ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED!

I've talked to a couple of creative directors over the past month.  Both of them enjoy the work I've done with the storyboards and short print spec ads.  One of them suggested I do something longer.


Gamers, people who play video games, have a perception of being lazy and childish.  Most people think that all gamers do is sit around in their parents' dark basement and snack on Doritos and Mountain Dew.  That's not true.  My mom doesn't have a basement.  When I'm playing video games, I like to have the lights on.  I don't even like Mountain Dew.  I prefer Pepsi.


A lot of video games can be very challenging.  The most important part of a challenge is completing it and pushing yourself as far as you can go to finishing your objective. It's what gamers do while playing video games and it's what people do in life.  The idea behind the ad is to use video games as a template to how to evaluate problems and difficulties and to critically think about how to overcome them.  


I took the image from a Google image search.  I got the idea for the copy from Nike's "My Butt Is Big" ad from last year.  Happy Birthday XBox!

All I Care About Is Dark And Brutal

In the movie Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny, Jack Black and Kyle Gass hear of a myth.  There exists a guitar pick made from the tooth of Satan.  Whoever is in possession of that pick becomes the greatest guitar player in the world.  Guitar legends Eddie Van Halen and Angus Young at one point have owned this pick, and it made them the guitarists they are today.  

Some people say metal was started by Satan himself in the depths of hell.  While musically it has derived from the blues, the heavily distorted sound many metal bands use and morbid lyrics have made many conservatives think that metal musicians, starting with KISS, worship Satan.  

I haven't seen a single print ad that references this myth.  Most of them show the guitar being held by Slash or Dave Grohl or some amazing guitar legend that most people haven't heard of like the guy from Shinedown.  No American guitar manufacturer does anything to really differentiate themselves in advertising.  I came up with a campaign for DBZ Guitars, founded by Dean B. Zelinsky who designs guitars meant for heavy metal, that embraces the "origin" of metal, from the depths of Hell.  If metal started in Hell, shouldn't the guitars be made there too?

I took the guitars straight from the DBZ Guitars website and the background is concept art from Mortal Kombat.  The first one is a nod to Wayne's World where Wayne starts to play Led Zeppelin's "Stairway To Heaven" until he is stopped by a store clerk who points to a sign proclaiming "No Stairway To Heaven".  The second one is my favorite, listing the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and saying the fourth of the group (You) is Death.