Breaking the Shackles of Video to Shoot a Commercial in Super-8...

[Alex]

Besides the creative aspect, If the commercial gains a subliminal edge, it's something I can build on with other clients.

When the Amiga video toaster was "hot" in the early mid 90's, those who owned one tried to lure clients by using it as a buzz word. "Yes, I have a toaster" became the stand pat line.

Well, being different counts for something as well.
"Yes, I shoot film and digitally edit it." How many of your competitors shoot film?

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ June 09, 2003 02:23 AM: Message edited by: Forum-405 ]</font>

[Alex]

Delays, Delays, Delays.

My client postponed the shoot, for all the right reasons.

When a business moves location, there is the "grand opening", which is a short-term announcement that tells everyone "Hey, we're still in business, we just moved!"

Then there is the REAL GRAND OPENING, which happens after a few weeks in the new location. When the little things like the Sign in front of the store is actually made to order and installed, and all the little finishing touches
have been made to the store.

So the shoot has been postponed for another week or so.

[daveduck]

...still ready to wreak havoc, I am.

[Alex]

The Bad News is my client postponed another week because the sign is not up.

The good news is that he wants to shoot on a Sunday, and I rarely have shoots on Sunday.

[Alex]

So, whatever happened?

When I arrived at the shoot, the client wanted to stick strictly with video because the two scripts were each 25 seconds in length.

So it made sense to do the dialogue in Video. I then shot the cut-aways in video also as they were mainly still frames of various items he sells.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. As I was shooting the various trophies and placques in the store, I became entranced by various reflections I was seeing that was being created by the traffic that was going by his front window.

That moment is what eventually inspired me to make
"The Alphabet Song"!

[img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img]

[Alex]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="verdana, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="verdana, sans-serif">Originally posted by Daveduck:
Ouch. Yeah, you can't exactly tap Panavision for that.

It's lucky for such clients that there are s******* in the game for the creative pleasure as much as the $$. Otherwise they'd be stuck with the "free" production by the cable company (etc.).

Time to pack for Jakarta now, where I hope to clear at least 5 million rupiah for my efforts (about $500 US... [img]redface.gif[/img] )

DD</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

Bwaaaahaaaaa... The same amount I'm going to be paid. Perhaps $500.00 goes a longer way in Jakarta.

I agree with you that if it weren't for us independent entrepreneurs, the local business would have no choice but to only go for the cable company's "free" commercial if they buy x-amount of advertising.

Sometimes the cable company is afraid that if one commercial comes out real well for one of their clients, every other client will complain that their commercial isn't as good.

But for us, we want to do a good job because we don't crank commercials out like an assembly line.