Clinton and Cruise - On the Campaign Trail

Keeping away from the "F*cking Obama" madness for a moment, I thought I'd talk a bit about the two Cruise Scientology parodies that I made a while back. One of these you might have seen already, the other you probably haven't.

Clinton and Cruise - On the Campaign Trail



This one I did in my first week at the ABC this year, and it ended up getting a bit of press here and in the US. The Cruise Scientology video and the footage of Clinton "crying" in New Hampshire had been two of the most viral videos online over the week or two before that. I was looking to do something with one video or the other, when I realised how similar the two were - sharing not only common phrases but also a mutual, over-the-top and self-important sincerity.

To make it, I took transcripts of the two videos, read through them and pieced together similar words and phrases. Happily, there were a lot more similarities than I ever would have hoped for. The video took a while to make, but came together pretty easily. The "Thanks El" at the end of the video relates to my little sister who stayed up with me working on a draft and commenting on what worked and what didn't.

The most difficult decision in the whole thing was whether or not to include a laughter montage at the end - one of the most obvious similarities between Clinton and Cruise is their crazy laughter. It was funny, but it made the video more of an all out attack than it really needed to be. I might still find a way of posting it. I've toyed with doing a dance remix of the video, because there are so many awesome Mission Impossible dance tunes. It would probably fit in better with that. Anyway, if that's something people are interested in seeing, I'll probably put it together when I finish up at the ABC in a couple of weeks, assuming that Clinton is still in the race.

Anyway, enough for now. I'll post a few words about the Cruise Interview I did with Monty tomorrow...