Watch This: Carousel

Earlier this week, fellow Cinematical scribe Scott Weinberg pointed me to a cool little video that I watched twice and then forgot. He reminded me again and the pattern was repeated -- or so I thought. Because that weird little piece of wild visual magic keeps popping up in my mind. I can't let it go. You can allow it to infect your brain by watching Carousel at Stink Digital (or down below). That's the same company that helped create the commercials in which 8 Mile and Die Hard were reimagined as 50s French classics.

So, going in, you know that Carousel is an advertisement, in this case for a technology product I can't possibly afford right now (a new model of television), though, again, it's not a hard sell. Of course, some of the most creative and jaw-dropping works are made as part of advertising campaigns. Just think back to Ridley Scott's startling 1984 ad for the Apple Macintosh: I don't remember anything about the Super Bowl game that surrounded the ad, but I definitely remember that woman tossing her hammer at Big Brother.

Directed by Adam Berg, Carousel inevitably brings to mind the amazing Bullet Time scenes in The Matrix, as applied to the opening title sequence of Watchmen, with a tip of the hat to The Dark Knight. The viewer is invited to take a "frozen moment" tour of a crime scene filled with guns, broken glass, and general carnage. I found it haunting and strangely beautiful.


Philips : Carousel from Sawacs on Vimeo.

(Thanks to @wlmager.)