Firefox Flicks Backstage

While I may not have won the contest, I am still proud of my “Legend of Firefox” ad I submitted for this contest.

I focused on a simple idea. What if cavemen, from the beginning of time, had been always dreaming of the ultimate web browser? Cavemen would sit around fires all the time and see foxes in the wild – so why not? I set out to show first a prehistoric cavemen drawing the Firefox logo on a cave wall, and to then cut to modern day cavemen using Firefox on their own computers.

Sadly, I could not afford to pay anyone or pay for rentals. The ad was essentially a one man job, with friends and family filling in the roles of the various cavemen. I managed to finagle equipment from both my friends and my school.

The idea was for me to create a very intense visual contrast between the early cavemen and “Modern” cavemen. For this reason I shot the first half in an abandoned building nearby with the DVX-100A, a portable i-Light, and a cookie board my dad waved around to simulate a roaring fire. For the second half I shot on a wonderfully overcast afternoon with the Canon XL-2, an Arri 150, and a Brunell. Both halves contained the stark visual contrast I desired, and the final shots of the modern cavemen came out better (not worse) than I hoped for. As most student film makers such as myself can tell you, not all of your shots come out worse, and not better, than planned!

For the first half of the soundtrack, I modeled the score after the “Conan the Barbarian” soundtrack. I wanted something very primitive, so using my Peter S. Gigastudio library I created a simple score of cellos and a timpani thundering together, alongside the howling wind and crackle of the fire. I wanted a very traditional film soundtrack, but also something very primitive that would effectively fill the space. For the second half I wanted something more modern, so I used a simple drum loop and ’spiced’ it up a little with me making funny noises underneath it. Again, I didn’t want to oversaturate the soundspace, so I kept it simple.

Overall I have to say I had a wonderful time making the ad, and can say I have learned a lot from the experience (this was the first time I used the more serious Arri and Brunell lights). I’m still not happy with the audio for the piece, so I am undeterred by not winning. My next video shall be even better.

I have no shame, so I’ll promote the video since it’s not on the site yet. Watch the ad on YouTube!

Thank you,
Roger Matthews

This entry was posted on Friday, April 28th, 2006 at 8:34 am and is filed under Firefox Flicks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.