Lock and load: Microsoft's Office 2010: The Movie

Office 2010: The Movie may have the greatest trailer ever created for a movie you'll never want to see. That is, unless your love for Microsoft Word is strong enough to warrant a trip to the multiplex to see a cinematic treatment of the subject.

Newly-signed @radical.media director Dennis Liu has co-scripted and helmed the fictional trailer for Microsoft's recent product launch of Office 2010. It's an action-packed, cliché reveling, Michael Bay hat-tipping promo for a film based on the premise that a hacker has released a rogue font online that has the power to hypnotize readers into believing everything they read.

Liu received a call from Microsoft, who was a bit gun-shy after the critical backlash from the Bill Gates/Jerry Seinfeld work and the current Dean Cain Internet Explorer 8 ads, asking him to create the video.

He was given free creative rein off of the strength of a previous viral he created for the software giant called "Pretending to Work", an office slacker's how-to guide that garnered a lot of positive press.

"'Pretending to Work' got 100,000 hits on You Tube, but a lot of good press for Microsoft," explains Liu. "They've been struggling recently with negative backlash so [with Office 2010] I think they wanted to do something cool that would reach out to different folks."

Although Office 2010: The Movie boasts some high production values to match its array of quippy product-themed one-liners - "Spell check this: D-E-D", threatens the trailer's deadly antagonist - Liu describes the production as grassroots. It was shot over seven days with the director taking on additional editing, sound design, producing and DP duties, especially when the budget ran out. Motion design and live-action studio Loica handled the special effects and New York-based Perception completed graphics for the trailer's accompanying teaser.

Liu, who was featured in this year's Saatchi & Saatchi New Director's Showcase on the back of work such as his Apple OS X-themed music video for Bird & the Bee's "Again & Again", says that while he's versatile in both the live-action and animation realms, he's carved out quite a position for himself creating viral videos. Office 2010, in particular, didn't have any money toward a media buy, but has already racked up 800,000 plus hits on You Tube after only being posted for a week on Liu's account.

"I've gotten pretty good at making viral video's consistently," he says. "There are so many 30 second spot directors who've built whole careers on it but I think I'm going to try and build a niche for myself in the viral market."

www.radicalmedia.com
www.loica.tv
www.perceptionnyc.com