ITT Tech commercials, my critique of the commercial where the student says he likes everything about ITT Tech but can't offer specifics.

I think I see what ITT Tech is trying to do in their commercials. They are trying to show that their schools are for anybody who wants to better themselves, and to that end, anybody who makes it through their curriculum can be featured in one of their commercials.

So, if a participant in the commercial says, "What I like about ITT Tech, long pause, I liked everything about ITT Tech", I may see, cop out answer, but I think ITT Tech sees, this is an honest representation of our students, and we are proud of their after program success.

I am conflicted because I too believe in showing people as they are, and yet, I feel the answer given in the commercial is a cop out. During the long pause where this student is contemplating an answer, I noted an overall seven second "space" for his response. So even if the student had had an answer, he would have only had seven seconds to give it.

At that point, It wouldn't have bothered me one bit if they had written the answer for the student, asked him if he agreed with the statement, and if so, would he like to claim it as his own. I consider it acceptable to write an answer for a student as long as once it is written the person repeating the response absolutely believes it 100%, and is NOT PRESSURED to say it.

In this instance, I have to classify the non response as an epic fail, and an answer that I blame the producers and director of the commercial for accepting as the final word. I think they made the student look bad, and that's not really fair to the student, and I personally don't think the commercial is helpful to ITT Tech because I begin to question how believable the person featured really is.

Edit Update, Dec. 03, 2010 I just found this rather disturbing review of ITT Tech, click here to read it.

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Explaining how after Jerry Brown hung up the phone his offices conversation continued to be recorded.

I'm using my over 2 decades working with film, video and audio production to figure out how we could hear Jerry Brown obviously hang up the phone, yet not hang up the phone. The obvious answer is the phone just did not quite make it onto the hook, and that is one scenario.

However, there is another scenario to consider. Lets say an aide at a nearby desk dialed the call but uses the speaker phone to hear when the other party picks up the phone, at which point Jerry is signaled to pick up his phone. This is not that unrealistic of a scenario since many times that is what an aides job is, to make calls and connections for the higher ups in the office.

The aide that made the original phone call may have actually kept the speaker phone on after Jerry Brown began speaking because it makes it easier to keep everybody else in the room immediately aware of what Jerry Brown is actually saying during the phone call. It is easier to sit next to a speaker phone situated 20 feet away from Jerry Brown rather than try and listen to Jerry Brown talk directly into the phone from that distance.

Jerry Brown finishes the phone call and actually does hang up, however, the speaker phone at a nearby desk is still on, thereby keeping the line active, causing the answer device to keep recording because it can still detect sounds being uttered.

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Time Warner Voice Mail to Email Commercial, a sign of the times.

Back in the mid 80's, my dad once commented on how disrespectful he thought it was when Malcolm Jamal (a teen actor from the Bill Cosby show at that time) responded to KTLA Christmas day parade co-host (Bob Eubanks) by using Eubank's first name, "Bob" rather than saying "Mr. Eubanks".

My dad felt that all teenagers and younger, including actors, should not be calling adults by their real first name, rather, they should say Mister Eubanks, etc.

Fast forward 25 years and the father in a recent Time Warner television commercial for "voice mail to email" calls his son on the phone and says, "Hey buddy, it's Stan"....

Holy cow! Just four little words to start the conversation and every perceivable rule of parent, son/ daughter etiquette has been imploded! "Hey Buddy"? (neither the son's name or just, son, is used), followed by "It's Stan", (why not, It's dad)?

I have to admit that I had trouble understanding who "Stan" was the first few times I saw the Time Warner voice mail to email commercial. Plus the cutaway shot of the kid is lame. There is no one in the background to show its a party, just sound effects that sound like there is a party going on (another lame arse corporate cheapskate maneuver to "save money" on the commercial by using sound effects and no extras to make it "sound" like there is a party going on. Is this being done so part of the budget can go to executive bonuses and such???).

