International Waters Pt. II
Apologies my friends / anonymous readers out there. I've been meaning to get this up much sooner. The past few weeks have been turbulently fun, and may or may not have involved a cross country caravan with my lovely girlfriend and an elderly little dog. More on that later.
Last we spoke, I was showing you some Brazilian language cleaning product commercials that I had produced on spec with the help of my pal Dan Reinecke. If you missed that freakin romp, please read PART 1 HERE.
Just to recap; the video series was called "1001 Uses" and we chronicled all the wild and wacky different applications of the steel wool Bombril pad.
Ahem.
Part 2!
5. Clean Your Engagement Ring.
This one was fun, because it's a touch of life imitating art, at least at the moment. When you're working on spec, and money is tight, cast those around you, and that's how ended up in bed with my own lady friend Yulissa Morales, pretending that I really don't want to marry her. FUN FACT: Because most of the other talent was American this is one of the only 2 that has any dialogue, since Portuguese speakers were hard to come by. Also, Yulissa actually dresses like this for bed.
6. Wig
I've got a pal who is a striking visage. His name is Mike Palmer, but about 10 years ago he was introduced to me as Red Beard, and that's still what he goes by as far as I'm concerned. A lively / happy, but definitely strong looking guy was what we needed to sell the 'Wig' gimmick. This could've been hacky, but I think the mismatched hair colors, music, and Red Beard himself keep this trucking. Expect to see more of this fellow in the near future.
7. Polish Your Cowboy Boots.
OK, let's get something out of the way: In else parts of this world, there's still some stereotypes that culturally play big. Like REALLY big. Like Macho Man is still funny as a gay stereotype big. So to pull the switcheroo on the audience, we thought to start off on the very manly idea of the rough and tough cowboy before pulling back to a very effeminate dance party. That's Matty Lisewski who who might recognize from the "Pet" video. And all he knew before showing up that day was that he was going to be a manly cowboy. FUN FACT: the score heard at the very beginning was taken from the soundtrack of a short film of mine, and that bit was produced by Will Baker. Macho Man is by The Village People. Obviously.
8. BONUS SPOT: Your Husband
A while ago, I may have mentioned that crippling insecurity that I and others in the creative field have. The kind of insecurity that makes shooting 7 commercials in a series/campaign pitch seem like not enough. So we crafted one last spot, this one carried entirely by voice over. The copy reads:
Ladies, let's give it up for your wonderful husband. The husband who spent all day slaving over a hot stove cooking for your entire family. Even your mother liked his cooking. After all that, he picked up and washed all the dishes, including every dirty pot and pan. All this was made possible thanks to his unconditional love for you, and also Bombril. But mostly the love.
We almost did a female-centric alternate before realizing that we didn't want to perpetuate the stereotype of a woman in the kitchen, and also a phantom hand appearing is less creepy on a sleeping man than a sleeping woman.
These were a lot of fun, and somehow ended up getting 8 commercials done in one day thanks to some intense professionalism, great friends who decided to step in and have some fun on camera, and for my sister Nancy, who let us hijack her lovely home for the whole day, and let us try our best to make it seem like 8 different homes. Here's hoping getting these out online will show that nothing is for naught. For now, Brombril lays dorment, but who knows? I'm really banking on my mom's social media presence causing these to go viral.
If you have any questions or comments on the process of doing spec / pitch commercials, or just want to tell me they suck, please chime in below. We're all adults right?
Right?
OK, cool, that's all she wrote this time. As you may have gleamed in my intro, I've got fun new stuff to talk about, and a handful of new projects to share with you wild and crazy kids (read: mom)
All the best, such and such.
-CS
