Who's behind the "Wassup 2008" Obama ad? Not Budweiser.

Posted by: Burt Helm on October 27

This morning when I blogged about the “Wassup 2008” Obama video, two questions sprung to my mind. First, who paid for this thing? The production values are very high – one person from Budweiser’s ad agency, DDB, estimated it could have cost as much as $750,000 (she also said DDB had nothing to do with the video). Second, how could Budweiser possibly be cool with such a clearly partisan advertisement?

After some digging, I found out. First, it cost way less than $750k. Second, Budweiser had no clue it was happening until after the video hit YouTube on Friday.

The man with the answers? Charles Stone III, the director of the original “Wassup” commercial and the movie Drumline (and the guy who answers the phone in the first frame of the video). He decided to make it about two weeks ago, he told me, with a crew of about 50 volunteers (all professionals working pro bono). They put it together in 9 days.

It was all possible, Stone says, because Budweiser never owned the rights to the idea. He’d originally made it as a short film independent of the brand, and Budweiser had only leased the rights, paying a mere $37,000 for five years of use. Back then, people gave him a hard time about the low price. Now Stone, a diehard Obama supporter, says it’s more than paid off. “That I’m able to use an idea distributed by a huge company, who made a lot of money off it, so that now when I put out what I want to say, it’s recognizable, and it sparks -- that’s worth $1 million to me.”

It came together after emailing with friends about ways they could make a video supporting Obama. Once they’d settled on the concept, he got on the phone with the original cast (all friends of his, who are now actors living in New York, Philadelphia, and LA), and called up his Director of Photography from Drumline, Shane Hurlbut, who brought in his crew. He also signed up Gerard Cantor and Maurice Marible, from commercial production house Believe Media, who co-produced. They shot over two days. The war-torn Iraq setting is actually a preexisting set in Santa Clarita, CA.

After they finished, they uploaded it to YouTube with distribution company 60Frames, set up a website, wassup08.com, and sent links to everyone they knew. As of writing this, it’s been viewed almost 1.8 million times, and picked up across the blogosphere, including on BoingBoing, Daily Kos, and Huffington Post. The final price tag? About $6500 out of his own pocket, Stone says.

http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/brandnewday/archives/2008/10/whos_behind_the.html?campaign_id=rss_daily

This is Whassup...you know

saturday morning

earlier this week, my honesty was compromised
well, better, someone tried to suggest through their questions and actions towards me that it wasn't legit enuf for them
i consider myself pretty reliable
however, that person's deciding to question my integrity, made me decide to drop them and my former commitment to them and their project

oh well?
i know we'll both get over this
it just feels a little weird
but hey, it's saturday morning
i'm supposed to be there now
i'll communicate the drop off...sometime today
probably via text message

let's just say this:
if you don't trust someone, be mindful of the situations you get yourself into with them
yea

never forget

Interesting Article...but who wrote it?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/enough-why-obama-should-r_b_125519.html

I wish I could embed this article in here so you could see the video at the end and feel some kind of way about it here with me.
You'll have to let me know your thoughts please....

Have we given up...?

A few days ago at one of my birthday celebrations, a friend/colleague of mine raised a point...or at least a conversation topic, and I guess it served its point, because I'm thinking about it enuf now to post it as a question here and now.
The "we" is black women
and the question is, have we given up on our black male counterparts?

I know it's hard to conceive of us having "counterparts," with all the government ordained efforts to keep black men away from us at all costs (prison, crack, ADD, etc--all excuses), but there are some.
I also know that I am the host of a few completely unbalanced and unfair double standards, one of which being that if a black man is with a white woman he's just "given up," where a black woman with a white man has at least, and very likely "tried her darndest"

I know--not fair.
My friend mentioned his point of view, which is that black men only get with white girls to (forgive me, and him) fuck them, while black women "be on that love shit."
Harsh words, yes, but a point of view nonetheless...

I don't quite believe that's true. I do believe that a lot of black men think white women are "easier," perhaps because they don't deal with the same stresses, and because black men are not seen as "brothers" to them. So the familial obligations that black men would otherwise have towards their (black) women, are not as heavy a burden to the relationship.

Maybe it's true, maybe I just think too much.
Either way, black women seem to have less options these days. Between the pull of society, which is pitted against the black man, and white women (who come hard sometimes), and homosexuality, and (not to be forgotten) the self-important view that creates an atmosphere of whorish behavior, along with women who allow such behavior just to "get theirs," the chance of a "good" black woman actually scoring a "good" [relative term] black man is unfortunately slim.

So, have we given up? Or are we just exploring other options in the face of scarcity?

why cry?

why cry when you realize after at least a month that you have made up your present reality based solely on the past and none of it actually exists in the real world?

why cry when the man you love is really just a song you've been quoting by one of your favorite artists (ella) and really, he's just a good guy you used to like?

why cry when you're still alone after conjuring up the lie of years that haven't yet come, filled with togetherness and love--not really yours cause love don't really live here?

no need to cry at all--just look in the mirror, inhale, and go to sleep.
when you wake up it'll still be reality, but it's easier to accept it with a fresh perspective on living and loving...

(based on a true story)