Where the whole town is throwing water balloons at each other?
Did you notice the glowwing/muddy/shaky look it had when people were running through the street?
I thought that looked awesome.
Anyone know how to acheive this?

http://media.putfile.com/X360_Balloon_Commercial
heres the video

Try desaturating the image and posterize it by adjusting the RGB curves to 'flatten' parts of the footage.

It also could be that the director/cinematographer/art director/location scout picked that location because the buildings were monochromatic, adding to that flat look. Dress people up in flat colors matching the background and viola! Instant flatness.

Noted. Thanks.

Filming that must of been a whole lot of fun o.O

like the look would also like to know how this was done

Some of the shots look a lot like news footage when news was shot on film.

Considering the client and that it's a commercial, chances are that it was shot on film (could be 35mm) and telecined on a Da Vinci (or similar system) by a professional colorist. Some of the material looks soft (a lot less sharp) and like it has less exposure latitude... maybe that was shot on super8 or 8mm. That material looks different from the rest.

A lot of outdoor shots had lots of detail in the highlights and shadows, which is usually hard to capture with video. It doesn't look like video at all.

If the film is capturing large amounts of exposure latitude, then the raw image is going to be somewhat desaturated.

A good way to get the look is to shoot on film and to get the colorist to match the look. If you want to get similar results on a low budget, either:
A- Shoot film. Super8 shouldn't cost that much.
B- Shoot video on a camera that can be tweaked to have much greater exposure latitude (i.e. cinegamma on a DVX100). You may be able to light things to lower the contrast ratio so it captures on video better.
Color correct to match the look- apply s-shaped color/RGB curves, desaturate a little.
Maybe add some fake grain.

The posterization may have been introduced by webcompression, I wouldn't go for that.

I just saw the commercial on broadcast tv and boy, the web version Kev posted doesn't do the image quality any justice. But, now I see the "glowwing/muddy/shaky look" being referred to.

The commercial is definitely handheld film. The color of the film stock reminds me of Agfa (bluish, neutral and pastel); contrast is normal in the real commerical but a bit washed out on the web.

Try doing a search on google for "film damage". I know Nattress, DigiEffects and a host of other companies create plug-ins that can create those jittery/mis-aligned shots.

OT: I liked the commercial, but I think it was a bit of a rip-off atmosphere-wise from the playstation commercial where all the people made a mountain of themselves with the vocals of shirley temple...