Behind the scenes

Standing-by…Rolling…and ACTION!

Ahhh yes. The excitement of the movies; the thrill of the set; the smell of makeup; and the sound of the film rolling. It all seems so glorified doesn’t it. I’ll give you the inside though…it’s a lot of bloody hard work!

TV doesn’t just ‘happen’ – it’s made! And what happens behind the scenes is the really the vital ingredients to making a successful advert.

Like most things, planning is the key. The preparation behind any shoot is massive, to say the least. It involves hours of work on call sheets, actors briefing notes and story boards. All of this equates to a smooth day of shooting (or you hope anyway!)

Last week we shot a TV commercial for a new client of ours which will be released towards the middle of June 2008. We shot three 30 second commercials in one day, which is no mean feat, which equated to over 100 minutes of footage. A 15 hour day that was planned in 15 minute increments in order to achieve a result that we would be proud of, our client would be happy with and that worked in the market place.

It doesn’t end there though. Hours are then spent trailing through the footage to identify the best shot. Every angle is considered in context and viewed with the final production in mind. Music has normally been selected in the creative process so the final ingredient is the voice over that will match and complement the commercial.

Finally, the advert is edited and all the components meet for the first time outside of your headspace. Time is spent finessing each detail ensuring that the vision matches the audio and the overall feel of the TV Commercial.

Once the client has approved the advert, it is sent through to a Federal body who vet every TV Commercial that is aired on Australian television to ensure that the content is appropriate for the time slots. Once the advert has a rating, it is ready to go to the Television station of choice.

All in all, there is a massive amount of time that goes into 30 seconds. In fact, we have made a documentary on the making of the Challenge Dairy TV Commercial that we made late last year.

So if you’re really keen to see how it all comes together, call us and we’ll arrange a private screening in our boardroom!