Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Documentry Idea...

I've been tossing around the idea of how much free stuff I can actually obtain. I thought about this while in Bodega Bay last week. Jenny's parents arranged a scavenger hunt pitting the Frevele children against Frevele children's friends (they all brought 1 friend) Anyways we drove around town searching for these random ass things, and I noticed any time we mentioned to ANYONE that we were on a scavenger hunt people would practically drop whatever they were doing to assist us.

Example:
2 different colored golf balls, so myself and one of the younger friends RAN onto this golf course, we got right by one of the greens as one of the guys was lining up his shot while the other was about to swing, they saw us running to them and both stopped.

"Hey, guys we're on scavenger hunt we were wondering if you could help us."
"A scavenger hunt? Sure what do you guys need?"
"We need two different colored golf balls."
So the guy who was about to putt, steps away from his shot takes one white ball out of his pocket tosses it to me, takes off for his golf cart and searches his bag. Meanwhile his other friend has already gone through his pockets showing he only has a white golf ball so he runs for the cart and searches HIS bag. Suddenly one of them pops out a yellow ball from their bag "Here you go need anything else?"
"Nah thats it from here thanks guys"

So this scavenger hunt got me thinking back to an old idea for another movie I had, How Much Free Stuff Could I Get From Corporations? The premise was to write "fake" letters to big time companies and complain about something or other and tell them how upset I was over a certain circumstance that happened. Usually in these situations companies don't want to be sued so they send you, if it McDonalds, a few coupons for free burgers and maybe a McDonald's T-Shirt. So I would just write complaint letters to 50 or 60 or 200 companies complaining and seeing how much free shit I could get.

So I've thought about combining the two but I don't know how, but I also don't know what the message would be. More importantly would it be legal? My dad says "No you'll go to jail" But my argument is "Publicity is publicity, how many people would be attracted to someone taking something from the big time companies." I mean its the American way if you think about it. Problem is I don't know where I could go from there after getting all this stuff or if I need to.

Also think about the ramifications it could have in the long run, with complaints and shit like that? I don't even know if it would be positive or negative for companies let alone the american public.

Let me know what you guys think and toss out some ideas if you have any.

1 comment:

E. Thomas said...

I think the idea is quite interesting. There is probably some kind of legal barriers to simply lying to businesses to get free stuff - I doubt there are any when it comes to simply asking people for things.

When it comes to contacting businesses and complaining to get free things or compensation for your troubles, most would probably require some kind of back-up documentation or evidence. Perhaps not when it comes to Wendy's and a free hamburger coupon but other larger complaints would.

Long-term: The businesses would pissed most likely (not necessarily a bad thing) but there might be people who dislike the idea because it hurts the cases for true complaints (the boy who cried wolf idea). You wouldn't want to use specific names or locations throughout the process because the last thing anyone would want to see if someone lose a job over a false complaint.


The idea of a HUGE (road trip, state-wide, country-wide, etc.) scavenger hunt for a long list of random items might be fun/funny to watch, follow, and/or partake in.


Anyway, there are a few of my personal thoughts on it all.