Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of TwoSet Violin.
We've got some juicy updates,
- which is why we're making this video, - Mmm.
it's gonna be short and sweet.
Recently, we made a video about the Infiniti ad,
if you haven't seen it,
go watch that video first, perhaps, and come back to this one.
For those of you that haven't seen the video,
a quick summary is basically,
the car brand Infiniti made a ad,
where they tried to advertise
the sound proofing quality of the car,
and they did that at the expense of musicians,
by poking fun of a lot of young musicians,
and so a lot of musicians were, you know,
quite reasonably disappointed.
During that video, we were like,
"I wonder if the musicians knew what they were signing up for."
Right? Like...'cause it's one thing if they're like,
"Hey, you're going to be publicly humiliated,
and dubbed with bad recording,
but that's just part of the ad, do you want to do it?"
It's another thing to be like,
"Hey, we want you to perform."
And then without them knowing,
then dub really bad sound over it.
Since then we have gotten an email,
from someone who um, we'll keep anonymous.
This person said she was actually part of the ad,
and so we wanted to share the updates that we got.
Here we go!
Just to summarise what this person said on the email,
so first of all they said...
And they felt the need to share something with us.
The first thing they said was that
they took part in the Infiniti ad,
and they themselves were shocked when they saw it on TV.
So already that's like,
"Okay, they didn't know what they're expecting."
So then this person goes on to elaborate a bit about
the process of what happened,
and the first thing, that was pretty shocking,
was that, she had to go through an audition process.
So they auditioned their musicians!
And this person said that she played the first movement of
Mendelssohn Violin Concerto!
Dude if you make me play the first movement of
Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, just to dub over with some...
...fake ass playing, oh my god!
What was all that effort for?!
These are kids too!
- Yeah... - For a young kid to play Mendelssohn Violin Concerto...
That's a big deal!
It's a big concerto!
- It's a big achievement. - (Brett) Yeah!
Already that raises a question of like...
Why did they even do that?
Why...
...if you're going to just dub over people bad playing,
why do you even want an audition?
That's like saying we're gonna do a 100-metre sprint test
and you need to beat some time record,
but then on the actual day you're just standing there.
- It's like, what was the point of the sprint test? - Yeah, there was no p...
You can...I can almost imagine them doing it
for the sake of like, "formality".
- Yeah. - They just don't know what to do.
"Oh, how do we get musicians?"
"Oh yeah, just make it look like an audition."
"But how do you normally get [musicians]?"
"Oh, they'll...they'll play a piece and we just pick them,
it doesn't matter."
Guys, if you're about to audition musicians,
understand that we spend a lot of time
to prepare for an audition, so...
If you don't plan on having the musician actually play properly,
probably don't expect such a hard...
...like just, you know?
Like, why?
Why do such a rigorous casting process?
At this point, just find someone that looks like they can't play,
if anything, right?
Just get your...the staff you guys already have,
- and fake it on the instruments! - Oh yeah, right?
- It'll fit your theme better anyway! - Yeah!
So that's the first thing.
She goes on to say that she was curious
about what was gonna happen,
which means because she [didn't] know.
All she said was that um,
they were sent the score of the Strauss beforehand,
presumably to practice.
But then on the actual day of the shoot,
they were just told to play whatever they want,
because they'll dub over it anyway.
Oh my god...
They would have practiced it...!
This is actually like,
the worst possible thing they could have done.
The worst case scenario.
Double sacrilege!
First the audition...
Second, here's the score of Strauss.
Third? Oh no, don't worry about it,
- just...play whatever you want. - Yeah.
- Can you imagine, bro? Like... - I'll be so pissed.
- I... - Can you imagine like on the day of
your Mendelssohn 4 mil sub,
Like actually, we're not playing Mendelssohn,
we're just playing like...Frozen.
- Ohh! Ohhhh! - But you practiced like, this whole year for that.
I...I thought it couldn't get worse, but clearly, Infiniti...
- I guess it's Infiniti, right? - They went Infiniti and beyond.
So let's keep going.
Which, I believe, 'cause I looked at the footage,
- they looked like they were just playing different things. - They're not playing together.
- Yeah. - They're doing their own thing.
- Okay, this person claims that - Ooh.
- everyone there was a music school student. - Okay.
Apparently they even asked her...
...to [play] a few solos and recorded it.
I'm guessing maybe they just went around
to different musicians,
- and recorded different snippets... - Okay...
The director probably wanted some like extra shots,
- just in case...they want to spice up the ad. - Yeah.
- But then they didn't use it, yeah! - They didn't use it!
Okay, and this person ended the email saying,
Oh man, talk about getting scammed.
I can see, to these young musicians,
- it would look professional, and look very promising, like, - Mmm, mmm.
- 50 gazillion cameras, lighting, the set, it's all set up. - Mmm.
And there's a car in the middle.
I mean, it's an exciting thing,
imagine you're 12 and you're told you can play violin in an ad.
"I'm gonna be on TV?!"
And then they just proceed to mock the hell out of you.
- It's pretty bad! - That's...that's actually like, tragic, man.
Yeah.
Obviously this is one person's account,
and it could be biased, we don't know the full story,
we don't know what it would look like
from the marketing person's point of view,
maybe they had different pressures or concerns
- and it was outside their control, you never know. - Uh-huh.
It's like big corporation things, right?
I mean, also this person seemed very genuine,
at least from what we can tell from the email, um...
And they're a legitimate musician.
- But, you can never fully know with these things, - Yeah.
how much they're exaggerating, whatnot.
- But, it seems...it seems legit, right? - Yeah, it seems legit,
and saying that, I wouldn't put it past these companies
to do something like this as well.
- I mean, that's the thing, right? Like... - Knowing...
Knowing what we've seen about
marketing departments in big companies,
- there's a lot of shady stuff going on there. - (Brett) Yeah.
Guys, next time you see like some big company
with a YouTube video of like 800,000 views
but like 5 comments...
- You kind of get an idea of...how these people think. - Oh yeah...!
We've seen a lot of these...
- Yeah...yeah. - ...videos, and it's very sus!
- I'm getting distracted, that's a different topic. - Yeah, but...but we're just trying to illustrate a point,
like they'll just do whatever they can.
Yeah, I wouldn't put it past them that they actually did this.
Whoever directed it clearly
already didn't care about how musicians felt,
- so knowing that...all of these kind of - They clearly didn't know...
- make sense as well, right? - Exactly.
Anyway, that's just an update.
Musicians out there, stay strong, stay safe.
There are good opportunities
and there are gonna be bad opportunities,
we all have a fair share, but,
it's definitely worth it to keep going and keep practicing.
'Cause practicing is always a good thing.
- Goodbye. - Bye-bye.