"Out of the Box" viral video marketing

By Johnny Stevens, Director
www.horizonvideo.com
Austin, Texas

Occasionally, a video project comes along that requires “out-of-the-box” thinking, and an equally unconventional style of production. “Our initial visit with our client, Hyper 9, made it clear that we needed to find a unique way to appeal to a very small market segment – the data administrators of major global companies” Director | Owner of HORIZON Film & Video- www.horizonvideo.com - Johnny Stevens comments, “I knew that I needed someone to conceive a narrative style and script that would bring the edgy quality the client wanted, and I knew that Lane Orsak’s spontaneous wit and “can-do” attitude would give me just that.” Stevens asked Orsak to write 3 scenarios, which could be expanded, to pitch to the Hyper 9 team.

“We needed to come up with a creative story that would resonate with the clients specific market segment, but still be entertaining to the rest of the world”, says Orsak, owner of Creative Marketing Consultants of Austin (www.laneorsak.com). The main objective was to convey the idea of removing the tree (Hyper 9 has revolutionized the visual technology interface that the admins use to find data in large servers. They had essentially “killed the tree” and created a keyword search interface that would make admin folks lives much easier!). “I decided to build the creative around an “anti-hero”, a young fictitious disenchanted admin guy named “Darrel Pinsky” and his mis-adventures.”

Sketch 1 – Darrel is on a date with very hot “girl next door”, and because he can’t get his head out of the trees, he is clueless to her advances. Ultimately, the couple returns and she finds a dead tree in his bed…for which, he then lights it on fire…

Sketch 2 – Darrel reluctantly agrees to a corporate retreat safari with his very demanding boss, who drags him off to find the Maasai tribe with the hope that it will offer him enlightenment.

Sketch 3 – Darrel is in his office, pulling his hair out trying to come up with a virtualization solution, gets drunk and awakes in a dream to a distorted conversation with a squirrel. His Boss arrives with an axe to cut Darrel down from the tree, and he awakes to the miraculous solution of removing the tree, with the new interface on his computer screen.

Stevens says, “Our goal was to produce these videos in stages, load them up on the Hyper9 website and create intrigue about what the next Tree Trilogy video would bring, and ultimately what Hyper 9 was up to in the development of their new software. Very little dialogue was scripted, because we wanted to capitalize on the improvisation of our talent, who were well seasoned in the local comedy scene. It made for quite a challenge for editor Chris Westerman.”

“With so much improvisation, every take was different”, says Westerman. “So in the end I had several hours of footage that could be edited any number of different ways. It was a brain twister, but fun, and in the end it came together really well.”

You will have to go watch the videos to really get it. See the videos now at www.Hyper9.com or YouTube the following: Tree Trilogy Part 1, Tree Trilogy Part 2, Tree Trilogy Part 3,

Contact Information

Allison

Production Manager

HORIZON Film & Video, Inc.

Contact via E-mail