I’m currently getting ready to direct a commercial; right now it ‘s in the planning stages. It’s a low budget ad, just for the Internet. It’s for this thing that you can use in restaurants where you swipe your card at the table instead of the waiter taking the card and running away and buying a car, so it’s intended to appeal to restaurant owners. It’s this company’s first commercial, and I guess I don’t actually know that I’m hired, but I’m assuming so because I put in my bid for how much it would cost to make, they didn’t reply, then later they asked when it was going to be done, and why isn’t it done now? So I’m taking that as an affirmation. If only all job interviews were that easy. “I’d like to apply for the available position. Here’s my resume.” “Why are you standing around, slacker!? Get to it!”
Lady, no offense or anything, but I got to tell you - That's just not sexy at all.
It’s worth noting that while I’ve directed quite a bit, I’ve not directed commercials before, and also have very little experience in advertising. The closest I came was when I worked for a coffee shop and did some promotional things for them, and this woman approached me about getting involved with something she and her husband were interested in. I thought she was trying to get me involved in some deviant sexual thing, and it turned out she was trying to get me to sell Amway. I think we all came away from that conversation worse for wear.
"Card swiper, card swiper! Fun, fun, fun, fun! Everybody wants a table-side credit card swiper!"
Anyway, that being said, I do teach rhetoric, including advertising structure, and have ideas about how an advertisement might work, but also recognize that this commercial is a product I’m making for these folks. And what these folks want – for this commercial targeting restaurant owners to sell them a credit card swiper – is something “edgy” that will go “viral.” Yes, they really said that. You just now this is a group of businessmen who’ve heard that something went viral and that was a positive thing, so let’s do that. Like I should shoot an ad of Rebecca Black singing about LOL Cats looking at a double-rainbow.
But “edgy”? I’m trying to picture 14-year-old boys surfing the Internet saying, “Oh, man! Have you seen this video? It is in-SANE. It’s like ‘double-rainbow’ meets that ‘hide your kids, hide your wife’ guy, meets ‘2 Girls 1 Cup’! After I graduate I’m totes going to culinary school and then take some business classes and open my own restaurant and then totally get one of those, yo! It’s going to be wiggidy wack!” (Or some other phrase meaning “good” that those durn kids use, with their slang and their roller-skating and baggy pants and no respect). I just don’t see the target demographic as wanted their face-melted from the edginess.
Worse, some of them got very excited about the idea that to show the evil waiter stealing the card and selling the information, we could see him throwing copies of the card to people wearing sombreros, and china hats and dashiki’s and whatnot.
I, and my friend who’s writing it, felt that this might appear a skosh, you know… what’s the word… insensitive. They took this as confirmation of its edginess. And I have to cede that point, but there’s edgy 🙂 and then there’s edgy 😦 to put it in edgy, viral terms. And if you don’t know the difference…?
If you're not sure, you might want to stay away from him, too, just to be safe.
If you don’t know where the edge is, and are maybe unclear on what an edge looks like, just stay away from anything that might be an edge, edgy, or edge-esque. It’s like when you’re with friends, and laughing about something, and everyone keeps adding to the joke, and then someone takes it waaaaaaay too far because they just don’t quite get it? Like, maybe you’re joking about the worst date you can imagine, or something, and everyone’s laughing about your date wanting to fist-fight you before dinner, or burning your magazines with a lighter while you get ready, and then someone says, “Or while you’re getting dressed she cuts your dog’s throat!” and then there’s a crushing silence, and someone forces out an “Ah ha. Yeah.” That’s the person who doesn’t know where the edge is.
You're going to want to stay away from this, too, on general principle.
In any case, the writer and I have slowly, gently moved the commercial in some other directions, mostly rooted in some vague “logistics” problems with plan A. We’re keeping it edgy, though. Fo’ reelz. I’d tell you where to look for it when it’s done, but there’s no need. It’s going to find you, because this credit-card swiper ad is going to be totally in your face.
p.s. – discovery for the day: if you say the word “edgy” too many times it starts to sound weird.
