As 2011 winds down, it’s time to unveil the Infuz Holiday Project and thank our clients, friends and family who supported us throughout the year. Back in October, we started brainstorming a variety of crazy ideas for our holiday card: applications, microsites, charitable projects and ridiculous stunts. We had some big plans on the table, but in the end we decided on something simple. A video.
Our Spark of Inspiration
There were a variety of odd video shorts we wanted to do. One of them was a continuation of our April Fool’s website, GemiFuz. We’d build some sort of cheesy animated GIF application and create an infomercial to promote it. I think I was the only fan of that one.
We also wanted something that would reflect Infuzer culture, while taking a jab at this profession we continue to love, even when it beats us down from time to time. Our initial pitch: what if we created a “bad santa” character who asks kids what they want for Christmas, then only gives them cliched digital marketing advice? The kids’ reactions would be entertaining, simply from the sheer dumbfound look on their faces. The worse the advice, the more the entertainment.
“You know what you need? Google places for your friends to hang out with you.”
“Hey kid, you need a coupon to build a larger fan base.”
In the end we flipped the delivery. The kids now dish out the marketing advice. Maybe the kids are trying to pitch an idea to a client. How hard could that be to shoot something like that? Hell, what if we got our children to pitch a funny set of ideas to Santa?
They say never work with children or pets in Hollywood. Luckily we took on a set of kids that were really stellar to work with and a lot of fun. Personally, this was the longest film project since art school, so it was a lot of ups and downs trying to edit the story together. Santa’s Little Helpers Save Christmas might have been a challenge, but without those projects, how do you learn?
Below are some of the outtakes and bloopers from our big day of filming. Thanks to everyone for participating! We hope you enjoy our short “film” and get a couple of laughs out of it. A very special thanks to Sufjan Stevens and Asthmatic Kitty Records, our hacker, Marc had the chance to booth babe for them at some festivals and they are awesome folks!
Please share the link the tell us what you think below and on Twitter! Happy holidays and have a great new year!