Click to watch an interview with Eric Krehbiel and Dan Sorgen of Spec Bank.
Director: Eric Krehbiel
Writer: Dan Sorgen
DP: Stephen Lemieux
Color: Kyle Messina
Gaffer: Sophia Williams
Key Grip: Carter Bailey
Sound Designer: Noah Kankanala
Sound Mixer/Boom Op: Jayden Santos
Production Designer: Jesse Malings
HMU & Wardrobe Supervisor: Amy Hendrix
Wardrobe Assistant: Ella Meisenheimer
1st AC: Caleb Williams
2nd AC: Erin Scannell
Art PA: Yuma Kobayashi
Set PA: Chandler Blancaflor
VFX AD: Erin Scannell
VFX Grip: Polly Ketcham
Photographer: Soren Olsen
Key Cast:
Briana Morell
Gideon Brown
How much did production cost?
We spent about $11,000 in total on this project. Almost everyone involved on the crew side took less than industry-standard rates since many were on the less experienced side and just looking for a portfolio piece or credits or the experience itself. As the director I worked for free, as did my DP, Stephen, which saved us a few thousand dollars. He also supplied Camera, Grip, and Lighting at no cost to the production, which saved us an additional several thousand. Without Stephen's eagerness to jump in and generosity with his time and equipment we could not afford to reach the level of quality we were aiming for. As a close friend with his own full-time gig working on video games, my sound designer, Noah, also jumped in for a very humble rate just to dip his toes into a different type of media. Our location also let us shoot for an entire 12-hour day for free, which went a long way for us financially. If everything had been priced at what it normally would be, it would have likely totaled about $40k.
Why this script/concept? How does it reflect your vision as a commercial director?
When I found the Body Language script, I thought it was a perfect fit for the type of project I was looking for. It centered around a great bit of emotional drama, which I figured would be a unique thing to display in a commercial while also sticking to the strengths of my niche of dramatic storytelling spots. I knew how I wanted to shoot it right away.
What was the casting process like?
I knew if we were going to do a beer commercial, especially one with a romantic spark to it, we would need some real commercial talent. We talked with a few local talent agencies and looked at a handful of model/actors. I only considered people who had prior dramatic acting experience and looked at a lot of audition tapes they had done to gauge how each person performed on-camera. We eventually narrowed it down and made the call based on the assumption that Briana and Gideon would have decent natural chemistry.
How did you search for/lock a location?
We knew we wanted a bar that had something a bit dive-y and classic to it. We looked for places with a long bar and darker wood tones with an aged look throughout the space. After looking at several places, we settled on The Wooden Nickel Pub which Josh, our Producer, had a relationship with. They were incredibly accommodating to our production; we couldn't have dreamed of a better location to work with.
How did you select your DP, crew?
Stephen was the first person I approached about the project. We had worked in Camera Dept together on a short film a few months before and I enjoyed his energy on set. He had told me he was looking for opportunities to build his portfolio as a DP, so I mentioned I was going to be making 2 spec spots and would he want to jump in. He was eager to get the chance and offered to work and supply a generous amount of gear for free (which he already owned). I realized quickly in planning that I would need help pulling all the elements together and brought in Josh, my Producer and 1st AD, to help with logistics in order to let me focus more on the creative. The rest of the crew came together over the course of a few weeks through my personal network of crew people.
How did shooting go? Any challenges?
This was probably the smoothest shoot I have directed thus far. There were a lot of variables and a last-minute scheduling change that created quite a bit of stress leading up to the day, but once we got on set and started setting up everything clicked into place. Josh did a great job of giving direction to our 14+ extras between takes while I was able to only worry about Briana, Gideon, and the frame. We only had 4 lighting set ups all day, so we had a decent amount of space in the schedule to really work on the performances and get our angles and everything exact to what had been storyboarded.
Tell us about editing and finishing.
The cutting process was a bit tricky. There were several incredible shots that we had that ended up on the cutting room floor. Initially in the storyboards we cut out to the two shot a few more times, which had a nice rhythm in the sequence, and we had a little more back and forth between the characters before Gideon walks off to get the beers. We tried to do a 30 second cut that kept all these elements, but the cutting became far too rapid to allow for any real feeling to develop with how the guy and girl were interacting. It was too chaotic, so we had to reduce our shots significantly to create more space between each cut. I think we ended up finding the right balance to have enough going on for the scene to be interesting, while also slowing it down enough to get a sense of the chemistry between Briana and Gideon, which was important to making the scene connect with the viewer.
In retrospect, is there anything you would have done differently?
Carrying off what I said on the editing, I think we had too complex of a sequence in the storyboarding phase. Since I hadn't had to deal with a 30 second runtime before, I wasn't aware of how much a cut impacts the feeling of the scene you're covering. Since the dramatic tempo of this spot was meant to be a bit slower and focused on this romantic angle, we really would have found a perfect balance at around 13-15 shots. We had storyboarded 21 and ended up at 17 in the final edit. It might have been a good idea to use 2 cameras to shoot coverage a bit differently than how we did it here. The process we used was very much shooting a certain moment here and a certain interaction there, in a very broken up manor, so that in the final sequence the framing of each shot would change as the two leads warmed up to each other more. I think visually what we have is very effective, but it would have been nice to also get performances that were a little richer and more spontaneous.
Any other thoughts.
I'm very grateful to everyone involved in this project and especially to Red Oak for taking an interest in the product of all our efforts. This was by far the most enjoyable shooting experience I've had so I can only say that I really loved getting to make it. Many thanks to Dan and Spec Bank as well for being such a great resource from the start of the project.
