Normally I'd say no to drama but my life could use more of this.
April 11, 2012 9:30 AM   Subscribe

 
....I also would like a button that turns reality into a cheesy TV drama. I need more chances to yell "DRIVE!" at people in my life.
posted by The Whelk at 9:33 AM on April 11, 2012


The lingerie woman on a motorcycle was a nice pointless touch, as was the American football squad.

To my untrained eye, that looks like Ghent.
posted by mathowie at 9:34 AM on April 11, 2012


awe-some-more
posted by Foci for Analysis at 9:36 AM on April 11, 2012


I would have shit myself vigorously.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 9:37 AM on April 11, 2012 [2 favorites]


I could have done without the shooting.
posted by cashman at 9:37 AM on April 11, 2012


...B-b-but what'll it do?
posted by entropicamericana at 9:37 AM on April 11, 2012 [1 favorite]


The Whelk: Did you know there's nothing stopping you from hopping into a taxi and saying, "Follow that car!"?
posted by ODiV at 9:39 AM on April 11, 2012 [9 favorites]


Have fun paying for decades of PTSD treatment for the random bystanders in those cafes. (Unless the whole thing was announced beforehand, which is likely)
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:41 AM on April 11, 2012 [1 favorite]


Stunt people of the world, how do you do that hit a door on your bike , tumble, get up and fight thing without ...injuring yourself? Padding? Speical bikes? Last second gymnastics?
posted by The Whelk at 9:43 AM on April 11, 2012 [1 favorite]


Now, if any of that actually happened in your average TNT show, you'd have a hit network!
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:45 AM on April 11, 2012


Strange how the prompt at the beginning and sign at the end are written in English.
posted by DanCall at 9:47 AM on April 11, 2012 [1 favorite]


Pretty creative for a network that's remaking "Dallas."
posted by brain_drain at 9:48 AM on April 11, 2012


DON'T TOUCH IT!
posted by curious nu at 9:48 AM on April 11, 2012 [3 favorites]


Why doesn't stuff like this happen where I live!?

Oh right, I live in a shithole.
posted by Fizz at 9:49 AM on April 11, 2012 [1 favorite]


Gratuitous bikini'd girl was gratuitous, bikini'd.

Awesome commercial was awesome, commercial.
posted by ShutterBun at 9:51 AM on April 11, 2012


ACTION BLUE! Half the calories! Twice the explosions!
posted by sexyrobot at 9:54 AM on April 11, 2012 [2 favorites]


The bicyclist doesn't slam into the door. He brakes first and starts to dismount before selling the collision by stumbling and dropping his bike.
posted by zippy at 9:57 AM on April 11, 2012


Ford: What happened?
Arthur: A sign lit up saying, "Please do not press this button again."
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:04 AM on April 11, 2012 [7 favorites]


Why would I want to watch other people have adventures? FIGHT ME!
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 10:12 AM on April 11, 2012 [2 favorites]


I'm sorry, there's NO WAY every bit of that was not staged. Whipping vehicles in and out of a public square full of random, unprepared pedestrians and onlookers without any proper barriers erected? Staging a gunfight with blank pistols and explosive blood squibs in the midst of an ordinary street crowd? Geez y'all are gullible.
posted by nanojath at 10:20 AM on April 11, 2012 [3 favorites]


When the bicyclist and the ambulance guy started fighting I thought for a second that it might be related to this.
posted by humboldt32 at 10:21 AM on April 11, 2012


Have fun paying for decades of PTSD treatment for the random bystanders in those cafes.

Belgium, not America.

(although yeah, it probably was pre-announed)
posted by rhymer at 10:28 AM on April 11, 2012


But wait, how does this tie into Caine's Arcade, exactly?
posted by davejay at 10:28 AM on April 11, 2012 [2 favorites]


metafilter: shit yourself vigorously
posted by Phreesh at 10:29 AM on April 11, 2012


It's only a matter of time before someone tries to pull a stunt like this in a US state with a strong concealed carry culture and "Stand Your Ground" laws, and it all goes badly wrong.
posted by googly at 11:03 AM on April 11, 2012 [1 favorite]


"Stunt people of the world, how do you do that hit a door on your bike , tumble, get up and fight thing without ...injuring yourself? Padding? Speical bikes? Last second gymnastics?"

After more than a decade of riding BMX, the tumble/roll at impact has proven to be a very effective way to walk away from a severe looking crash with little more than a scrape and some dust on your clothes. It is kind of like a car's bumper, in that it spreads the impact over a longer time and greater area, significantly reducing the stress to any one area.
posted by I Havent Killed Anybody Since 1984 at 11:11 AM on April 11, 2012


I know somebody whose daughter's school had a mock terrorist invasion drill. Unannounced, of course. Guns pointed at students, hostage-taking, the whole deal. It took her at least a week to calm down. Words were had with the principal and other idiots who approved the whole thing.
posted by kmz at 11:19 AM on April 11, 2012


I'm sorry, there's NO WAY every bit of that was not staged. Whipping vehicles in and out of a public square full of random, unprepared pedestrians and onlookers without any proper barriers erected?

On the shooting of the chase sequence in The French Connection:
The car was driven by Bill Hickman, a veteran stunt coordinator who died in 1986. “Bill Hickman drove the car at 90 miles an hour,” Mr. Friedkin recalled. “I was in the back seat holding a camera over his shoulder, focused on the street ahead. There was a camera in the front seat looking out the window, and another one on the front bumper. The reason I handled the camera was because the camera operator and the director of photography both had families with children, and I didn’t.”

