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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