Perhaps it’s time to start an “Outdoor Advertising” section here on Photobooth.net. More and more TV shows are using photobooth-themed ads on buildings, buses, and so on, including the Ellen Degeneres Show, advertised on the side of a Warner Bros. studio building in Burbank, California:
We’ve got a few updates this week, from the four (or at least three) corners of the media world. First, from mainstream TV, an advertisement that proves you can use a photobooth to sell anything. The Venus Embrace razor is the product in this case, in an ad that encourages women to use the razor and “Reveal the Goddess in You.” In one of a half-dozen scenes in the commercial, two girls go into a pseudo-photobooth and giggle under the heading “Goddess of Friendship.”
From the world of art and photography, we bring a two-page feature and brief interview with us here at Photobooth.net in the internationally-distributed magazine ISM: A Community Project. The piece, called Photobooths: The Art of the Self Portrait. It’s a nice piece, and it’s a great magazine, available at select newsstands or on ISM’s site now; we encourage you to pick up a copy.
And finally, another old photo with with what must be a great story behind it. At the risk of starting up a “Photomatic of the Week” feature, I thought I’d post this eBay gem, because it’s a great photo and a little unusual.
Not only does this Photomatic feature the great “Souvenir of the Nation’s Capital” backing, but the young soldier in the photo is sitting behind a prop with the body of what looks like the cherubic new year of 1941 painted on it, which makes for a great image. Written on the photo itself and mostly faded at this point is the question “Guess Who?”, and on the reverse is written the date “January 13, 42.” This date doesn’t make much sense with the New Year 1941 image, but it’s still a great photo.
We’ve made some additions and updates to the site this weekend, including three new (and one upgraded) music videos. Above, scenes from the first music video on the site, Aerosmith’s Crazy, as well as Jeremy Burgan’s Can You See Us? We’ve got much improved images from Crazy, and we’re happy to have Burgan’s video, which we saw being made out at the Cha-Cha Lounge one night, on the site. Below, we’ve got scenes from Modlang’s Factory Hour and Natasha Bedingfield’s Single, one from YouTube and one in high-def. Oh well, you take what you can get.
Also this week, we’ve got new locations in Long Beach, California, as well as three more Amy’s Ice Creams shops (one, two, three) in Austin, Texas. And finally, a new example of a photostrip in TV, from Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s pre-Shaun of the Dead/Hot Fuzz effort, Spaced.
As the mini posting spree continues, a result of what seems like a now-monthly resolution to “post more of that stuff that’s otherwise just sitting around” during a slow news week, we have “Life Imitates Music,” a 2002 MTV commercial spot for a non-existent band called “The Lack” who make an album cover using photobooth strips.
It fulfills all of the conventions of the photobooth-based TV commercial: the photobooth, standing alone in a well-lit room with checkboard floor and a kiddie ride nearby, with young people mugging inside, seen from the perspective of the photobooth camera as well as from outside, half-obscured by the curtain. With a soundtrack, though somewhat mangled, by the Strokes, the brief spot has a nice energy to it but seems somewhat pointless — though we probably shouldn’t complain when an ad doesn’t actually seem to be advertising anything.
Thanks to my daily perusal of photobooth news and a number of tips from readers, we came across a recent bit on The Tonight Show called the “Phony Photobooth.”
In the episode, a photobooth at Universal Studios Hollywood has been rigged as a “Free Photobooth,” complete with hidden cameras, microphones, and speakers in order capture booth-goers’ reactions to the things they’re asked to do for free photos.
The booth is a digital one, and the photos used on the show aren’t even real digital strips, but it’s a fun piece to watch; you can see the complete bit at YouTube (link dead, thanks Steve) this site.
Moments after spotting a new McDonald’s advertisement on last week’s episode of “Arrested Development,” I received a forwarded email from Dina via Tim, both of whom had either seen or been told of the commercial as well. Our network is strong and growing…
Screen captures and analysis of the commercial can be found on its page in the TV Commercials section; let us know what you think. Is it implying that your Arch Card can be used in photobooths? Do they realize their photobooth has two different prices on it? Photobooth.net wants to know.
My brother Pat got my wife and me hooked on Fox’s Arrested Development. A great show. Pat also pointed out the photobooth reference in Season 1, Episode 15. A flashback involving an ill-fated trip to Catalina Island alludes to Buster’s “unfortunate encounter in a photobooth.” The flashback lasts only a few seconds and shows a series of images purportedly taken in a photobooth. Curiously, there are five frames in the series, indicating (erroneously) a 5‑pose photobooth. After screen capturing the segment for the TV section of the website, I thought I would recreate the imagined photostrip. I created a few different versions, all of which are available in the extended entry.
Tonight, Ken and Deirdre, characters on the long-running UK soap Coronation Street will marry, and a photobooth has a role to play in the episode. Their wedding was set to coincide with the Royal Wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles, but the funeral of Pope John Paul forced the royals to postpone their wedding by a day, and Coronation Street producers made some last-minute editing changes to go along with the re-scheduled nuptials.
I am still trying to track down some video, but Andrea Avery alerted me to a photobooth story that aired this morning on the CBS News Sunday Morning show. I did manage to find this blurb: