Well it’s finally D (for Doritos) day. Last night, at midnight central time, Doritos revealed the Top 6 finalists for their 2010 installment of the Crash the Superbowl commercial contest. The prize for making it to this round is $25,000 and a trip to the big game for each filmmaker.
Voting is now open and the public will decide which three of these submissions make it to the Superbowl. The finalists are:
“Underdog” AKA “Animal Cruelty” by jwsvoboda. Video #5584.
“The Smackout” by bhayword. Video #5511
“Casket” AKA “The Casket” by ms. Video #4374
“Snack Attack Samurai” by CBer. Video #1786
“House Rules” by Dejesus_77. Video #3713
“Kids These Days” by Blackmariastudios. Video #5427
You can watch all the videos and vote for your favorite at the Crash the Superbowl site.
I had figured that when the finalists were announced I would post the results and share my impressions but….I have no idea what to say here. There are two spots that I prefer but the rest are just…baffling. I know that I recommended that Doritos consider some entries for the top 6 that were rough around the edges but I never thought they’d choose entries that had actual technical flaws.
I am also feeling pretty burned about “The Casket” making the finals. As I’ve mentioned, my entry for the Crash the Superbowl contest, “Rest in Chips” was also about a guy who faked his death and in accordance with his fake last wish was buried in a casket full of Doritos that gets knocked over. As I explained in yesterday’s post and this post from November 19th, I suspect that I might be the victim of plagiarism. If you watch both entries and ignore the superficial aesthetic elements (camera quality, location, actors, costumes) and compare the concept and story elements (fake funeral, a final wish, a casket of doritos, knocked over casket etc) it’s hard to deny that both videos MAY have both based on my original concept (which anyone could have seen in a storyboard I posted to youtube in October.) But even if I wasn’t plagiarized, my video was posted first. I never expected to make it to the finals but a major part of each entry’s score was “Originality.” And I believe that I read that if two similar ideas were posted, the originality score of the video that was uploaded second would take a hit. I even e-mailed Doritos and told them about my plagiarism concerns and so I can’t believe that “The Casket” still made it. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that they almost are hoping for controversy.
Since I’m sort of at a loss for words right now, how about I turn the discussion over to you? What do you guys think of the finalists? Let us know in the comment section…..
UPDATE: SWEET JUMPING JESUS!!! It turns out that TWO of the entries in the top 6 were created by the same people! They are posted under different names but both “Kids these Days” and “Underdog” are products of a company called 5 Point Productions. That blows my mind!! People are going to flip the F#$% out when they hear about this. I think “Underdog” is great but the other entry is just ok. Doritos couldn’t spread the wealth around a little? In no way do I blame the 5 Point Productions people for this. Good for them for kicking so much ass. They couldn’t find ONE more decent spot among the 4067 that were posted!?
