I stumbled on this a while ago and forgot to share… The controversial UK teen show came to the USA.
Let’s skip the debate about the morality of the content–whether it’s exploitative or informative or neither. On a purely visual basis, I’d say Writer/Director Evan Silver comes up gold in the promotional intro to MTV’s “Skins” about the youth gone wild.
IMHO it’s dope. Inspirational cinematography that’s not over the top technically. Well written. A killer edit (by Nathan Byrne). An elegant use of timeline, speed ramps, and the content marries exceptionally well with the shooting style. Perfect beats for the piece as well. It’s got RVI. Raw visual impact.
[BTW, if you took moral issue with the spot… (or if there’s cynic in your soul) then you’d better watch the parody version here. You’ll be happy to know that the kids are all perfect–monopoly, sunny delight, and bubbles–just like you thought they’d be.]
Oh good grief. You can tell I’m getting old. From all that language I can’t actually work out whether you like or hate the thing. It was bad enough when bad meant good, chilling meant hot and hot was something other than the temperature.
Chase moving from “sweet” and “sick” to “dope” … man, I can’t keep up.
Visuals are great but the show is hilariously stupid and contrived.
I like it the general feel of it, specially the back lighting going on, with all the smoke, it creates a lot of depth on the environment.
As for parents being outraged about kids doing what they see….Well…morals and good decisions making start at home.
P.S: I agree, the U.S is uptight about all these things.
This show is now in season 6 here in the UK, hugely popular and is not considered controversial at all. This is clearly a case of American parents being way too over protective. But then again over here you can swear on tv, have sex at 16 and drink at 18 so we don’t consider any of the things featured in this show as a big deal. By making things more taboo the more trouble your kids are going to get in to.
More on topic, this is an cool advert!
it shows how kids gradual “get into” trouble, the individual choices they make, that lead to that last point. It also works well as a nice 30 to 20 second skins previews on MTV. Its nice to make something that works well as a complete narrative but also in snapshots cut up.