The Byronic Man 
December 1, 2011 at 9:19 am
Please, for the love of God, do not make the same mistake I did. Though they sound similar, “edgy” and “itchy” are not synonyms.
December 1, 2011 at 11:09 am
Hm… could that be the new slang term? “Oh, man, that flip I did off the half-pipe was so itchy!”
Probably not.
December 1, 2011 at 9:48 am
This post was so sharp I’m surprised you didn’t nick yourself. *snort* *snicker*
God, we bloggers are…what’s the word I’m looking for…yeah, okay. We’re on the edge…of sanity. Do you get your very own director’s chair and ball cap? Do we have to start calling you Steven or Ron or James or Ridley now?
I think I need to cut back on the coffee. Bye! 🙂
December 1, 2011 at 11:10 am
Actually, I prefer to be called “Mr. Director,” and no direct eye-contact is allowed. Now, where the hell’s my goddamn acai-cinnamon frappuccino?
December 1, 2011 at 11:32 am
That is awesome! I am ready to have my mind blown, double-rainbow style.
The dog comment made me burst out laughing. Reminded me of this: I once played Apples to Apples, a game about pairing nouns with adjectives, with someone (an intelligent native English speaker, I should add, so no language issues) who asked why we thought our pairings were so funny and wanted to know how she could make funny pairings. Um, if you don’t know why putting “Britney Spears” and “fertile” together is funny, I can’t help you.
For some reason I feel like I’ve already told you this. OMG. Repeating stories in comments would be a new low for me. And that’s saying something.
December 2, 2011 at 6:13 am
No repetition. You’re safe.
December 1, 2011 at 12:05 pm
So… I think I know who you’re making the commercial for……
Also, I think what they want is a low budget version of this:
Also, also, if it’s who I’m thinking of, I worked for them once. If it’s not then we have worked for competing companies and are now forced to choose between our blogging friendship and our clients. (I vote we not let them tear up apart but that’s just me…..)
December 2, 2011 at 6:18 am
Hm, I think that ad is a lot of what they’re going for, only even more overt. Hard to believe that in the making of that one no one was willing to say, “Um, really? We’re going to have all the black people playing basketball and the asian doing martial arts?”
And the story of two-bloggers defending their friendship against battling companies could be story for the ages. Reminds me of a play… a Shakespeare play… ummm…
December 1, 2011 at 12:50 pm
For a moment, I didn’t think I was edgy enough to read this post. Now I think maybe I’m too edgy. Or over the edge. Or maybe just on edge.
December 2, 2011 at 6:19 am
I installed multiple edges, so that if you go over one, you land on another one. It’s the “everyone gets to be edgy” system.
December 2, 2011 at 5:27 am
This wouldn’t be SquareUp would it? I have the Square card reader and application on my phone. It’s pretty cool.
December 2, 2011 at 6:20 am
No, that must be a competing system. I’m not surprised there’s several of these out there. It’s one of the those ideas floating out there in the ether.
December 4, 2011 at 6:26 pm
Yes. An example of being too edgy… when I was joking with my friends about an upcoming stint dog-sitting for them and said, “Guess I better add peanut butter to my grocery list.” Fart in church, people.
Along these lines… Maybe your Evil Waiter could be shown sliding credit cards down his butt crack when he takes them to the back for “processing.”
Because secretly, I think everyone finds it funny to imagine something they handle closely touching another person’s privates.
December 5, 2011 at 6:14 am
“Mom, the waiter is rubbing your credit card down his pants.”
“Not again! But what can we do about it?”
Narrator: “Your days of fecal-coated credit cards are over! Thanks to…”
December 5, 2011 at 2:44 pm
People totes don’t use the term “totes” enough.
December 5, 2011 at 4:06 pm
I agree. Absolutely. Completely. Um… some other term meaning “in its entirety” that I just can’t think of…