VerveCast

Last week I gave a sneak peek photo of something we built for a TV commercial we were filming. Here’s a full photo of it during set-up.

The table is about 20 feet wide, and consists of 18 threaded rods, 36 skate wheels (with 72 bearings), 144 nuts, and a lot of two by fours and plywood.

We started concepting the table at the end of December, and I spent a little time doing some research and a bit of design work. I also whipped up a quick 3D model to explain how it would work to others.

The 3D modeling was new to me, as I usually just explain things with bad sketches, but I figured this was a good time to work on my 3D skills, so I took advantage of it.

I also built a small version hacked together with scrap wood to test things out. It worked well enough that I used it to brainstorm improvements with a few of our helpers for the final build.

When crunch-time came, we had less than a week to do the construction on it, and I ended up not doing any of the actual building on it, but our “helpers” (who are much better with tools than I am) ended up completing it a full day before our dry run.

Here’s the table on the set. One of the requirements was that the movement be quiet enough that it wouldn’t be picked up while recording audio. The skate bearings were nearly silent. We got a few squeaks during shooting, but nothing a little WD-40 couldn’t take care of.

We originally thought about motorizing it and having a speed controller, since it needed to move at various speeds during the filming. We decided that being human-powered was the easier path, and that worked fine once we got used to the moves, which had to match up with what the actors were doing and saying.

This is what you’ll see in the final commercial. Even though the table is 20 feet wide, you’ll only see about 7 feet of it at a time. The two actors stay in place as things slide past them.

This project was a great challenge, and it’s always fun to go from R&D to a final working piece in just a few weeks, especially something as large as this was. I’d also like to give a big thanks to the team who worked on this, especially Rob and Steve who did the table construction…. Great job guys!

This was a fun project we did back in 2010 for Assurant Health. It’s a 10 second TV spot that was done using stop motion animation. We shot it using a Nikon D3x, frame by frame.

It took a few attempts to get what we wanted, and there was a good amount of Photoshop work in there as well (editing of all the individual images) before it all went to Final Cut for assembly.

Oh, we also composed and recorded the original music. The voiceover? That’s C. Thomas Howell.

As for the airplane itself, the only magic involved is a piece of aluminum foil we spray glued between two pieces of paper to get the plane to stay in position as it was folded.

There’s no crazy 3D rendering involved, no real complicated video editing, just a simple idea, a bit of trial and error, and some creative thinking. Sometimes that’s all you need. :)

Earlier this week, Dr. Pepper introduced to a select few test markets a new reduced-calorie soda called Dr. Pepper Ten. Created for 25- to 34-year-old men who prefer regular Dr. Pepper but want fewer calories, the drink boldly positions itself as “Not for Women.” Here’s the commercial that’s set to air in test markets.

Why would a company want to cut out half of its potential customers, one might ask? According to an Advertising Age article on the subject, a rep for Dr. Pepper says that’s not what it’s doing. He says they’re “not out to alienate women, that the goal is to be direct and have fun.”

The article goes on to explain, “The packaging and marketing are both heavy on masculinity, but also clearly state the brand proposition, something Coke Zero and Pepsi Max struggled with.” So Dr. Pepper has decided to leave no room for questions like it’s competitors have in the past when targeting males with diet sodas—this is a man’s drink.

The company has identified an audience that has yet to be fulfilled by a low-cal soda and is marketing directly to it. Nothing wrong there. Still, the “not for women” slogan does come off a little extreme. Sounds “alienating” to me.

Dr. Pepper is clearly attempting to increase its market share—like the rest of us—but what do you think, offensive or all’s fair in love and advertising?