Behind the Scenes of how shot The Official Commercial for the DJI Microphone (2022)
(Inspired by the Beats By Dre - POWERBEATS Commercial Effect) for DJI GLOBAL
Follow our journey from Pre-Production to our On-Set Experience filming this project and the Final Video Commercial
BTS EDITOR: JP - / mylifeasjp
FINAL COMMERCIAL: • DJI MICROPHONE - Offic...
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DIRECTOR: Colin Dougan
DOP: Kyle Tiernan
1st AC: Jared N
BTS SHOOTER: Jakob Burkhardt
Grip - Nico Ayala
TALENT (In Order of Appearance)
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Raj - / rajeeeee
Kierra -
Albert - / albertbjr9
Aleesha - / aleeshapaige
Riley - rileyjfournier
Chloe - / chloe.chapdelaine
Sacha - / mensahsascha
Nico Ayala
The Actual Story:
While I was prepping for a near 6-figure production, my contact at DJI messaged me out of the blue and asked what I was up to over the next couple of weeks.
PROBLEM 1:
As any creator would, I said that I was available, even though I clearly was not.
He sent me a 1-Pager that had the Main Concept, Scenario Examples, the Budget…and the timeline - we had 2 weeks to pull together the Launch Commercial for the DJI Mic.
PROBLEM 2:
The Concept was taking the BEATS BY DRE Effect from the Powerbeats Commercial, which revolves around athletes and their activities - but making it more applicable to a Microphone - which is a device that is used in the opposite environment.
The Effect relies heavily on the MOTION of the athlete, you essentially shoot the product as close to the centre frame as possible, and then 3D Track it in post-production.
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The only feasible way to accomplish this high-quality creative vision on such a tight deadline and budget was to utilise the ongoing preproduction that we had been working on for the other Commercials - hopefully without sacrificing the end product of either - I’ll touch on that a bit later in the video, it’s a sensitive topic and a whole other story..
Since we already had the crew, talent, and locations scouted - all we really had to do was add another day or two of production, in order to fit everything in.
NOTES
To be as efficient as possible, most days were centred around the Main Shoot, and then when we finished our shot list, we would slightly change the environment, substitute our Actors, and shoot a VERY SPECIFIC 2-3 second shot.
DAY 1 - JON’s HOUSE
Our first location was the house of our close friend Jon.
It was PERFECT for the long-hallway shots I had envisioned (on-cam - ‘I’ve been waiting to shoot this’)
DAY 2 - SOCALITY HOUSE
On day 2 we rented out a new studio - Justis BTS - shot for 9 hours and then walked the street to Socality House once it had closed, for another DJI Scene.
Each scene was about 2-3 hours of setup, for a maximum 2-3 shots.
Essentially, for reference, each shot costs between $1000-$2000.
DAY 3 - COLONY + RAJEEEEE
Day 3 was mainly our DJI Shoot.
The idea behind the entire shoot was to get as many SCENES as possible, to really create a higher production feeling…also because we didn’t know if the effect was going to work - because we weren’t recording Sports and we didn’t have time to test it.
We rented out a new studio and spent 8 hours setting up for another 2-3 Shots.
If you’re wondering - on a Commercial, each scene has to be PERFECT, so every new environment takes about 2-3 hours of setup. And essentially, for reference, each shot costs between $1000-$2000.
DAY 4 - KANANASKIS
In order to get 2 Scenes, in the same location - we dressed our talent for different seasons.
Nico was supposed to be up in the Mountains, vlogging his adventures
And Kierra was being her natural van-life vlogger self in the Mountains.
To Maximize the Van, we shot 2 completely different scenes
Again, with setup, shooting and reviewing
DAY 5 - STUDIO
Day 5 was our last chance to get all of the content that we needed.
So after a 4 hour sleep, we drove to the studio for our 8am call-time, except for Jakob.
We had a few ESSENTIAL scenes for our Commercial in the Main Studio,
But conveniently - this studio had multiple rooms:
BTS - Talk about how its already setup
And after 5 full-on days, our time had finally come to a close.
ENDING
I’m very glad that we made the call to mix these two productions because I would have lost roughly $30,000 if we didn’t have the DJI shoot - However I still lost a lot…
The original client ended up rejecting 2 of the biggest Commercials that we had shot that week - which we had considered being some of our best work ever - but that’s a story for another time, leave me a comment if you want to hear about that failed project.
11 июл 2024
