To celebrate the new launch, the company commissioned a very cool stop motion commercial.
- Shot 60.000 pictures
- Developed 9.600 prints
- Shot over 1.800 pictures again.
I can’t say who did it first, but I saw the exact same concept (photos animating around a room) several months ago done by an individual with different content. Still, very cool
Posted by Mark Spencer on 07/09 at 08:56 PM
Yes Mark, this concept is a complete rip-off, here’s the original:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmkLlVzUBn4
With even better ideas, by the way - Olympus’ agency doesn’t seem to have any original ideas. Truly sad.
Posted by Nino on 07/10 at 04:21 AM
That’s really sad, even the gags are taken from the original (going in the pool, running up stairs, tracking forward/around on vertical images). I know you can’t copyright ideas, but the execution is identical.
Posted by Ben Richardson on 07/10 at 05:22 AM
I guess you should re-post this blog entry with the original video instead of Olympus’ rip-off. To honour the original idea at least.
Posted by Nino on 07/10 at 06:12 AM
Just watched the clip Nino linked to. It’s quite good too. Do we know for a fact that the guy who did clip #1 didn’t get paid to do clip #2?
Posted by Richard Harrington on 07/10 at 07:23 AM
Richard,
Tried to find out who did clip #2, because I also suspected it could be the same guy. However, all the official imprint only mentions the song producers and composers, there’s absolutely no mention of the creator(s) of the video, not even the agency or something. Which strikes me as being quite odd to say the least.
It says (on http://olympus.eu/penstory/ and in the YouTube info box) “Song & Lyrics by Johannes Stankowski, Produced and Arranged by Michael Kadelbach”.
At first, I thought the “produced and arranged” part describes the video content, but if you look up Michael Kadelbach on the web at http://www.michaelkadelbach.com you find out that he is really only a sound designer for commercials.
Maybe any of you guys are more lucky in finding out more ...
Posted by Nino on 07/10 at 08:00 AM
BTW:
They say in the info box on the YouTube page:
“Thanks to all the stop motion artists who inspired us. We hope you enjoy 
”
Sounds like a cynical comment to a rip-off even more now.
Posted by Nino on 07/10 at 08:08 AM
Although not the same, this discussion reminds me of when our “Simptopia” promo was shown at a BDA Conference years ago. Siskel & Ebert were the guest judges, and gave it 2 thumbs up as being “completely original.” This started a near-riot in the audience, as the idea of kaliedoscopes had been around for ages (our dear friend Harry Marks stood up and said he’d did them for broadcast in the 60s), etc.
Everyone missed that it was an intentional parody of the Fruitopia ads of the time (fruit flying through water, kaliedoscoped) - I studied those commercials frame-by-frame to get the gestalt and details right. And yes, our client (Beantown Productions) had even got Fruitopia’s permission beforehand.
(for more, see http://www.cybmotion.com/projects/index.html - third from the bottom)
It reminds me of a controversial presentation by Mike Goedecke then of Belief about how rare true originality is; when you repurpose an idea, just make sure you either pay appropriate homage, or bring something new to it.
Posted by Chris Meyer on 07/10 at 09:30 AM
Is anything truly original? Canon has been running an ad based on a series of snapshots for years. And then there is MUTO.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuGaqLT-gO4
Posted by chucksav on 07/11 at 08:17 AM
That MUTO is great…. I love the Q-Bert reference near the 2 minute mark
Posted by Richard Harrington on 07/11 at 08:28 AM
Now we know for sure they just ripped the guy off: only they were flamed with negative comments, they published this text in their YouTube description box:
“Some of the comments we have read here suggest that we should mention the creator of “A wolf loves pork”, Mr Taijin Takeuchi.
While we were looking for a way to realise a story describing “a journey through time” based on printed images, we were inspired by Mr Takeuchi’s brilliant work. For this reason we intentionally quoted his work in our little movie while showing full respect to his original idea. We didnt mention his name because we did not want to do so without his prior agreement.
However after considering some of the comments posted here we have decided to add credits to him and his work, which we obviously absolutely love.”
Olympus: EPIC FAIL!!!!
Posted by Nino on 02/06 at 07:12 PM