Time Warner could have hired a bunch of teen extras for a day and given them all a nice experience as an "extra" in a commercial while also paying them. That's why jobs aren't being created in today's economy, everybody is too busy trying to justify their own job by cutting the jobs of others (sound effects of a party rather than showing the party is a perfect example.)

Just sayin.

Anyways, funny how a remembrance from 25 years ago kind of relates to a current television commercial. I wonder if anybody else had trouble understanding that "Stan" is "dad" from the very first time they viewed the Time Warner commercial. Did it make any of you uncomfortable to see Dad not call himself dad, but instead calling himself "Stan" as he spoke to his "buddy" (aka "son")?

One final thing, anybody notice the subtle sexism at play? "Stan" lifts his finger towards his wife as if to say, shhhhhh, I'm speaking. Now, that would be ok IF SHE ACTUALLY HAD SAID SOMETHING IN THE COMMERCIAL!

But she says nothing anywhere in the commercial, which makes that finger wagging suddenly become subtly sexist, as in, women should be seen and not heard.

(Article update January, 15, 2010, 12:20 AM) Just a few minutes ago on the Jay Leno Show, Michael Douglas referred to his dad as "Kurt", and Jay actually stopped the discussion and mentioned that if he had called his dad Angelo when growing up, he would have been smacked!

Jay then went on to mention that it might be a West Coast thing where kids call their dads by their real first name.

Thanks Jay Leno, for backing me up, even though you will probably never read this, ha ha.

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James Harrison of the Pittsburgh Steelers needs electroshock therapy, he just doesn't know it yet.

Apparently James Harrison can only hit an opposing National Football League player with a force in keeping with the great Ram Bam in the sky, Ramosauras Wrecks. However, unlike Ramosauras Wrecks, James Harrison likes to head butt his opponent when they are looking in some other direction.

Ramosauras Wrecks likes it even better when his intended target is silly enough to jump in the air and try and hold onto a leather ball. James "Ramosauras Wrecks" Harrison was recently fined 75,000 dollars for his helmet to helmet hits and in response, Harrison may decide to retire.

Do you feel a warm rush of empathy for Ramosauras Wrecks? Hey, lets pass a donation plate around and see if we can help pay the 75,000 dollar fine for Ramosauras Wrecks. I kind of do feel sorry for Mr. James Harrison. He just wants to be left alone so he can continue to head butt players who aren't looking his way or are in a vulnerable position and can't protect themselves.

Maybe a compromise can be worked out. The NFL waives the 75,000 fine against Mr. Harrison and instead puts electrodes on his helmet that sends massive voltage after future helmet to helmet hits.

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If the Rescued Chilean Miners story were made into a Television Series, what exciting plot twist would be added to the story? (warning: spoof alert)

I was just thinking that if the Chilean Miners rescue story were made into a Hollywood television series, there would probably be some plot twist added to make an already larger than life story even larger.

A "Lost" motif be added to the series, think "Lost", only the series would be called "Trapped".

"Trapped" the television series would delve into the minds of the miners and how they ended up mining on that particular mine on that fateful day. The first season proves so successful the network decide to extend the show to a second season and in the season finale, an ironic twist occurs.

The miners decide to refuse to come up unless several of their demands are met.

The Chilean miners' demands have local, state, and international rammifications.

The local mayor spins the miners demand and blames their delusional state from living underground and breathing the same air for so long. The men's wives and significant others have far ranging reactions (cue the music) to the decision of the miners to boycott being rescued, including outrage, anger, bewilderment, and even relief.

Supporters of the miners immediately begin making protest signs and banners announcing the miners demands. The local banking community supports the delayed rescue because of the outside revenue that is pouring in to the local community on a daily basis. And yet, some of the bankers remain concerned that the miners demands might raise awareness about societal issues that are not profitable to address.

The second season opens with the miners first demand being meet as Britney Spears performs a first in kind performance inside the mine. Britney's first number has her being lowered to the miners via a trapeze as she bellows out, "When I found you".

