Lots-o’-Huggin Bear Toy Story 3 Promos

There’s an exercise I do with my Production students where we will take a scene from a film or even just a particular genre and we’ll shoot a video to match.  Sometimes it’s a shot-by-shot duplicate of a popular film scene, or sometimes we genre-twist and shake the scene up a bit.  It’s a fun exercise, but also it hones a very important filmmaking skill…stealing from the best.

Oh we don’t call it ‘stealing’ we call it an ‘hommage’ but it’s the same thing really.  And it’s the way the business works.  Read through any American Cinematographer magazine and you’ll find some Director of Photography that liked the look of a certain film and used that to inform their own style.

Pixar is the best at this!  The whole opening to “The Incredibles” — which is a black and white TV interview with our younger superheroes — is spot on.  You feel as if you’re watching an interview take place…like it was literally shot that way with all it’s mistakes and Mr. Incredible standing out of focus taking his mic off before the interview’s done.  It’s classic parody.  Only it’s serious parody.  Serious parody for humorous purposes.

Wow, my blood sugars must be low!  I need to eat something soon before I go all Charlie Kauffman on you.

Anyway, so Toy Story 3 is coming out on June 18, 2010 and those Pixar geniuses have cranked the Marketing-Meter up to “Box-Office Jugular” and come up with some cool stuff.  Apparently one of the new characters we’ll meet is called Lots-o’-Huggin Bear.  So they’ve created a commercial for this bear that for all intensive purposes looks like they hopped in a Delorean Time Machine, went back to the 80s, kidnapped a Care Bears Commercial Director,  shot this thing on VHS and returned to modern times to post it.

Again, the genius is in the loving care and concern they took to mimic the bleeding oversaturated colors, the bad tracking and even the sparkly effects and cheesy kids.  I mean, c’mon, it’s even shot  640×480.  Ahhhh, 640×480…pre-widescreen TV…non-linear editing….that takes me back…and I SWORE I’d never go back to the 80s!  So THANKS ALOT Toy Story 3 for this horrid flashback I’m having.  Dang it….do I have an Algebra Test to study for today?

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah…I don’t wanna go to church on a Sunday night, I wanna watch Buck Rogerssssssss!

And their japanese version:

Anyway, thanks Karla Jean from Hot-lanta, GA for unearthing this little gem!

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