, but if you were able to take a peek behind her, you'd find that this incredible volume was an illusion created by making her look like an early stage chemo patient from behind. Hair extensions will be tacked on too, because why have enough hair for one person when you can have the hair of three stout heads?
That unrealistic volume of hair will then be manipulated with tape, fishing line, pipe cleaners -- anything that holds it in a position that looks attractive but only has a one in a million chance of naturally occurring in daily life. Models will also be bombarded with enough lighting to melt lesser faces, and they'll be blasted with a wind machine. Sometimes assistants will even climb a ladder behind a model and repeatedly lift and drop their hair until they've got a perfect shot. Or even stupider, someone will wear a green-screen-friendly gimp suit and flick the hair around with a stick. It's good to find a job doing what you love.
Even coloring is a lie. That box may claim that it will dye your hair in 30 minutes or your money back if you're willing to show your fucked-up blue head in public, but they'll spend five hours getting the color right for the camera. Basically, the only way to make your hair look as great as it does on TV is to live in a world where you're constantly being blasted by heat and wind. And society would never make such absurd demands of women, at least not until efficient pocket-sized wind machines and heat lamps are developed.
IKEA's Weird Bed Commercial Was A Strange Nightmare To Create
IKEA, apparently under the impression that they are looked at as great creators of modern art and not a source of furniture for college grads and divorcees, made a 90-second bed commercial that's like if Little Nemo In Slumberland ended with a stirring call to hop online and drop 700 bucks on a Jorgenflurgen.
But those of you who somehow weren't motivated to buy a bed even though IKEA very solemnly reminded us of our mortality by quoting The Tempest may still be wondering how the commercial was made. The answer is by hanging the actress, the dog, and the beds themselves from cranes.
MPCThat and an absolutely weaponized amount of self-important pretentiousness.
At one point, the crane was used to drop the actress (safely, we assume), which is like getting to play capitalist Spider-Man. They also filmed an actual skydiver, then edited out their parachute -- presumably digitally, although possibly with midair knife play.
The Falling Burger Effect Is Accomplished With Rubber Bands And A Robot
So many burger commercials do that thing where all the ingredients shift into slow motion and fall on each other that we never really stop to think about how weird it is. Why is food more appetizing if we see it being assembled by the carefree invisible hand of the Burger God?
Steve Giralt/YouTubeNothing improves a burger like the chance of it catching a stray moth.
Anyway, the effect is probably just accomplished by some sweaty teamster with a cigarette dangling from his mouth dropping the ingredients into frame, right? Wrong, hypothetical reader who didn't look at the title of this entry! There are robots involved. Burger robots. First, catapults launch ketchup and mustard into the air, just like during the infamous Siege of Burger King by Queen Wendy.
Steve Giralt/YouTubeWe assume the sweaty teamster had the far worse job of cleaning up 700 takes' worth of flying mustard.
Then, rubber bands lifting the ingredients are cut, causing them to collapse as a high-speed camera operated by a robotic arm sweeps through the shot.
Tech Insider/YouTubeCulminating in the best-looking burger to ever contain little bits of rubber band.
The whole affair only takes about a second, and a failed attempt ends with the pieces splattered all over the place. Patiently fiddling with the variables is a lot of work, but it's all worth it when someone watches your commercial and says, "Oh hell yeah, I'd fuck that burger."
