Big news at drudge – Oliver Stone directs a “bring the troops home” ad for moveon.org. At moveon.org, the front page hosts this ad, which if I am not mistaken is the lauded Oliver Stone ad:
This ad proves what I’ve suspected all along: I am as good a director as Oliver Stone. That’s the best Oliver Stone comes up with? It’s not even 30 seconds and I’m bored half way through. I’m sure Army Sgt. Bruhns’ message is important, but Stone totally loses my attention after about 10 seconds.
I can see his attempt to convey a simple yet powerful message through an equally simple and powerful visual, but I have to give him an E for effort. I wouldn’t expect him to get all flashy and “NBK” on us, use multiple stocks and lots of impressionist imagery, but c’mon…do something more than any other numbskull on youtube could have done.
Now, I may be wrong, this may not be the official Oliver Stone ad, it may just be a “hey, this is the guy who’s gonna be in the Oliver Stone ad – can you bear to wait for it?” promo. A trailer for the upcoming epic ad, which will expand upon the 29 second promo with 8,790 additional seconds of paranoid delusion. But if this is really the ad…? Yikes, Ollie’s losing his touch.
Update: And here is the extended directors cut with an alternate ending, further embracing the now cliche “youtube style”.
Update II: Stone, take notes. This is how you make a simple yet powerful 29.5 second spot. Like yours, it’s nothing flashy to get in the way of the message, but it’s shot and edited to compliment the story, grab the viewer’s attention and move forward with energy. And unlike your extended director’s cut (see above update), it doesn’t bore the viewer with cliche, amateur video/faux-youtube stylings that are just stale and done (seriously, someone get the word to Madison Avenue)
