My First TV Commercial

I’ve done lots of online videos and I’ve assisted in commercial shoots before during my stint at an advertising agency, but I’ve never been responsible for one from start to finish until now.

As you’ll see its a relatively simple spot, but the challenge was to show all 11 varsity sports as well as have some text at the end. Sounds easy, but it was actually a bit of a challenge. 30 seconds is not a very long time.

Believe it or not, I actually did the spot in iMovie (and not the past version, the most recent version). Since we decided to use still photos, iMovie was the quickest way to get them imported and easily set the movement effects. I created the final text screens in Photoshop (watch that pixel ratio or it will look scrunched) and output to raw DV for dumping to tape and DVD.

Once we had a version locked down, it was exported to DVCAM tape and I delivered the tape, and a DVD backup, to the Fox Sports video truck that was broadcasting the game from our facilities this past Saturday.

I was working in the press box at the game, so I had to DVR the game. It was really cool to finally see it air and to see it someplace that wasn’t my monitor at work.

Allegheny Athletics Commercial from Allegheny College on Vimeo.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to have people you trust watch the video for anything they notice that’s out of the ordinary. By the time you’ve got something completed and ready for review, you’ve seen it hundreds if not thousands of times and you lose all objectivity. Grabbing a group of people to watch it a few times proved invaluable and early drafts of the spot were much cruder then the final cut above. We were even making changes as late as Friday afternoon – all for the better, thanks Penny and Josh.

I think in the end, the spot is upbeat and meets all the goals we set out to reach.