BIG YELLOW HAPPY

INTRO

Once upon a time there were mom and pop stores. Now there is Walmart, the symbol of corporate power that has successfully vanquished many small businesses by taking advantage of the capitalistic system where economies of scale favour its spread across the United States. We thought of Walmart as a monster in its own right, and the irony of its symbol being a happy face gave us an interesting juxtaposition to work upon.

This was first intended to take a shot at the huge corporations that are steadily spreading. we focused on the Walmart hype of Austin, TX. We first wanted to make reference to this corporate take over of Austin and all the negative attention that it has received. We acknowledged the small business closures and run down from big corporations. At the same time, we are also being sarcastic with the actual take over in the end of the movie. Pointing out that this is a just a store and not an army. It is damaging, but not destructive.

 

 

CRAFT

We shot Big Yellow Happy at Walmart and several local establishments. We used the hand held ball as the symbol for the monster of Walmart. We intercut with the schemers behind Walmart and showed glimpses of the plotting and planning over its expansion of its empire. We were initially unsure of showing the hand holding the Walmart ball but we decided to go for it, because we wanted to show that the growth of Walmart would not be possible if it wasn’t for the people who consume it.

One of the myths of large consumer corporations is that they work on their own steam, it’s their customer base that makes them so strong and keep them alive. One of the challenges of showing Walmarts takeovers was to “walmartize” all the independent stores, this was done through photoshop by cutting out their logo and placing them over the signboard surfaces. This was made to look a little more realistic by the skewing option.

 

 

SEQUITUR

The project Big Yellow Happy was originally intended to show the monster behind walmart which people have been talking about ever since they had their first hundred stores aross the nation. But it did make us question why is Walmart still getting to be more and more popular regardless of its terrible image with the independents. The answer to the question lies to the fact that Walmart hasn’t done anything wrong themselves, they haven’t cheated their way into exploitation, they are merely playing within the rules of the game which unfortunately causes many businesses to shut down. The capitalistic system in which it resides in nurtures its growth and impedes and destroys the growth of the smaller businesses. We must question he system which allows a company to do that more than the company itself. Which is why we wanted the man behind the Walmart to represent the system akin to the Marlboro man of the X-files.

 

 

Pomo Goth Me

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