The second episode of the second season finds Barack Obama speaking to the miners imploring them to not give in until every one of their demands has been met. "Survivor" the television show does a remote from the trapped miners location and pits the men into two groups vying for cavemen supremacy. In a live episode, an international lottery has been set up and after a billion dollars has been raised to fight social injustice, numbered ping pong balls are dropped down the long venting tube and the miners announce the numbers as an international audience of one billion people hold onto their mining lotto tickets.

In the season finale, a paved road now reaches the miners and the miners are escorted out in hybrid limousines to worldwide adoration.

On a serious note, why is it in the United States that when miners are trapped for long periods of time, they die, but in Chile, they live?

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Happy 10-10-10.

So for the next 2 years we get one day of the year with repeating numbers. Happy 10-10-10, Happy 11-11-11, and Happy 12-12-12. I don't recall celebrating 09-09-09 or 08-08-08 or all the way on down the line to 01-01-01.

(Edit update - Oct. 10:10 pm - seriously) And then there are the parents who gave birth to a child at 10:10: am or pm. Does having a child that weighs 110 ounces count as well (that would be 6 pounds, 14 ounces).

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About all the Thumbnail Images located on the left and right side columns of AlexLOGIC's Blog.

The several dozen images located on the left and right side of this (AlexLOGIC) blog are projects that I, Alessandro Machi, had some involvement in. These projects now span around 25 years, from the time I was just starting college, to the present.

I am actually still missing several dozen images and eventually I hope to find the appropriate thumbnail image for projects that I have participated in but have not written about yet. When you click on an image, it should take you to either a video of the image, or an article that explains the story behind the image.

Besides my own projects and projects that I have worked on for others, I did a LOT of editing on additional projects. I feel the combination of shooting both film, video, and also editing my own projects plus others has given me an amazing foundation of knowledge that I now want to pass on to those who are interested in learning several concepts in a few hours that may have taken me years and tens of thousands of miles of travel to learn.

When my classroom has been rebuilt to my specifications, I will make an annoucement here and elsewhere for those who live in the Los Angeles area and who may want to take these one of a kind classes.

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California Political Races, Rating the top political candidates television commercial ads.

Jerry Brown is running the best political commercials among the major political races. Mr. Brown also waited until September to start running his political commercials while Meg Whitman had already spent close to 60 million dollars in television and radio ads.

Whitman's ads are not bad, however she finally gave in and did a look into the camera and talk directly ad after Jerry Brown was able to close the gap via his "look into the camera" and speak commercials.

Cinematically, I don't like the way Whitman looks in her talk into the camera ad. Stylistically lit, once the decision was made to light her the way they did, hair and make-up needed to do a better job of matching how she looks to how she is lit. The left side of Whitman's face disappears into overexposure and it makes her look like she has half of an eyebrow and that her hair is unhealthy thin.

Years ago Jane Harman briefly ran for governor of California and in my opinion they applied way too much make-up to her face. In this instance, Whitman looks "wispy" and washed out. Irrespective of the make-up, it simply looks like the Whitman camp is scrambling to copy Brown's commercial strategy.

Sigh, the race between Barbara Boxer and Carly Fiorina reminds me of the final scene in Thelma and Louise. Carly and Barbara in the same car driving towards the earth's edge, slapping each other silly with enough half truths and hubris that they probably will miss the "off ramp" entirely and instead keep pounding each other until they run out of gas.

I still can't believe that Barbara Boxer blatantly stitched together three different parts of a Fiorina interview to make it sound like it was one flowing sentence, and kept that commercial on the air for at least one month, possibly two.

Even more beguiling, Fiorina didn't fight back, it was almost as if she was too dense to realize her words had been stitched. But then, to escalate the madness, Fiorina has a commercial where she actually states, "I'll go to Washington and end the arrogance".

Hey, did you all know that I am the humblest person on the planet, but you'll never hear me brag about it. (snark alert)

I'm going to Washington to end the arrogance. In case it is not clear, what type of personality profile does it take to "end the arrogance"? Perhaps the same kind that it takes to say "I'm a humble person", or, "I'm a modest person".

