Written by Sara Yazmin Binti Zulqahar
Award winning The Avengers is an American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics superhero team. It is produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. Grossing over $1.5 billion worldwide, The Avengers which received a lot of positive critique review has won numerous awards and nominations including Academy Award and BAFTA nominations for achievements in visual effects.
Excited over the upcoming Marvels Avengers: Infinity War, a group of A-Level students who are looking to further their studies in Engineering from Kolej MARA Seremban got together to make a low-budget parody as their assignment for English class. According to NST, “The short clip was to be submitted for their English assignment, which would not even be graded.”
What was interesting about their spoof of the trailer was how they use their creativity with a very limited budget. According to Aiman who edited the video, the only cash they had to fork out to shoot was only for the Koko Krunch that was used to imitate the 1000 running soldiers in the field.
The team had only 3 weeks to come up with the video and it was filmed in a single week and was shot on a mobile phone. They puts their DIY skills to the test, using household items like dinner plates as Doctor Strange’s magic circles, ‘kain pelekat’ to show each other’s hair colour, a broom and umbrella as weapons, a water jug as the “Tesseract”, and clothes pegs as the titular “Infinity Stones”.
With their limited budget, the actors involved needs to also act in more than one character; Amir Haziq (@meziktweets), who became Black Panther, Loki, and Rocket; Umar Muhammad (@umarmuhds), who became Vision and Groot; Ammarul Mubsyir (@ammarulzachery), who played Spider-Man and Star Lord; Khairil Abu Bakar (@KhairiAshBurn_), who played Captain America and Mantis; Khafiz Khairul Anwar (@khafizkhairil), who played Scarlet Witch and Gamora; Salman Noor Azri (@7_po_7), who played Iron Man and Falcon; Adam Muqhriz, who played Bucky and Drax; and @far_hansolo as Dr Strange.
Aiman, whose Twitter handle is @awesomerawks, played Thor and Black Widow had tagged Marvel Studios with the question, “Who did it better?”.
The video has since blown up the internet, even capturing the attention of Infinity War directors the Russo Brothers. In just FIVE days, the video has gotten over 1 million views. Currently, the video stands at 3.6 million views, 102K Retweets, 156K Likes on Twitter. Infinity War directors Anthony and Joe Russo, who had also directed Marvel’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War, better known as the Russo Brothers, responded via Twitter: “Aiman. You guys are geniuses. Are you available to direct Avengers 5?”
So how did they went viral?
The team knew their creativity could take them far hence the first step he took was tagging @marvelstudios. The more influential you are on Twitter the more likely your tweets are to go viral, and making a connection with an influential person on Twitter would take you far. Reciprocity can be a powerful way to grow your Twitter influence.
Secondly, breaking news you can get your tweet shared like crazy. Knowing that Marvel’s next movie will come up in a month and the hype is all over the place, they took this opportunity to the optimum potential. This has netted him hundreds if not thousands of followers and the clout that comes with having a truly viral picture.
Visuals including photos and videos “retweet” really well, so they worked on their videography skills. People are living their digital lives in real-time, so we’re constantly consuming bite-sized content. As a result, we’re seeing shorter and shorter pieces of online content. Just this year, we’ve seen the introduction of two new social video tools – Vine and Instagram video. People are now capturing and sharing the world’s real-time moments simply and beautifully and we must follow suit.
Value goes viral. The more valuable the content is that you are giving away, the greater the chance is that people will share and retweet it.
This was proven as content was also picked up by numerous major brands like UMobile, Dominos, and Golden Screen Cinemas. Dominos also went as far as treating the team to the new Samyeang pizza and Golden Screen Cinemas treated them movie tickets. Their content was also broadcasted through Buletin Utama on TV3, and Astro Awani. Hot FM also did another parody collaboration video with them.
Mark Tutssel who oversees the work of Leo Burnett Worldwide said it’s no secret that we live in an all-digital, real-time creative world where ideas circulate freely. Memes transcend language, break barriers and become equally powerful and relevant in rural Canada as they are in urban Mumbai. Every piece of content we write is shared on a global stage. Some are hits, while other are misses.
In conclusion, the democratization of creativity has given everyone the right to be a creative. Today, technology invites all producers of information to create ideas that truly invite participation. The means of production and the channels of distribution have been turned over to the masses. Every single one of us has access to a potential audience of millions on social media channels. What’s more, we need to realize that our work never stops; creativity never pauses.