For its new “See Impossible” campaign, Canon has a new video that portrays the inspirational story of a young sci-fi fan who becomes a big famous director by way of Canon camera. PetaPixel reports that the story could easily be confused with that of a real-life director. But the real-life guy didn’t use Canon cameras to realise his dreams.
You might remember the story the Uruguayan director Fede Alvarez, whose self-made 2009 YouTube short Panic Attack! went viral and landed him a huge hollywood contract. With good reason! The five minute short looks like it was made by a massive studio, not by a kid with a $US300 budget. It’s a remarkable story.
It seems Canon remembers too. Or you’d be crazy not to think so. In its latest campaign, Canon tells a story that’s suspiciously similar to Alvarez’s — a young kid using a Canon DSLR to realise his dreams. Indeed, the director noticed the similarity himself.
Wait a minute… I think I know this story… http://t.co/BnxmZ3nJmq
— Fede Alvarez (@fedalvar) October 7, 2014
Then, on the actual YouTube page for the Canon video, he points out that the video that made his career wasn’t made using Canon at all — it was made on Sony cameras.
Which makes sense! DSLR filmmaking was still very new at the time that Panic Attack! was made, and it would have been much more common to use a high-quality video camcorder. Sony makes some of the best.
Canon responded to our request for comment, and says “there is no similarity” between the stories. We’ll leave that for you to decide.
In fairness, a filmmaker today would probably strongly consider Canon for a homebrew short. Maybe they should have tapped any of the countless people who actually use Canon cameras to make their dreams come true. [PetaPixel]
This post has been updated to reflect Canon’s position that the Canon spot and the Alvarez’s story have nothing at all in common.