When you see a snowy holiday commercial nowadays, bear in mind that it’s probably produced during the Summer season in Los Angeles, where it never snows. That’s certainly the case with these two spots I storyboarded.
This commercial campaign was produced by Timber, a great company and I love working with these guys, primarily because they really appreciate good storyboards and know where to get them- from me!
The story of each spot is the same, kinda: A crew of a dozen beautiful ladies in winder regalia and Ugg boots (of course) parade in front of the camera, shimmy here and there, playfully coordinating their efforts into a final snowflake structure that is slowly revealed at the end. Very fun.
Here’s the storyboards for the first spot, “Twinkling Lights.”
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And here’s the finished commercial:
http://youtu.be/mvwDAkOm1iY
You know I did a good job when the boards look like the final spot! And here’s the other spot, “Passing out Presents.”
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And the final commercial:
http://youtu.be/4D1d0E4z8-k
Two spots- two days- 16 hours- 56 frames. Two 60-second commercials in two days. That’s kind of a lot of work- but there are mitigating factors: It was helpful that one of the directors is a talented artist himself and could do some informing sketches of his own to help shortcut the storyboarding process. The downside was that both directors had to be away for most of the process at a Tech scout (where they and other production crew meet to discuss the shoot on location before it happens), so the sketches were pretty much what I had to go on. There isn’t much ‘story’ to these spots, as you’ll see, and no script either, so I had to sort of play choreographer to bring the appropriate sense of fun to these boards. Luckily for me, I draw women well, and quickly, and the backgrounds of the shots were basically nonexistent, so the sets were minimalist and there were few if any constraints in terms of camera angles and blocking. And finally, these were shooting boards, so while they didn’t have to be super perfect, it was worth doing as well as possible, since it would eventually end up as a sample on my blog, which you’re reading now. So it was a mixed bag, but not too badly tilted into either camp of hard or easy.
In the end, I love drawing cute girls and I love how these spots turned out- just like I drew them!
