Synopsis

A series of tequila commercials filmed in the California desert.

Background

In this Dogma 2.0 experiment, Jason Wishnow and I drove out to Joshua Tree National Park (where it was 106 degrees in the shade) and shot an hour or so of raw footage to use in creating a series of thirty-second faux tequila commercials.

The idea being that Jason would edit one back in New York and I would edit a version in Los Angeles - we would compare, and laugh our asses off as the subtle differences of how we both used the same footage.

Again, the Dogma 2.0 rules:

1. No dialogue.

2. No narration.

3. The length of the credits may not exceed one-twentieth the length of the film.

4. Non-verbal human or animal utterances are permitted albeit not encouraged.

5. Must have French subtitles which may not be larger than 1/3 the point size of the English titles.

(This time we did allow Spanish subtitles.)

Both were edited using Final Cut Pro with tweaking in After Effects - not to mention the fake generic Hevetica-esque bottle label done in Illustrator. And this time, we found that peach juice was perfect for the vomit.

Completed, my version became known as Agave No. 1: "Fear" and Jason's was Agave No. 2: "Mirage".

Eventually others were created: Kirk Hostetter did Agave No. 3: "Fate"; Matthew Clayfield did Agave No. 4: "Contrast"; and Mark Boszko did Agave No.5: "Good and Evil".

Interestingly, the latter two were created after I distributed a CD of the raw footage via my web site and PayPal. Of course, you had to follow the rules.

This was an experiment by which I had hoped to create a whole open-source video movement - the idea being that eventually we would have a touring film festival and DVD chunk filled of tequila commercials all culled from the same raw footage.

Hasn't happened yet.

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