Here's a fun ad I made featuring my good friend Baron Batch for the Lubbock Arts Festival. Baron was the festival's featured artist in 2013 and has continued to be a supporter and somewhat of a spokesperson for the festival so it was great to be able to get him involved in the commercial.
One of my favorite aspects of this video was the timeframe. Due to some minor issues with another production company here in town, this opportunity was presented to Baron and I 24 hours prior to Baron getting into town to film. We had one day to come up with an idea to film and execute. We shot the entire video at Market Street supermarket late at night after most shoppers had cleared out. Fortunately, the store is open 24/7 so we pretty much had access to the entire place for as long as we needed it. If you follow any of my other work, you'll know that I don't usually shoot 30 second spots, but I usually produce pieces that are 3-7 minutes in length. Although I needed a small fraction of the footage that I would usually shoot, Baron and I agreed that more footage is better so we shot for 4 or 5 hours until we felt that we had the footage we needed.
All of the motion shots were filmed using a "steadicam" sled built by my brother in law, Chris Hudgins, with a little bit of help from me. The entire thing was made from plywood, skateboard wheels, and some PVC pipe. Chris and I only used it for one of his music videos a couple of years ago, and I honestly forgot about it until this project. My cousin Caleb was gracious enough to spend the evening with us to help operate the sled and set up some of the nicest shots in the commercial.
The music was created by my little brother Connor and I think it fit perfectly with the mood of the spot. Baron and I had originally discussed using something with strings, but I think this worked much better.
Although the reduced run-time for a spot like this might make it seem easier to edit and produce, it actually proved to be much more of a challenge having to leave out so many great shots that we were able to get. That said, I'm proud to say that 48 hours after being presented with the job, I had a final product for approval. Not to brag or anything, but you can't find a 48 hour turnaround for something like this anywhere in Lubbock.
I've produced quite a few pieces for a number of different projects, but this was my first for broadcast television. If you or anyone you know is looking to create a commercial that can stand above the shoddy, cheap feel of most local commercials while still driving the point home, head over to http://www.ryangvoight.com and let me know.