"Caffeine Injection" deliverable

Info

Summary

Short video depicting the rapid and drastic growth in smartphone addiction.

Goals

  • Shock the audience into realizing that our world has changed so much and so quickly since the smartphone’s advent.

  • Contrast previous pastimes and customs with the now universal addiction to our devices.

  • Get the audience to ponder whether we should be more than a bit concerned about such drastic changes to our society.

Concept

Let us look at how our pastimes have changed by considering a scene at a cafe that actually represents two decades. From leisurely and seemingly tranquil activities, we have become increasingly absorbed in our phones, in the process building the wealthiest and most powerful companies in the world’s history. At the end, we realize our phones have become our only source of gratification.

Strategy

  • This deliverable does not require additional strategy. Please refer to campaign strategy.

Script

The whole scene takes place in one of these coffee place terraces you can see everywhere in Europe. This kind of place used to be cliche for spending time leisurely with friends, reading newspapers or a book, and watching people.

The music starts slowly. Maybe only a few patrons (2 or 3, importantly most of them in their early twenties as this is not a cross-generational issue), all of them engaging in above-mentioned, “traditional” activities.

As the music gathers pace and grows crescendo, more and more patrons of all ages and all backgrounds (students, business people, etc), alone or in groups, sit in, some of them picking up their phones and getting busy. The music grows louder, more and more patrons arrive, this time already holding their phones as they arrive. We start superimposing high-tech transparent windows pertaining to each patron (we start with one window/patron, then add another patron, another, etc) that is relevant for data harvesting, and keeping us ever-entertained.

The superimposed windows show the computer scripts that run at all times, making users very busy indeed, and where you see processes being executed one by one:

  • Name, sex
  • Income level, user segment (say “high-value”, “mid-value”, “low-value”)
  • “New message… parsing…”
  • “New interest identified… updating profile… pushing notification… Done”

We can think of other computer scripts (ideas are welcome) (otherwise, if only one process is shown for every one, too boring), for instance:

  • Name, sex
  • “New friend request…”
  • “Connection added…”
  • “Updating graph…”
  • “Pushing update…Done”

Or:

  • Name, sex
  • “Uploading new picture…”
  • “Analyzing content…”
  • “Updating profile… Done”

We would then show one patron who is checking his stock portfolio. He looks at famous - or fictitious - tech stocks charts, showing - as we all know - vertiginous increases in stock prices.

Once the music finally calms down in the very last few seconds (just before 2:37), one person who was engrossed with his/her phone looks up from his/her screen, and realizes there is not a soul around.

At the end of the video, the music turns into the following: Ominous music turning to drums and pipes, we switch to a black background, and show successive lines of text (one at a time), as follows:

“In late 2017, Ray Kurzweil, Google’s guru of AI and futurism, made the prediction that humans and machines will soon become one.”

[Pause]

“Many of the world’s most powerful companies are already actively pursuing this vision.”

[Pause, new screen]

“If Mr. Kurzweil’s prophecy were to prove accurate, there could be very little left of what today makes us truly humans.”

[Pause]

“Now may be the last opportunity to fight for humanity as we know it. Learn more about humane technology and join the cause at www.humanetech.com.” (This sentence coincides with the moment you hear the first drums in the music)

Duration

  • Short, probably 2:37 mins. (determined by music).

Music

Production

We would need to find a professional video producer, most likely in Europe. They will have to propose and arrange a shooting venue (the cafe) and secure actors of different age groups.

Funding

  • Funding requirements have yet to be determined.

Team

  • To be determined

Resources

Updated: