8 Hats High was contacted by the United Way of Orange County to enhance their new marketing campaign for 2011. They were looking for us to produce a commercial that represented how donations were used in the community as well as incorporate an aspect from the donator's perspective. We were given a quick debriefing on what it means to "Live United" and immediately - we began the brainstorming process and came up with some great ideas. Once we solidified an idea we were happy with, we presented it to the United Way and followed it up by creating a rough storyboard animatic.
.
[ Rough Animatic ]
This gave everyone a good sense of how it felt and look before filming were to began.
Once approved....we assembled our team, scouted locations, cast the talent and we were off.
We decided the best format to shoot this project on was the Canon 5D Mark ii. (what a great camera). We broke out the cranes, steady cam's and the slate. :)
In the wee hours of the morning (6:30am) we set up our first scene on Saturday August 14th.
Our actors remained calm, cool and collected in the hot blazing sun. From Beacon to Chester, Middletown then Pinebush...
[our graduates!]
So, we began and made magic happen.... (This was going to be some hardcore coordination)
yAAAAAAy! that's a wrap!
8 Hats High is so excited to be a part of the Live United Campaign. It was truly an amazing experience! We really appreciate the patience and traveling that our actors had to do, standing out in the baking heat and our second day shoot - standing out in the rain and being ordered around! Thank you so much everyone for being the "magic" of our project! We also would like to give our "magicians" a big hand for putting this all together. Our crew did an incredible job with equipment, travel, weather and intense last minute situations, you guys all rocked!
We setup a Green Screen in various locations for compositing reasons.. but as the day grew later, the wind started to pick up. So, we did the best thing we could... we made Phil and Kyle anchors. They were great at it.
[Arrr... Anchor away Maytey]
This scene was broken into 2 different sets. First we filmed the big reveal with nothing but a green screen, the actor and a fence. Second was shot in another location so we can recreate a graduation. [See the Breakdown is below for before and after]
We finished the Day off in Pine Bush around 6pm.... The follow day we filmed the remaining scenes of the spot.
Sunday, At New Paltz, NY - we had quite a challenge in front of us. We had to create a graduation scene, but all we had was approximately 7 extras that showed up.
[our graduates!]
So, we began and made magic happen.... (This was going to be some hardcore coordination)
and from that... after setting up the green screens, prepping the extras, playing musical chairs, eating pizza, drinking redbull and watching the rain turn on turn off... We made it all come together. Check out the 2 clips below for the Before and After.
[Before and After]
[Before and After]
We finished out the rest of the remaining video in our studio in middletown, NY.
THEN....
yAAAAAAy! that's a wrap!
We moved right into a few weeks of Compositing, Animation and Finalizing the Music.
