Here’s your shot at making it in showbiz – kind of.
Intel and Toshiba are making movies for the social media age, and you could score a small role alongside A-list talent like Harvey Keitel and Analeigh Tipton.
To make their alien invasion comedy “The Power Inside,” they’ve teamed up with agency Pereira & O’Dell – and are inviting you to audition for small roles via the Facebook app.
In the movie, hirsute aliens threaten to make earth’s population a whole lot harrier. The protagonist, Neil, with the help of his friends and certain technologies (this is a giant ad for Intel and Toshiba, after all) must save the world from unwanted unibrows and alien domination.
This is the third “social” film for Toshiba and Intel. Last year’s “The Beauty Inside” social film won a 2013 Daytime Emmy award for Outstanding New Approach to Daytime Programming and got 70 million views online. Their first, “The Inside Experience,” got 50 million views. Clearly they’re on to something.
“We had done a thriller, then a love story, so this time we wanted to bring the idea of a social film to a totally different genre, something that wouldn’t feel anything like the previous ones,” said P.J. Pereira, co-founder and chief creative officer at Pereira & O’Dell.
“A comedy felt like the right approach, so we started to discuss ideas that would allow us to make that ‘inside’ metaphor and feature the Toshiba Ultrabook in a prominent, but funny way.”
This is where you come in.
Average, everyday folks are encouraged to audition for small roles as one of the aliens or one of the humans fighting against them. To audition for an alien part, upload a photo from your webcam using the film’s dedicated Facebook app. Facial recognition software will add the necessary mustache and unibrow effects. If you want to try out for one of the “guardian” humans, create and upload a 30-second video of yourself getting rid of your own facial hair – real or fake.
“The goal here is to get closer with young adults, be appreciated and interesting for them,” said Pereira. “Of course there are some sales expectations — and the fact this is the third year shows they have been happy with this — but ultimately, we want to raise consideration among that crowd.”
The film will be split up into six episodes, which begin airing on Aug. 15. Watch the trailer for “The Power Inside”:
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