Shall I mention the interminably long pause of Fiorina just staring into the camera in the middle of her commercial, a pause so long that FINALLY they came up with a shorter version and cut down the "arrogance stomper's" stare.

Saddest of all is knowing that Hillary Clinton was robbed of the democratic nomination in 2008. When I compare the current crop of female California political front runners to Hillary Clinton, I think of that huge, cavernous gap from the final scene of Thelma and Louise.

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Tennessee Guerilla Women: San Francisco Chronicle Endorses 'None of the Above'

Tennessee Guerilla Women: San Francisco Chronicle Endorses 'None of the Above'

What I find interesting about the above article was how it matches my own view so closely. In a recent AlexLOGIC article I basically stated that Barbara Boxer may have overstepped the boundaries of political ethics in advertising by editing together different Carly Fiorina sound quotes to make them sound like one continuous, unedited sentence.

My point had been that if Boxer is that unethical, and Fiorina that slow to respond, maybe neither is the right choice, lol, and it looks like the San Francisco Chronicle agrees. Kudos to the San Francisco Chronicle for not simply backing choice A or choice B.

Maybe one day candidates will be able to run as "independents" and actually be taken seriously by all, maybe that day is sooner rather than later. Once again, the AlexLOGIC perspective proves insightful and cutting edge, as does the San Francisco Chronicle.

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Jerry Brown for Governor commercial, "Serious" is very solid, with one slight flaw.

I like what Jerry Brown is doing in this commercial (called "Serious") for governor of California. Brown has done something that I don't recall anybody doing in the past 10 years. Brown is actually saying we all have to fix the problem.

This is a far cry from George Bush who wanted us to "keep shopping" after 911. From George Bush to Barack Obama to Meg Whitman, and others, the message they give is they are coming in to save us, as if whatever "we the people" can do to help fix things is irrelevant.

Never in a time of war before the Bush presidential era do I recall a president saying that it was our job to keep shopping. Usually the opposite was required, meaning don't waste "ANYTHING", ration, scrimp, share, and save. Jerry Brown is saying he won't do it alone, he needs us to be part of the solution. So far so good.

However, there is one flaw in the commercial, just who is "local government" that Jerry Brown proposes to bring populist decision making to? Is it local government such as what happened in the city of Bell and the now jailed politicians, are these the local politicians Mr. Brown wants to give more power to?

Is it Los Angeles local government in which I personally felt embarrassed that a city that appears to be hopelessly in debt can find the time to boycott Arizona rather than fix its own problems?

Are these the local governments that Jerry Brown is asking us to "trust"?

One other flaw that makes me cringe on a personal level is when Mr. Brown says, "at this point in my life", it reminds me of LeBron James saying, " I'm taking my talents to Miami".

Instead of saying, "at this point in my life", how about, "I know you're tired of politicians that are afraid to stand up to their own supporters...., so am I." It would be really amazing if Jerry Brown mentioned how pensions are going to stranglehold the California budgets for the next few decades. (although if the pension money were re circulated back into the California economy, the effect may not be as bad as we think).

Still, the beginning of the Jerry Brown "Serious" commercial is strong enough and for that reason I believe it to be a solid and refreshing political commercial.

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ABC Wednesday Night Line-up just got a whole lot worse, wow.

The magic of ABC's Wednesday night line-up in 2009 was that The Middle, Modern Family, and Cougar Town were good sit coms THAT

USED NO LAUGH TRACK. I just don't know how often comedy shows don't use laugh tracks at all, so the premiere of ABC's 2009 two hour Wednesday BLOCK of entertaining comedy programming, that used no laugh tracks, may have been a first in prime time television programming history.

If I were a producer on any of the three already established comedy shows, I would be in tears, and very very angry, that ABC in 2010 has now infected the one night of television where comedy ruled without a laugh track, with a show ironically called, "Better with You", and its bitingly bad laugh track.

Other than "Friends" sometimes over doing their laugh tracks, a laugh track on a good sit com has never really bothered me. Two of the greatest sit com's of all time, Seinfeld and Everybody Loves Raymond, used laugh tracks (although both shows do amazing jobs with their musical riffs that guide us through every episode). However, once ABC created a classic comedy night with no laugh tracks, to now infect that night with a new sit come that does use laugh tracks, grated on me IMMEDIATELY.

It felt as if someone had sent electrical shocks through me the very FIRST TIME I heard the laugh track on "Better without You". And what is even sadder is, I am pretty sure that there will be MILLIONS OF POTENTIAL VIEWERS who may be negatively yet subliminally affected by the contrast of having one out of the four back to back comedy shows using a laugh track, while the other three established comedy shows do not.

Hopefully I'll remember to switch back to ABC for Modern Family and Cougar Town.

I am stunned at ABC prime time programming. Lets ABC to the list of corporations that could use old fashioned AlexLOGIC when it comes to the easy stuff.

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Barbara Boxer Outsourcing Political commercial against Carly Fiorina might be misleading.

One of the things I do as a commercials consultant is look for authenticity in the spoken word. In this "Outsourcing" commercial by The Barbara Boxer campaign, it appears to me that Carly Fiorina's comments have been stitched together from two or three separate moments in time to make them appear as one flowing statement.

You can't do that, Barbara Boxer!

If the Fiorina campaign had hired me for their campaign, I would have notified them as soon as this commercial hit the airwaves that this commercial might just be fraud.

The additional irony is if the Fiorina campaign did not immediately move to protest this outsourcing video, then maybe she is not the kind of politician we want in office because she was slow to react to what appears to be an obvious misrepresentation of what she is being accused of saying. If she did protest, then I apologize, it's just that I have not heard of any protest over the Barbara Boxer Outsourcing video.

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Ines Sainz throws the New York Jets a Curve, or two or three or more.

If you think this article about Ines Sainz is simply to grab hits for this blog, you would be correct. What is most irascible about Ines Sainz being a sports reporter is that she picked the one type of news venue, sports, where STRAIGHT LINES abound. Be it the basketball court, the soccer field, a baseball diamond, or the football field, all that one can see are straight lines.

And then along comes Ines Sainz throwing the New York Jets football players, curves. It just isn't right. Curves mixed in with all those straight lines creates a natural distraction.

Allegedly, the New York Jets players were purposely throwing the football near Ines Sainz so they could have a reason to approach her. All I can say, thank god the football players at least came up with a reason to approach Sainz.

If you want to see photos of Ines Sainz in action, just click here.

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TVLAND's embarrassing promos for She's Got the Look.

Sigh. Just when I believed TVLAND might be the last great hope for middle aged americans and older as a channel that does not cater to creating new programs that mirror the reality tv stupidity churned out for the under 35 crowd by most other channels, along comes "She's got the Look".

The premise of "She's got the Look" is terrific, the execution of the actual program, and more specifically, the promos, has set back creating programming for middle aged americans a century or two.

The "She's got the Look" promos, as bad as they are, are played over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. TVLAND actually runs "She's got the look", "brought to you by promos" during Everybody loves Raymond! I have never heard of such nonsense nor seen it before either.

In general, TV LAND does an amazing job of hyping itself with the amount of promos they run for their own programming throughout the day and night, however, when the content of the promos is adolescent drivel at best, hearing it over and over and over and over during Everybody Loves Raymond or Rosanne is nauseating to say the least.

TVLAND does not get that I am willing to watch EveryBody Loves Raymond episodes multiple times because the quality of the writing and acting is fantastic. To then apply that same repetitive motiff to shows starring Joan Rivers, or Hot in Cleveland, or She's got the Look, is embarrasingly bad television. None of those three shows are awful, but they ARE awful when they are run over and over and over and over, and their promos that are run over and over and over and over, become stunningly moronic.

Just let it Be TVLAND.

Just because you over promote and over repeat your original, mediocre programming to squeeze every last rating point out that you can does not make it right, or meaningful, or sensible. However, it does make me wonder why quality shows like EveryBody Loves Raymond or Rosanne want to be associated with your channel.

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