9) Making a Mayonnaise Commercial
“HA HA, your last name is a condiment”
Well yes, yes it is. I’m normally not a big idea guy. I can design productions, lighting, and camera movement, but normally always around a basis of inspiration. “Make a commercial about YOU” tasked me with something new, and I didn’t want it to feel too “demo reel” since I do a lot of that already.
My buddy Alex recommended that I “make a mayo commercial” and I took that idea and ran with it. I had the idea on a Thursday night, and immediately booked the studio space for the following Tuesday. That way I’d have time to come up with an idea, get a crew together, and two days for post production before the Thursday deadline.
I got on clubhouse, a open chat room social media platform, later Thursday night and told one of the directors that I’ve worked with a few times my idea, and he absolutely loved it, and wanted to direct it. Only problem was he is in Amarillo, so I’d have to either fly him down or set up a virtual system for him to direct. Given that it’s a commercial for Intro to Creativity, I didn’t really want to fly him down, and I was already committed to making this totally kickass, so I told him we’d do virtual direction instead. Then I reached out to my right hand man, Thomas, a 1st Assistant Camera to help me with the shoot, but he wasn’t available Tuesday. However, he could do tomorrow (Friday), so I rebooked the studio space, and the shoot would now be happening in 16 hours.
Wilson and I wrote the script in about 30 minutes, and it was totally hilarious. I had another buddy in town from Kansas City, Tanner, who I told about the idea and he was down to help, so I told him to meet me at the studio at 1pm Friday.
Thomas, Tanner, and myself spent two hours setting up a tabletop scene with tons of lighting, since the macro probe lens I wanted to use was an F/14, we needed a ton of light. I set up a computer with Zoom to receive the camera feed so Wilson could see and direct from Amarillo, and set up a speaker on set so we could hear him.
After about two hours of shooting, we were complete, and I had to break it all down as my guys had to get running.
That night I edited it, and sent out the final script for voice over. Sunday I got the VO back, and submitted it.
That’s how you make a commercial in 3 days.