Cut-ups and Cutaways
"You'll never get my formula!"
James Franco yells this at two of out-of-breath pursuers while dashing across an L.A. rooftop. In suitably dramatic fashion, the star of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man and 127 Hours leaps over the edge of the building and out of sight. Were this a movie, we might wonder if or how he lands.
But this isn't a movie.
It's episode six of Fact Checkers Unit, an ad campaign by Samsung that doubles as a comedy Web series--or is it the other way around?
Regardless, "You'll never get my formula" perfectly sums up my feelings about the show. I'm late to the FCU party, but it's a brilliant idea: in an effort to, I guess, make up for all those un-watched commercials littering the DVR wasteland, NBC/Universal and Samsung teamed up to create an easily digestible show about two tabloid-magazine fact-checkers. They use their trusty Samsung Galaxy phones* to prove or dispel celebrity myths, which range from pedestrian (is Tenacious D's Kyle Gass really on a cross-country segue tour?) to kooky (does T-Pain sleep in a coffin?) to downright bizarre (is James Franco...um, pregnant?).
Solving these mysteries are Dylan (Brian Sacca) and Russell (Peter Karinen), a pair of well-meaning but bumbling guys who want nothing more than to impress their snarky grump of an editor (Mary Lynn Rajskub). While this might sound like a lame, off-brand-network sitcom, FCU is actually pretty funny. Its vibe has been scientifically engineered by two multi-billion-dollar corporations to replicate the out-there-indie-comedy cred of Mr. Show--meaning the episodes have an impressive, cinematic look and play like bordering-on-non-sequitur sketches.
A key part of this calculation, no doubt, hinges on the viewer making a conscious choice to see the frequent cut-aways to hero shots of the phone as part of the ironic comedy--and not as a fourth-wall-shattering intrusion. It doesn't work, and I can't imagine a world in which it would. FCU's saving grace is that the main cast are given more to do than your average shills, and the guest stars' apparent good times on set don't come at the expense of audience enjoyment (it's also nice to know that Moby is A) still alive and B) self-deprecatingly funny).
I'm not sure when movies and television shows stopped being art and became "content", but watching characters pause a story's flow to act as product demonstrators rarely makes me want to actually buy whatever it is they're selling.
(Lofty words, I know, in an advertorial whose title begins with "Sponsored Video".)
But from what I've seen, Fact Checkers Unit is precisely the direction in which all commercial endeavors should be headed. Yank the ads from TV and leave them on the Internet, exclusively. Make them funny, scary, and/or informative enough, and audiences will build the viral campaigns for the advertisers. If all attempts to sell me stuff came in such slick, entertaining packaging, I'd be more inclined to tune in rather than scrub through. Hell, I might even get off my ass and buy something.
Is James Franco really preggers?** Watch the video and find out!
*In this case, the Note 5.3.
**No.
Sponsored by Samsung.