Knock knock, sounds like a new friend want’s me on my Facebook account.: “Hey I’m Alex. I’ presenting a series of workshops on viral videomaking in Italy, would you help me promote the event?” No real surprise. I’m quite well known as a viral promoter.

I checked out the guy, as I always try understand who my contacts actually are, and…

Impressive. 163,000 mentions on Google’s SERP for the keywords Alex Orlowski+video, almost 7,300 for “Alex Orlowski”+video.

And what channels did I found?

A fan page, a group and a Facebook profile. A LinkedIn profile. A number of other accounts on MySpace, Vimeo, SlideShare, YouTube, Twitter, etc., and two sites, one being Home Films in London and the the other Zink! Project in Barcelona.

Wow, the guy is a real networker, and he knows how to use the Web to promote himself. But what about the videos? You can be good n the Internet, but if your product sucks, you are useless.

On this post you’ll find just a few of his works. And, as far as I understand moviemaking, all of them are good ones. Really good ones.

And who is the guy itself? IThis is Alex’s bio:

Alex Orlowski began directing music videos in Italy in 1991. His own musical background, producing about ten successful records for himself and other artists and finishing his career with a remix for the worldwide acclaimed italian singer Mina, and blended with his love for cinema the chance to direct his first promo for legendary U.S. rapper Afrika Bambataa and beginning an extraordinary career in the European indie music-video industry, filming from the French band TH-Express to the Italo-American punk band Raw Power, and some of the new wave British death metal band as Nero Circus and the cult Welsh band Acrimony.

In 1997 he moved to London and set up a production company for music videos and also began directing commercials for a small and creative production company called Tank Films doing a first series of adverts with J. Walter Thompson, McCann Erickson, Saatchi and Saatchi, Young & Rubicam. In the following years he changed production company and moved for a short period to Tony Kaye Films and, finally, to Home Films Ltd.

In the same period his first short film “Peace At Last” premiered at the Mannheim/Heidelberg film festival in Germany, supported by the British Film Institute, the soundtrack had the support of Bjork that kindly gave one of her songs to be used free of rights in the film. The short film was shown at the Raindance Film Festival in London (the largest Uk independent festival ) in conjunction with David Lynch’s movie “Lost Highways“.

Alex’s first music video in London for independent underground label Mo’ Wax was featured in industry magazine Promo as “promo of the month“. Alex directed “Pleasant Smell” for the cult band 12 Rounds, a British band signed to Trent Reznor’s Nothing Records in the U.S. and featured as well in Promo magazine, afterward he filmed the video for Dj rap on Sony Music for the track “Everyday Girl” that was chosen to be amongst the finalists for best alternative video at the Music Vision CADS 2000 Awards against Aphex Twins‘ “Windowlicker.

In 2001, fed up with the lovely British weather, he moved to sunny Barcelona where he become one of the most acclaimed advertising directors, filming for companies such as Movistar, Telefonica, Seat, Amena, Coca-Cola and many more.

In most of his commercials, Alex, thanks to the british way of working, always participates actively in the developing of the creativity together with the agency and sometimes as himself being the only creative. Some examples can be found in the “Energie Jeans“, “Gugghenaim“, “Sunday Telegraph“, “Seat“, “Ronalidnho’s Konika Minolta” videos and in quite a few others.

He has worked on numerous advertising campaigns over the years, more recently having shot work for Seat, Peugeot, Vodafone, Telecom Italia and Konica Minolta, working with Valentino Rossi and Ronaldinho, filming altogether more then 70 commercials.

He loves to use post production in an organic way. His favorite work, usually mixing classic camera and film styles with post production techniques lending that distinctive “movie” feeling to his work, be it a B-movie, documentary, gangster flick or something more sophisticated, is inherent to most of his films.

He challenged himself filming virals for Seat Auto Spain and for Ronaldinho the worldwide famous Barcelona’s football player for the japanese client Konika Minolta and Cibavision’s Sunny D. He’s been also teaching “Tecniche di ideazione di videoclip” (Videoclip Conception Techniques)with great satisfaction from the students at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Brescia in the year 2004 and from that year is collaborating with Zink Project in the new Barcelona creative laboratory giving workshops on viral advertising, TV adverts and music videos. At the moment is working on the developing of his first U.S feature film, a tragic-comedy with surreal and unexpected characters titled “BeefCake“.

Awards and Nominations

International AD SPot Awards: “Energie Jeans“ (Silver)
New York Festival: “Guggenheim” (Guggenheim Museum Bilbao) (Gold)
San Sebastian Advertising Festival: “BSide“ (Bronze)
FIAP Buenos Aires: “Amena Telecom“
Liaa London International: “>Liga Futbol Española” (Spanish Football League) (Finalist)
Italian Music Video Awards: Timoria, “Sangue Impazzito“ (Best Music Video of the Decade 1990-2000)
CADS Music Vision London: DJ Rap, “Everyday Girl“ (Nomination for the best alternative music video)
Raindance Film Festival: Deborah Anderson, “Lonely Without You“
Drac Barcelona: “Liga Futbol Española“
DIBA Short Film Festival 2009 Barcelona: “Dial 124256” (Silver finalist)

Impressive again!

So, sure Alex. I’ll spread the word about your viral videomaking workshops both on my Facebook groups as well as on my blog. You deserve it.

For all info and booking on Alex’s viral videomaking workshops, mail infobcn@zinkproject.com.

Alex Badalic