There’s been a great new “viral” video making rounds recently, Guy Walks Across America. It’s currently at over a half million views on You Tube and will likely continue to rise as it’s buzz grows. It’s kind of like a stop motion / time lapse and is quite an amazing accomplishment technically. There’s a behind the scenes video as well that offers a glimpse into how they achieved the effect. It’s embed after the jump.
One of the names in the behind the scenes video you might recognize is Peter Cote. He’s the guy behind the DSLR Show website, a site dedicated to “free tips and training for HDSLR shooters.” Peter also conducted a recent DSLR Filmmaking Product Reality Check over at New Media Webinars. He was the production part of a DSLR series they were doing. Peter did production and I did the DSLR Filmmaking Post Workflows webinar. Both are available for purchase On-Demand from the New Media Webinars website.
Apparently this Walk Across America video was commissioned by (or maybe you could say an ad for) Levi’s. It’s a covert campaign as, besides the fact the guy is wearing jeans, the Levis logo isn’t prominently featured in the piece, that is until the end when it’s cleverly and stealthily placed. IMHO it’s advertising done right. Clever, fun to watch and not in-your-face. Planet 5D has a good post on the piece as well.
A Google Map was created to show the path the team took as they moved across country making the video. For best viewing click over to the Walk USA You Tube page and catch the piece in HD.