I don’t really expect an answer, or even many responses…just something stupid I’ve noticed lately:
A commercial for Comcast (on Comcast, of course) on why you should advertise your local business on this cable channel. At the end they put up the Comcast logo, and it’s covered with fake scratches, stray hairs, other junk.
An ESPN commercial for one of their upcoming programs (probably College GameDay), and it’s the same thing: the body of the commercial looks fine, but then it ends with the logo, covered with fake scratches.
WTF?
Is this supposed to be hip, or ironic, to make your product look like a 5th grade education film strip?
Many people believe film is more ‘authentic’ than video. (I prefer film, but the story and the acting are the things that are important.) It’s cheaper to use an effect to make video look like damaged film, than it is to make video look like clean film. If they wanted to go for the ‘clean film’ look, probably very few people would notice. By going for the ‘damaged film’ look, they’re trying to show that they know what film is, and to give an air of ‘authenticity’ to their product.
All true, but not as true as fashion. They’re doing it because they must follow the herd.
It was probably the Grindhouse double feature of a couple years ago that made this look fashionably “cool.” So now it’s cheap shorthand for “we’re with it, we’re cool, we’re hep cats.”
It’s a trend like any other. Aping a 50s-60s look is today’s equivalent of “retro” - just look at all the musician with moptops, or the sudden explosion of commercials dressed up as faux “nuclear war” edutainment videos from the 50s (you know, the ones with the chipper narrator cheerfully describing all the effects of nuclear devastation, accompanied by cute, smiling animated characters).
Nah, too geeky. The name dates back to a period when NewTek was working on a secret project, and they leaked a bunch of fake rumors to confuse people - that the were going to produce a “laser toaster” to toast text onto white bread. Then next it was that they were going to add color with a “jellyjet” printer that would spray raspberry, blueberry and mint jelly onto the bread as well. When the video switcher/paint system/CG/effect/3D animation was finally released, the “Toaster” label stuck. Which made it loads of fun to get corporate purchase orders.
The hardware design was by Brad Carvy, Dana Carvy’s brother and the inspiration for Garth in the Wayne’s World sketches.