Lecture on Commercial Concepting for My Digital Storytelling class.

1. Digital Storytelling Commercial Concepts

2. Commercial Concepts What makes an effective commercial? It depends upon the goal of that commercial. Informational These commercials are aimed toward providing information about a specific company or program Mattress Ranch Visual Media Group Extreme Example – Red House Furniture

3. Branding Commercials Branding What is branding? These types of commercials are aimed toward providing an image of a particular brand to an audience They contain little by way of message and focus on evoking a certain or emotion towards a brand Coke iPod The Happy Medium Julian Acosta: 360 Electrical , UMLA

4. Group Exercise: Find a commercial I want you to spend a moment searching for a commercial on the internet Decide whether the commercial is aimed more towards providing information, or branding the product. Then depending upon your answer think about 1 of these 2 questions. If branding: What kind of feeling did the commercial give you about the product? Do you think the commercial was effective? If informational: What kind of information was the commercial giving you about the product? How effective was it in its goal? Share your commercial with the person next to you and be prepared to share with the class

5. Parts of a Treatment A treatment is what you present to a client to let them know what your vision of a particular commercial is. Richter in “The 30-second Storyteller” lists the different parts of a treatment Title Page Concept – How the commercial or the story will help or affect the brand Story – A written description of the plot of the story The Look – What you want the commercial to look like. Here you can place a few screenshots of different films or show video clips that would help the client visualize what the commercial will look like The Sounds – Any music that you think would go along with the commercial Casting – What should these characters be like. Evoke the name of specific actors and actresses to help the client understand your vision of the cast.

6. Commercial Workflow Commercial Director Cole Webley’s typical workflow Boards from the Ad Agency Conference call from the Agency – they pitch you the spot Director writes the treatment and gives to agency Another conference call Recommend you as director to the client Client picks you as the director and you pitch the commercial

7. Case Study: Cole Webley Cole’s Portfolio Now we are going to take a slight detour and take a deeper look at his process Take a look at Cole’s Treatments How do these translate into the finished piece?

8. Commercial Scripting Scripts for commercials adhere to the two column format The left column describes what the viewer will see at any given time. Directors also may choose to include descriptions of actors or shots used The right column describes what the audience will hear (music, SFX, dialogue, etc) Script Example

9. Using Celtx to write your commercial In scriptwriting, formatting is essential! If you haven’t done so, download Celtx at www.celtx.com Open up a template AV script (Day at the Races) to get an idea of what a commercial script will look like when we are done Tab through to get to the right layer Scene Heading > Shot > Character > Dialog > Parenthetical Practice on a commercial from Saint Cloud: Drug Free America

10. Group Project: Creating a Pitch For our next project you will be working with a group to create a treatment/pitch for a commercial. Together you will develop an idea, write a script, and develop storyboards for your project. When finished your group will do the following: Pick a brand or product that you want to develop an idea for (could be a local or national brand) Decide what aspect of that brand you want to develop or focus on: How should the company be branded? What themes or aspects of the company do you think you could bring forth? Pick a few pieces of media that will act as an indicator for the look and feel of your project Write a brief summary of the story that you will be telling in your commercial Develop a storyboard for you commercial Write an AV script for your commercial

11. Work for this week Writing Assignment: Using Celtx, you are going to translate a commercial that you find online into a printed document. CLOSAT Journal Discussion Post: Take a look at treatments for videos on keithschofield.com. Discuss one of the following: What kind of information does Schofield include when he is pitching a music video? What surprised you most about the information that he includes? Compare the final video with the treatment. How was the treatment translated?