Doing battle for popular opinion today are two videos that strive to convey the freedom and exhilaration experienced during freefall.  Battling from different very corners of the ring both hope to climb the YouTube charts.

Like two sides of the same coin both freefall videos also stirred up controversy but for very different and unexpected reasons. While the hilarious almost cartoon like Skydiving Cats had many worried that cats had been hurled out of planes the ultra professional advertisement for the Sony A7R was accused of not being real enough, its a topsy turvy world.

Presented for your viewing pleasure are today’s two video combatants, both striving for attention from an internet enabled world. Sit back relax and prepare to feel 100% lighter for 50% longer…

versus

Skydiving Cats
Cats have long ago taken over the internet, now they are taking over the skies thanks to Skydiving Cats. Skydiving Cats the video is in fact a commercial for Swedish pet insurance company Filksam. Sadly this is not a new generation of cat super agent or new pass-time of rich cats around the world.

The idea for the commercial came from one of their customers who had entered the idea in a contest, the winning idea being turned into Skydiving Kitties.

By far the most amusing aspect of the Skydiving Cats has been the reaction to the video. It seems there is far more than just one lady with too many cats (no-one said crazy) and an internet connection.  After Folksam released the ad to YouTube on November 9 they were quickly forced to release a number of press releases reassuring those with many many cats that the video was not real, it had been produced in a studio using green screens and fans. See the CNN video below for more information on the controversy.

Yup there was a substantial backlash by people, who thought the commercial was real, Folksam had to work pretty hard to convince those concerned that it was in fact all special effects. Sit back for a minute and take that one in, remember the cats high 5 while freefalling and then spell out Eva in formation, cats can’t spell people.

The Sony Slow Motion Skydive
Sony built its name long ago by making gadgets that were as good looking as they were technologically ground breaking, this is the A7R. To help spread the word Sony hired Cutting Edge to make a commercial for them. Freefall was selected as the backdrop in the hopes that the weightless environment of freefall would be the perfect analogy to the cameras light go anywhere nature.

The video itself was not shot on the Sony, instead using what looks like one of Red camera’s, which would fit with the 4K resolution shot at 120fps.

In total 9 jumps were filmed, each jump from 15,000 feet provided 1 minute of freefall time in which to capture these magnificent shots. I’d love to see the raw footage in its entirety. Much more information is available in the behind the scenes video (see below).

Unbelievably there was also a controversy after the release of the advertisement, but with a twist. This time many so called haters didn’t believe it was real, accusing Cutting Edge of using green screens to produce the effects. As you can see from the behind the scenes video this is all real, unlike the cats.

And there you have the double twist, a skydiving cat video accused of cruelty to animals because people thought it was real and a super professional video accused of being a fake!

Conclusion
As with all battles a winner must be settled upon. By sheer weight of numbers the skydiving cats take the victory from the actual humans going up with the best people and equipment to capture the footage. The cats won one every front actually, even their controversy was greater and far funnier, our furry little friends are what the internet was created for after all.

The battle now over, the twists have been covered, controversy addressed and spoils taken by the winner it must be time to consider the funniest of facts, they thought the cats were real.

Reference: Cat Outrage
Reference: Sony Too Real

Buddha’s Brother out…