Two days ago, this commercial for the Samsung GALAXY Gear appeared in Samsung Mobile’s YouTube channel and it may be the most awful commercial anyone has ever had the pleasure of seeing.
It starts off with three people on a ski lift. Two guys and a girl. One guy has a regular phone and another has the GALAXY Gear watch. Of course the guy with the GALAXY watch manages to get the girl to say her number into his wrist while the other guy drops his phone into the snow. Naturally, he calls her right after and says, “Hey, pretty lady.” Wow. This guy is smooth.
He then uses his watch to stalk her taking 64 pictures of her as he follows her snowboarding. To her, it’s more endearing than creepy. Aww, you secretly took 64 pictures of me while I wasn’t looking? How sweet.
Later, they bump into each other at a club and get close while music plays from his phone. Which, for whatever reason, is sitting 20 feet away on a ledge. Because that’s exactly where normal people put their phones in public places.
According to the guy playing the “businessman” in the promo, everything here was done on purpose. The slow speech was necessary because it was to be dubbed in Korean and, it isn’t so much a commercial as it is a promo to be shown at conventions.
Hi. So I’m an actor/model living in Seoul, and im playing the ‘businessman’ in this promo. now, admittedly its not my best work lol, but most people arent aware of just how many factors go into making it this bad. Allow me to elaborate. They force us to speak slowly since this will be dubbed over in Korean, and even when it isnt, most people viewing it will be Korean. They ask us to exaggerate since many Korean people feel thats how we ‘naturally’ act (most people here are not very expressive). Ive worked many jobs where I tried to act naturally only to be told by the director to act more ‘bright’ (ie exaggerate). its how the director and client (in this case, Samsung), WANT us to act. the script is brutal. written by non-native english speakers, and sometimes the PD or director wont even take our suggestions to change some parts so they sound like something a normal native english speaker would say. its a promotional video, not a tv commercial, meaning it will be shown at conventions and expos and in-house. most of the people watching it are korean and thats why they make us do all of the above. edit: almost forgot, shooting took place from 730am – 3am the next day, and by the time they shot the scenes with the girl, she was literally falling asleep in her chair, hence the stoned expression and tone :)
Still, the only way this could have been any worse is if Lindsay Lohan acted in it.