The Lost Art of Cutting

I'll be the first to admit it, when it came time to cut our first TV commercial, I had no idea what I was doing.

NONE.

My partner and I were shuffled off to the Antioch Building at the old Chiat/Day compound in Venice. (I have worked in four separate Chiat/Day offices, this by far was my favorite.) The editor, a friendly bloke from England, showed us the monstrously-large Chem Machine, a Guttenberg Press by today's standards. And on this machine, he cut tiny strips of film.

I won't bore you with all the details, suffice to say, it was here that I began to understand the fundamentals of storytelling via film, now HD video.

It's a process with no finish line. Like BBQ'ing the perfect brisket on the smoker. Or navigating an unwinnable argument with my wife or daughters.

In other words, there's always room for improvement.
Sadly, there's also lots of room for devolvement.

I saw an ad for Carl's Jr. the other night. It was 15 seconds long. And 14 seconds too long. There must have been 63 cuts in this indecipherable mess. A cacophony of cheese melting, burgers flipping, tomatoes slicing and mouths chewing. All topped by a non-linear mish mash of words spoken (?) by Oscar-winnning actor Matthew McConaughey.

What's the idea here?

Where is the persuasion?

How does this million dollar effort, and I'm being conservative on that, cut the mustard with the various levels of corporate bureaucracy that must have given it its approval?

It's bewildering.

I know as a 44 year old man, I'm not exactly in the target audience for this type of advertising. But as an overseasoned veteran of the business, I'm also pretty sure I know how to look past all that and judge a spot on its merits.

Or, maybe I don't.

Maybe I've come full circle and again have no idea what I'm doing or what appeals to audiences. Because the other night, my 21 year old daughter had a bunch of friends over and they were all gathered around an iPad to watch youtube videos.

There was oooing.
And ahhhing.
And screeching. Lots of screeching.
And there was no tearing them, or the 6, 738,941 other youtube viewers, away from this compelling video.

I present this with many qualifiers.
This is not for the squeamish or easily confused.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUDy8MyQPDo