Propella Commercial - Making Of
In this blog I’ll be breaking down the nitty gritty of how this commercial was created - if you want to skip the specifics of pre-production and jump right into the BTS video of production, scroll down to the bottom.
Propella’s founder, Ben Tarassoli, approached me in early December (2019) saying that he wanted to created an epic commercial featuring his latest and greatest single speed e-bike. Ben sent me two videos for inspiration; one was an extremely high end car commercial and the other was an also very high level music video.
I do not own the rights to this photo, it’s a screenshot from a car commercial that the client wanted to emulate.
I do not own the rights to this photo, it’s a screenshot from a music video that the client wanted to emulate.
Doing my best to guesstimate the rough costs I informed Ben that the car commercial would easily take over $100K to pull off and the music video look would take well over over $25K. Well, Ben didn’t have that large of a budget for this commercial. He reached out in early December, an infamously slow time for gig work, and I was left with a decision; I could work on the Propella commercial and make a bit of money in the process or I could try hustling for work during the holiday season. I think you know which direction I went with. One of my 2020 goals is to direct 4 commercials, so the fact that I’d direct my first commercial in the first week of the new year was pretty enticing.
The goal here was for me to create a commercial that utilized my 9+ years of production experience to create something beautiful. The story component is very simple if not void entirely but it was still a great opportunity to create something visually stunning. I wanted to be able to use this commercial to garner more opportunities directing commercial work, so I took a pay cut and worked with an incredibly lean team in order to hopefully get bigger and better projects down the line.
We decided to follow a similar aesthetic to the music video but would be cutting as many corners as possible to fit within Ben’s budget of $3,500.
Why is pre-production so important?
I created this clip as a visual way of laying out the commercial prior to filming. I wanted to make sure that the client and I were on the same page heading into production. Due to the scrappy budget, we only had 5 hours in the studio to capture everything, so we had to be 100% on the same page heading into production. We needed to agree on music, the shots we’d be capturing, and the lighting of each shot. You’ll notice that I planned to start the video with “dim white lights” and slowly transition to more aggressive and more colorful lighting to match the tone of the music. This means that anything shot with blue/orange lights wouldn’t be usable in the opening sequence which used white lights. Some creatives enjoy capturing a lot of varying shots then piecing together the project in post production. This method can work but it takes longer to film, longer to edit, and longer to agree on what you’re really trying to accomplish. By creating this visual storyboard ahead of time, I was able to expedite the entire process. Once I had the footage, editing only took 4 hours because I had a clear road map of what we wanted.
The Commercial
The commercial itself turned out really well! If you cross compare the storyboard to the final video, you’ll notice that there are a couple of differences but the final product is almost exactly what the pre-production clip laid out.
Making a plan, working the plan, and being open to potential changes along the way is critical in filmmaking. A mentor of mine once told me that we need to be “rigidly flexible” in order to succeed. We need to be rigid and have a plan but be willing to be flexible and deal with problems or opportunities as they arise. Day of the shoot, I was informed that the battery had blue LEDs on it to display how much of a charge the battery has left, so I flexibly altered the shot list to include a tight shot of the battery lighting up. I love the shot, I think the lights make it apparent to the viewer that it’s a bike that uses a power source, in case they weren’t already familiar with e-bikes.
Behind the Scenes
There you have it ~ that’s how I created the Propella commercial! If you want to see more behind the scenes content check out my YouTube and Instagram channels!
Now that the commercial is done, my job as a storyteller is done…right? Wrong, my client needs compelling assets to create a strong campaign across multiple media platforms. This means cutting up clips and repurposing them for shorter, looping, and vertical posts. If you’re interested in that process, subscribe to my mailing list by submitting your email below. I’ll be breaking down how we approached that process for Propella’s multimedia campaign soon.
Cheers!