Riding in the shotgun seat was Randy Jurgensen, a police officer moonlighting as a technical advisor for the film. (Later Mr. Friedkin would base “Cruising” on one of Mr. Jurgensen’s cases.)

“We took off, with Billy telling Bill Hickman, ‘Give it to me, come on, you can do it, show me!’ ” Mr. Jurgensen said in an interview. “We had a police siren on top that people could hear, so that those who were able to get out of the way, could.

There were no permits and no planning — just sheer nerve. “After 26 blocks, from Bay 50th to Bay 24th Street, I ran out of film, but I knew I had enough,” Mr. Friedkin said. “The fact that we never hurt anybody in the chase run, the way it was poised for disaster, this was a gift from the Movie God. Everything happened on the fly. We would never do this again. Nor should it ever be attempted in that way again.”
But you're right. This commercial's producers are unlikely to have been as reckless.
posted by notyou at 11:31 AM on April 11, 2012


TNT is another Time Warner tentacle, so no, I'm not going to credit them with much reckless risk-taking. I mean, why would they? Aside from the liability (and hell, I might even grant them a sense of responsibility), there is the factor of someone freaking out for real, or the random Belgian skate punk deciding this precisely framed and expensive shot represented an unprecedented opportunity to shake his nuts at the camera. There is basically no upside to it actually being done the way it is represented.
posted by nanojath at 11:57 AM on April 11, 2012


I'm sorry, there's NO WAY every bit of that was not staged. Whipping vehicles in and out of a public square full of random, unprepared pedestrians and onlookers without any proper barriers erected?

Well, of course. In the opening shots, you can see that *all* the people around the perimeter are watching the button, waiting for someone to press it. Likely they went at an empty time of day and filled the area with extras.
posted by davejay at 12:17 PM on April 11, 2012


...or the random Belgian skate punk deciding this precisely framed and expensive shot represented an unprecedented opportunity to shake his nuts at the camera.

Sadly, this is too long to be my next band name.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 1:11 PM on April 11, 2012 [1 favorite]


Very funny. But enough. With. The. Quick. Cut. Cut. Cut. Every. Half. Second. It. Makes. Me. Crazy. Editors, are you listening??
posted by zardoz at 2:02 PM on April 11, 2012


The video only has 41,857 views yet it has 38,569 likes. Odd.
posted by timsneezed at 2:48 PM on April 11, 2012


Sadly, this is too long to be my next band name.

You could make it the first line of the 80 word title of your slightly off-the-rails sophomore recording effort. Which will inevitably be abbreviated to "shake your nuts".
posted by nanojath at 3:34 PM on April 11, 2012 [1 favorite]


This, or it's really, really, really, really, really reckless.

I've been to Ghent, I've seen food booths deep-fry burgers and fries for drunk club-goers in St. Peters square at 6am as the sun comes up, and then ordered one.

Perfectly acceptable place to do really, really reckless things.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 3:37 PM on April 11, 2012


Had to cover my mouth to muffle laughter in my office. Work isn't supposed to sound that hilarious.
posted by chatongriffes at 3:44 PM on April 11, 2012


This commercial's producers are unlikely to have been as reckless.

Yeah. I guess you might pull a few surprises for the reaction shots, but no-one is driving like that without full consent from and insurance for everyone in the vicinity. But part of the fun is being fooled for a second, I suppose. This is no less convincing than Borat or other "real life" pranks and considerably more entertaining.
posted by howfar at 4:29 PM on April 11, 2012


To my untrained eye, that looks like Ghent.
actually, it's the Grote Markt in Aarschot.

Aarschot is known as a marginalized town; so they're used to these sort of scenes which reduces the chances of someone freaking out for real.
posted by Akeem at 4:46 PM on April 11, 2012


Jesus, I just noticed that I can't read Flemish. And why was the sign over the button in English? Because that might have been a bit of a giveaway.
posted by sneebler at 6:33 PM on April 11, 2012


The guy who pushed the button.

"We chose Aarschot because we are the fastest of them all consents received," says creative director Geoffrey Handson. "In the morning we rehearsed the scenes. Then we prepared the cameras hidden

Rudy stood by and watched. "At no time I saw cameras are, yet I felt that it was not real," he says. "When everything was over, a girl came to me to explain that they were recording promo video for the new channel TNT. She asked if I wanted to sign a document so they could use the images.
posted by Akeem at 12:29 AM on April 12, 2012


Metafilter: I just noticed that I can't read Flemish.
posted by ShutterBun at 4:17 AM on April 12, 2012


I know somebody whose daughter's school had a mock terrorist invasion drill.

Why?
posted by dumbland at 5:50 AM on April 12, 2012


It's only a matter of time before someone tries to pull a stunt like this in a US state with a strong concealed carry culture and "Stand Your Ground" laws, and it all goes badly wrong.

Or a network TV debacle that is cleverly repackaged into a controlversial reality TV pilot that becomes a hit TV show in a dystopian future. Think The Running Man meets Just Kidding.
posted by chambers at 7:26 AM on April 12, 2012


I know somebody whose daughter's school had a mock terrorist invasion drill.

Why?


Because how else are terrorists going to get any practice?
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 10:05 AM on April 12, 2012 [1 favorite]


I want a button that says ADD SCIENCE FICTION (NOT SYFY).

Or ADD SATIRE. No, wait, somebody must already be pushing that button because there is so much these days that is self-satirizing...
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:11 PM on April 12, 2012


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