QI Trailer

Twopints · 26870. Fri Oct 14, 2005 2:27 pm

I've just watched the QI trailer from the qi.com main page.

I've seen that video clip before on some programme about banned adverts, but it was advertising something else (I think the national geographic channel although I could be wrong).

So who nicked the trailer from who?

brackett · 26878. Fri Oct 14, 2005 4:42 pm

Really have you?

Can you track down the ad? Would be interesting to see the similarity.

So far as I know we were sent the trailor from one of the Idler magazine boys, who is also the co-author of Crap towns, and a mate of his is.

If you have time, Twopints, do try and track that down.

Funny trailer in any case, even if someone else got there first.

Caradoc · 26911. Fri Oct 14, 2005 9:29 pm

I have just watched "X-Rated: the Ads they couldn't show" on S4C (so it was probably on channel 4 about six months ago) they showed the trailer exactly as on this site but with the Blue Planet Channel as its offering

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2479362

Dated 2003 as well, so hope you didn't pay for it.

Twopints · 26930. Sat Oct 15, 2005 3:49 am

Cheers Carl, I'ts been driving me mad trying to find it.

It's still a great trailer even if it is "borrowed" from the Blue Planet Channel.

JumpingJack · 26947. Sat Oct 15, 2005 7:27 am

I can clear this up very easily.

The ad was shot about three years ago by a talented young director called Henry Littlechild for an excellent company called The Viral Factory.

In those days, virals were only just beginning to take root and, to drum up some business, the film was shot on spec at the company's expense as a 'test' film. It was originally designed for Discovery Channel. TVF put the Discovery logo on it and sent it off to them but they (I suppose unsurprisingly) thought it was much too naughty for them.

So, instead, TVF 'invented' a channel called BluePlanet.com – there is no such channel in reality – and bunged a logo on it to complete the film in case it should ever find a home.

Henry is a friend of Dan Kieran, the Deputy Editor of the Idler and (as it happens) one of the two people who designed the original QI website – and that's how I got to see the film.

It was so perfect a fit for us, that we did, briefly, rebrand it and put it up on the QI site when it first went online in September 2003.

JumpingJack · 26950. Sat Oct 15, 2005 7:38 am

However, it then transpired that we should really have asked permission from The Viral Factory so we took it down and I went to see them. We got on very well and there certainly were no hard feelings.

However, because the film was shot as a 'test' the two actresses (as is common industry practice) originally did the job for nothing.

We all agreed that it would be fair to pay them if the film was going to have a real practical use but, as this was suddenly putting things on a rather more formal basis, and as the fledgling QI 'A' series was just going on air and we didn't want to rock the boat with the authorities, no further action was taken.

Having redesigned the QI website and casting around for something visual to put on it (as well as wanting to open the 'C' series with a bit of a splash) we revived the idea, paid the two lovely actresses and TVF very kindly edited our logo on the end.

In the interim, the ad has actually done the rounds of the internet because TVF thought it was so good that it deserved to seen, if only for the heck of it.

As far as I know it has never been 'banned' by anyone.

JumpingJack · 26951. Sat Oct 15, 2005 7:41 am

Incidentally, I've just had an email from Ed, one of the directors of the Viral Factory who tells me that the QI trailer is running on the popular sites Punchbaby, TTR2 and Kontraband where it has had
over 500,000 views. It has also recently been picked up by www.Boreme.com.

All these sites (and of course www.theviralfactory.com) are heartily recommended if you want a good larf..