Not too shabby, yeah? Ok, so the one thing we maybe shouldn’t have skimped on was a makeup artist, but being that this was our first commercial and we wanted to do it on a budget, it’ll have to do! In all honestly, this commercial came out WAAAAY better than we had ever hoped (especially on our budget) and below is how we got it done. Keep in mind this guide assumes you are doing all the leg work yoruself, you’re renting the equpiment, and you live in or around Denver (for rental locations, but you should be able to find something comparible near you). Now it’s time to suck it up and make some commercial magic!
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Canon 5D Mark II – $200 plus taxAmazing, simply amazing. This still camera is capable of filming at an astounding 1920×1080 resolution resulting in some of the nicest video I’ve ever seen! We shot some test shots before heading to the studio and needless to say I was blown away! Unfortunately I don’t have those test shots, but trust me, they were amazing. |
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Studio Space – 6 hours for $200 plus taxWe were quite pleased with North Denver Photographers. The facility was great and the staff was nice and helpful. They had tons of lights (similar to the ones in the little photo) just lying around so we were able to light thing fairly well. The studio we went to was meant for photo shoots so the lighting wasn’t exactly perfect, but with a little color correction in Final Cut Express we were able to make it look right for most of the shots. |
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Water Balloons – $4.99 plus taxWe bought our balloons from our local Walmart. Now, let me tell you a little bit about how water balloons have changed over the years. Remember when water balloons used to explode when they hit something? Remember how fun it was getting everything really wet? Yeah, well, that doesn’t seem to happen anymore. Apparently the water balloon people decided they needed to design every balloon tough enough to be shot from a cannon or sling shot which made it practically impossible to break it by throwing it. I think you’ll see what I mean when you watch this next video. |
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Final Cut Express – $199 plus taxThis piece really saved us when it came to making this commercial look really polished. It was all in the color correction. Turns out all you have to do is apply a "Color Balance" filter and play with some settings. Now, it’s not quite that easy, but you’ll get an idea about how to do it below. Note that there is more than one way to get the image to look how you want, but this is my quick and lazy approach. One thing I forgot to do before sending it to our media buyer (the guy who buys our commercial spots from the networks and such) was run the "Broadcast Safe" filter. Doing this ensures that the color in the video doesn’t make the TV freak out. |
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Voice123 – ~$300 (name your price)Imagine crowd sourcing (ie 99 Designs) but for voice talent. This site is amazing! All you do is upload your script and within 1 day you will have 10, 20, or more (you decide the limit) "auditions" for the part. You can even browse their database of talent, listen to a sample, and invite that person to speak your script. What is really helpful is they have a pricing guide to help you get started. You can’t beat that! Once you get your audio, simply drop it into Final Cut and you’re ready to rock and roll. I wonder if these people just have recording booths setup at their houses, the audio sounds so rediculously good. |
Well, that’s all I really have for this round. Maybe next go I’ll talk a bit about what it costs to run a commercial in the Denver area. Guess how much it costs to run a 30 second spon on ESPN! One hint… lower.
