In Defense Of Brett Ratner's Guitar Hero Commercial

Last week I made a post mocking the cheesy Guitar Hero World Tour commercial directed by Brett Ratner. /Film friend Dan Trachenberg sent me an email in defense of the Rat. You may know Danny T as the co-host of The Totally Rad Show or his appearances on the /Filmcast, but what you might not know is Dan is actually an accomplished commercial director. What I'm trying to say is he knows something about the subject. I asked Dan if I could reprint his email on the site, as I found the perspective, especially the video example, to be interesting.

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Hey buddy,Just in comment to your post about the Ratner spot, I wanted to play devil's advocate (as you now know I love to do :) First of all, commercial directors never come up with the concept for the commercial (though it's possible Ratner's link to the GH game may mean he DID have something to do with it....possible, but very unusual). I really don't think you not liking that commercial had much to do with Ratner. And to argue my point are offer this example:

[flv:http://bitcast-a.bitgravity.com/slashfilm/trailers/snydercircuitcity.flv 376 280]

That is directed by Zack Snyder.Unrelated

By the way, he also did this superbowl spot you may recognize: