Jungle set
Just checkin in from day 2 of our toy commercial shoot this week. Today’s concept is super fun and zany. We’ll definitely post some pics and video when our dog talent, Hamlet, arrives this afternoon, but in the meantime, here’s a little behind the scenes tour of our stage, crew, etc.
Hey! Mike the Intern just letting you know what’s up in the FLF work world.
Today started with an 8:00 AM call time to meet at Ryan Baker’s house to prep our camera gear for an intensive morning of casting.
We arrive at The Glenn Group office and proceed to set up. The people at this ad agency are as nice as can be, willing to help us with anything we need. What a great work atmosphere!
Anyway, the auditions we’re filming are for a campaign called “Kindness is Your Currency”. The idea is to reward people for random acts of kindness.
Candidates started showing up at 9:00 AM excited and seemed ready to go. Each interview was approximately 10-15 minutes with appointments scheduled 15 minutes apart.
I was in the lounging area greeting and checking people in, downloading the footage onto my computer after each individual interview, and being comical as usual.
Overall, everything went smooth and I had a great time on this little job.
Be back soon with some more updates!
It’s mania at the FLF Films office… once again!
Between 3 commercial spots, a sales video, and a series of interviews finishing up in post; a 20-minute athlete profile just starting in post; 3 national girls’ spots in pre-production; casting for a viral campaign we’re producing; and 2 national boys’ toys spots in pre-pro, FLF’s got a full plate at the moment. And we love it!
The last few days have been so busy in fact, that we had a first yesterday evening… A script meeting at the hair salon while Jerry was getting a new ‘do!
Here are some pics from our little hair parlor powwow:
Today just started and we’ve already got phones ringing off the hook. Here are some pics from our office this morning… The production department is hustlin’!
Say hello to a new face in the FLF Films office… Danny May, everybody!
Daniel Mayfield is joining the FLF crew while on summer break. He attends school in Colorado, is proficient with Final Cut Pro and After Effects, and most importantly, he reads our BLOG!!! Walking into our office this morning, the first thing he said was, “wow — it looks just like the video I saw.” Too funny.
Daniel got right to work today on his first project… editing the interview videos with medical weight loss expert Dr. Kent Sasse. He rocked it out, and after day 1, he’s nearly done with the project.
Welcome to the crew, Dan!
Part of being an intern is being a problem solver and learning how to use every second of the day to do something productive.
Erika is busy doing pre-production work for our upcoming athlete profile on a competitor in the Baja 500. Jerry is finalizing the GX Racers commercial, putting all the 3-D elements in and fine-tuning the timing.
Meanwhile, I have finished my to-do list and I don’t have much on my plate. The temperature in Reno couldn’t be more perfect today… So I just decided to take advantage of the extra time and I got into a little yard work in the FLF office courtyard. Mowing the lawn, sweeping the deck, pulling some weeds, typical yard work. Check out the action pictures!
Thanks to Ryan Fagan for taking some fun behind-the-scenes photos of FLF’s paddleboard shoot this past Sunday at Lake Tahoe. Also — thanks to the peeps who hooked us up with some fun specialty gear… Tim from Burton for the lipstick cam, Matty from Action Grip for the gyro-stabilizer, Ray for the dry suit, and Mike the Intern for his scuba gear.
It was FLF’s first time completely submerging our RED Camera… The closest we’d gotten before was sending it down a Slip N Slide for a Slip N SLide commercial. It was a little nerve wracking submerging it completely, but Hydroflex’s underwater housing did great… And our camera lives to tell about it!
Wardobe stylist Jeanne & Production Coordinator Lauren
For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure, meet Lauren! She’s our very organized, relaxed and sweet production coordinator. You can usually find her on our shoots bundled up in the production office (uggs, scarves… the whole deal). A SoCal girl originally, she doesn’t like cold… even her time in NYC didn’t break her of that.
She’s a rockin dancer (a former 49-ers girl in fact, and choreographer for our recent Lucky Bee Bee commercial), fabulous on-screen talent, and the master of our petty cash! She’s a renaissance woman.
What’s your crew position?
LC: Production Coordinator.
What’s the best part about your job?
LC: Probably… the small business atmosphere. FLF is so relaxed… Everyone is very close. Feels like a family business. There are so many different characters with all these different abilities and talents… and they all come together to make this semi-functional family [laughs]. So it’s the people!
What’s the worst part about your job?
LC: Early mornings… definitely. I’m not a morning gal.
Have a favorite memory or funny story from an FLF shoot?
LC: I love playing “the mom.” [For those who don't know, Lauren's appeared as "the mom" in many of our toy commercials. She's nailed the part.]
Who on the crew is most likely to make you laugh?
LC: Ryan Fagan. [2nd AC and Assistant Editor]
When you’re not working on one of our jobs, what are you doing?
LC: I’m wishing I was… [laughs]. I teach art and dance, and I work at our wardrobe stylist’s boutique, the Dollhouse.
Whew! A new week is starting and we have four new spots in the can. Lauren and I are at the office wrapping today, and Fagan and Jerry are logging and editing away. Our client wants a rough cut of one of the spots today!
We had lots of fun with all the spots last week, but I think Cabbage Patch Kids and Lucky Bee Bee were my favorites. Both were very girly, with super fun creative concepts (thanks to our rockin writer Bernice), fabulous talent (thanks to our LA-based casting director Michael), infectious jingles (thanks to our composer Ric), and very current looks for the sets, wardrobe, and hair/ makeup (thanks to Art Director Jeff, Stylist Jeanne, and Kandee the Makeup Artist).
Here’s a pic of our three little Cabbage Patch stars. They were adorable!
In the background, you can see our doll styling station. Our two professional doll stylists - the Jennifers - were fabulous. For one sequence in the commercial, they had to create 10 different, intricately styled hair-do’s. To make each look really good takes a lot of effort (and funny miniature doll hairstyling tools… including tiny curling irons and hot glue guns).
We also shot for a new product called Dunkadoos. Our look for the spot was very clean… People kept commenting that it looked like an Apple commercial.
My favorite part was a shot with a big, slimy, live frog. So fun!
I also got to totally embarrass myself that day when our client said he wouldn’t sign off on the jingle unless we convinced him with a live performance of it. I recruited Lyndi (our wardrobe assistant), Kandee the makeup artist, production coordinator Lauren, and assistant director Garrett to help me perform it at lunch. We rocked it out.
We’ll post production stills from our set photographer later this week, and in the meantime, we’re going to go lock ourselves away in the edit bay!
Hey! Mike the Intern checkin’ in with a little behind the scenes look at a few of our sets this week (Cabbage Patch Kids and GX Racers).
Enjoy!
