On The Set: Wetpaint's Parody Commercials

Kevin Flaherty, the guy who runs marketing at the wiki company Wetpaint (and does killer zombie voices) invited me to the filming of Wetpaint's latest experiment: parody commercials.

I had no idea what to expect, but it was awesome.  It was the first time I'd been on a real set during filming. It was just like our studio at home, except this set had giant lights, real actors, a director, lots of expensive production gear and fewer whiteboards and markers. Just like it, I swear!

The idea behind the videos is to illustrate the difference between Wetpaint wikis and other wiki platforms via parodies of the Mac/PC ads.  In this case, Wetpaint is personified by a hip, attractive actress named Maya and "wiki" is played by an actor named Troy Lund that kept us laughing all day.  The videos are directed by local director Branson Veal.

Here are a couple of my faves:

Wiki Syntax (00:35) 

Wiki Widgets (00:38)

This last one is the most original and my overall favorite.  It starts as a behind-the-scenes look at the video's production (when wiki first meets Wetpaint) and ends as an eHarmony parody.

eHarmony Parody (behind the scenes) (03:10) 

You can see all the Wetpaint parody videos on Wetpaint.com or on their YouTube channel. You can also see the video we did for Wetpaint here.