now this is original
- Thread starter DR STRANGELOVE
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UPDATE:
McVideo wins teens cyber fame: Ad firm pays pair as YouTube clip features drive-through jam
(Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, The (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Nov. 23--WAUKESHA -- In the online world of Lonelygirl15 and the Star Wars kid, a three-minute video of a couple of Waukesha teenagers singing at a McDonald's drive-through has developed its own following on the video-sharing Web site You Tube.com.
And the high school students who created the video and posted it on the site have received accolades from the advertising world and enough cash to buy 1,000 McDonald's cheeseburgers, with extra cheese.
Tired of playing video games, Greg Calhoun and Nate Gessner decided one Saturday to play a prank at a Waukesha McDonald's restaurant. Gessner said it took the pair only a few hours to write the song, record a video of Calhoun singing into the drive-through speaker and post it on YouTube. Calhoun's younger brother did the filming.
"We both jam out and play music together," said Gessner, a senior at Waukesha West High School. "It just kind of seemed like the thing to do after I thought we should do something through the drive-through."
In the video, Calhoun sings his confusing order of an apple pie, two large sodas, a shake, three cookies, a cheeseburger with extra cheese and an M&M McFlurry at the drive-through of the McDonald's at 1425 S. West Ave.
"Could you run that all back real quick?" Calhoun asks after he places the order.
A puzzled employee responds, "Um, I missed everything. All I got was the M&M McFlurry."
The group picks up its ice cream dessert at the end of the video.
"We weren't hungry anyway," Gessner said Wednesday.
The video, which has been viewed more than 13,500 times since it was posted about a month and a half ago, caught the eye of Dennis Wakabayashi, art director for Karsh + Hagan, a Colorado-based advertising firm.
"I clicked it and I thought it was great," Wakabayashi said. "It had a guy playing a guitar in a car at a drive-through."
The clip was also featured on MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" as part of its No. 1 story for the night.
"We're of two minds whether this is pure genius, or really, really dumb," Olbermann said on the show.
More than 65,000 videos are uploaded daily on YouTube .com, a Web site founded in a garage in February 2005, according to the Web site. The company was recently sold to Google in a $1.65 billion deal.
Calhoun, a senior at Catholic Memorial High School, Gessner and a group of their friends went on to produce a few more McDonald's videos for Wakabayashi.
The short films were used during internal presentations to McDonald's employees and were a success, Wakabayashi said.
"It went over well," Wakabayashi said. "I think the reason it appeals to people is because it's passionate. It's a real situation."
The new videos differed slightly from their original work. Calhoun and Gessner worked different menu items into songs and changed verses. They also removed a line in the song about gaining weight after eating some McDonald's products.
"I guess that was easily worked around," Gessner said.
Employees at the West Ave. McDonald's declined to comment Wednesday, but McDonald's spokeswoman Danya Proud said people often create videos about the fast-food chain. She said she wasn't aware of Calhoun and Gessner's production.
"There are hundreds of these things, not just about McDonald's but for hundreds of companies, all over the Web," Proud said.
The firm paid Calhoun and Gessner a small sum for their work, but Gessner said the chance to work in advertising was more rewarding than the money.
Wakabayashi said the teenagers' short clips could become an in-theater advertisement before a movie, but the project's future wasn't certain.
McVideo wins teens cyber fame: Ad firm pays pair as YouTube clip features drive-through jam
(Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, The (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Nov. 23--WAUKESHA -- In the online world of Lonelygirl15 and the Star Wars kid, a three-minute video of a couple of Waukesha teenagers singing at a McDonald's drive-through has developed its own following on the video-sharing Web site You Tube.com.
And the high school students who created the video and posted it on the site have received accolades from the advertising world and enough cash to buy 1,000 McDonald's cheeseburgers, with extra cheese.
Tired of playing video games, Greg Calhoun and Nate Gessner decided one Saturday to play a prank at a Waukesha McDonald's restaurant. Gessner said it took the pair only a few hours to write the song, record a video of Calhoun singing into the drive-through speaker and post it on YouTube. Calhoun's younger brother did the filming.
"We both jam out and play music together," said Gessner, a senior at Waukesha West High School. "It just kind of seemed like the thing to do after I thought we should do something through the drive-through."
In the video, Calhoun sings his confusing order of an apple pie, two large sodas, a shake, three cookies, a cheeseburger with extra cheese and an M&M McFlurry at the drive-through of the McDonald's at 1425 S. West Ave.
"Could you run that all back real quick?" Calhoun asks after he places the order.
A puzzled employee responds, "Um, I missed everything. All I got was the M&M McFlurry."
The group picks up its ice cream dessert at the end of the video.
"We weren't hungry anyway," Gessner said Wednesday.
The video, which has been viewed more than 13,500 times since it was posted about a month and a half ago, caught the eye of Dennis Wakabayashi, art director for Karsh + Hagan, a Colorado-based advertising firm.
"I clicked it and I thought it was great," Wakabayashi said. "It had a guy playing a guitar in a car at a drive-through."
The clip was also featured on MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" as part of its No. 1 story for the night.
"We're of two minds whether this is pure genius, or really, really dumb," Olbermann said on the show.
More than 65,000 videos are uploaded daily on YouTube .com, a Web site founded in a garage in February 2005, according to the Web site. The company was recently sold to Google in a $1.65 billion deal.
Calhoun, a senior at Catholic Memorial High School, Gessner and a group of their friends went on to produce a few more McDonald's videos for Wakabayashi.
The short films were used during internal presentations to McDonald's employees and were a success, Wakabayashi said.
"It went over well," Wakabayashi said. "I think the reason it appeals to people is because it's passionate. It's a real situation."
The new videos differed slightly from their original work. Calhoun and Gessner worked different menu items into songs and changed verses. They also removed a line in the song about gaining weight after eating some McDonald's products.
"I guess that was easily worked around," Gessner said.
Employees at the West Ave. McDonald's declined to comment Wednesday, but McDonald's spokeswoman Danya Proud said people often create videos about the fast-food chain. She said she wasn't aware of Calhoun and Gessner's production.
"There are hundreds of these things, not just about McDonald's but for hundreds of companies, all over the Web," Proud said.
The firm paid Calhoun and Gessner a small sum for their work, but Gessner said the chance to work in advertising was more rewarding than the money.
Wakabayashi said the teenagers' short clips could become an in-theater advertisement before a movie, but the project's future wasn't certain.
