Anti-Meth PSA

mikemintzdj

mikemintzdj

There is a contest in my state to create Anti-Meth PSA's. I had never created something with only 30 seconds in mind, and it allowed me a lot of time to visualize literally every frame. The result is awesome, in fact, the video is so good that i'm trying desperately to get the sound and voice over up to the same level. Anyways. I thought I would attach a pic from the shoot. I got very lucky with the locations. Has anybody ever done a commercial before?
meth%20psa.jpg
 
With the exception of when I was in film school and back then being on set was exciting, you know, wide eyed and bushy tailed, I've never really enjoyed commercials.

Was there anything specific you want to know?
 
I spent three hours on this shoot. Now not all of that was filming, some of it was moving locations and setting up. But when you break it down that was an hour for 10 seconds of film. Now obviously this type of PSA is more narrative based than a typical commercial, but have you had similar experiences? Would you say 3 hours for 30 seconds is overkill?
 
The first TVC I was on filmed for 2 days. One full day 10 hour day. One additional day that hit the 24 hour mark before I retired for the night. It was a long time ago on a high budget shoot.

I've had a scene take 6 hours to setup.

Compared to either shoot, your 3 hours for 30 seconds seems like a walk in the park.

It depends on your budget, your crew, amount of equipment, your script, your locations, distance of moves, weather, the requirements of the shoot and more.
 
No budget, no crew, two locations (distances were within 5 miles of each other, weather was nice and we were indoors 100% of the time with no windows. The requirements of the shoot was to basically have dude walk through an abandoned building and shoot up with meth (simulated of course). The nice thing that definitely sped things up was the fact that I didn't need to capture any sound, as everything was voice over and added in post. So I guess add an additional 3 hours for Voice Over recording, ridiculous how long that takes.

You've had a scene for a commercial take 6 hours to set up? That seems excessive, but I suppose it would depend on the scene.
 
Big budget commercials take a tremendous amount of time, mostly because they only have 30 seconds, so as the OP mentions, every frame has to count (also they have the money). I used to AC on some major network commercials and on average they would be 2-3 eight or ten hour days. I'm sure there are some that take a lot longer. I worked on one where we had a 10 hour night shoot and we got two quick shots out of it, but it had helicopter shots and stunts of a guy hanging off a building, so it all depends on the scale.

Personally, I loved working on commercials. A lot of them were just studio shoots which makes things easy, and they were Union, so nice 8 hour days generally. Also, they just seemed way more laid back then features for the most part (though that night shoot I mentioned above, that was a pretty intense day.)
 
Making drug war propaganda is disgusting. You're part of the problem that has wrecked civil liberties,families and communities. Using your camera for evil isn't cool.
 
Sasa said:
Using your camera for evil isn't cool.
Click to expand...

Every time I've asked, it's been the consensus that film makers have no moral responsibility.
It was something that concerned me a few years ago, if I might be showing criminals how to get away with crime, get a gun, steal a car, dispose of a body, etc and if I should not.

At this point I just want some attention on my work. I don't care if it's bad attention.
Got to get attention somehow.
 
sfoster said:
Every time I've asked, it's been the consensus that film makers have no moral responsibility.
It was something that concerned me a few years ago, if I might be showing criminals how to get away with crime, get a gun, steal a car, dispose of a body, etc and if I should not.

At this point I just want some attention on my work. I don't care if it's bad attention.
Got to get attention somehow.
Click to expand...
Come on, if it's bad attention you can have no career..remember Innocence of Muslims? He got attention.
 
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