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Super Bowl Commercial

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Hopefully you've seen some of this year's Super Bowl commercials and have a favorite or two. A 30 second Super Bowl ad cost $6.5 million this year. That’s a lot of dough for 30 seconds. This doesn’t even begin to include the cost to write, cast, film, edit, and produce the commercial.

Hundreds if not thousands of hours are poured into getting it right. I mean, for 6.5 million dollars, I can certainly understand how important getting it right can be.

A couple of my favorites from 2022 are:

Some others from 2023:

But one of the most effective, yet simple ads of 2022 could be Coinbase. By not overproducing and spending any real money other than the placement spot, they somehow ended up with the simplest, but most effective ad probably in super bowl history.

  • The simplicity of the ad created a lot curiosity
  • Fan reactions went viral
  • Coinbase gave away $15 in Bitcoin to every new user
  • The quick math says they spent $14 million
  • Their ROI is TBD but we can assume they generated at least 22.5 million a year in new customers.
  • Simple ad, big results

In 2023, Tubi had an ad with a similar effect.  They aired a 15 second commercial where it appeared that someone had changed the channel on the remote. It started with the Fox Sports announcers, and then showed a screen as if someone had switched to the Tubi app.

Individual Project

You will be responsible for all parts of this project and are encouraged to film at home or outside of the school setting. Ask friends or family to take an acting role in your commercial.

First, you must plan

  1. Storyline
  2. Storyboard (with exact timing, at least 1 instance of foley and 5 different camera shots/angles)
  3. Script (of any dialogue or narration)

You will buy your own Doritos - it can be a snack size up to a party size of any flavor you want.

Filming

Where is your commercial taking place?  Be wary of unwanted people, things, and noise in the background.

How many days do you need to film this? If it's more than 1 class period, you need to have specified clothing for your actor(s) so that they are dressed the same throughout the commercial. Don't start until the cast has their "uniform" at school.

Remember to film a "buffer" on each end of the clip. Hit record and count to 5 before you call for action. Let the action end for a 5 count before you stop recording.

Make sure your camera is in focus for every shot you film. If it's not, you need to fix it and re-shoot.

Editing

Each person will get the footage on their computer to edit - each person will get a project grade for their own edited and published commercial. It should follow the storyboard.

You'll create a "light burst" effect in After Effects for a close-up of the product. I used this tutorial because it was easy, but there are others you can choose from. Here is the video version. Be sure to watch the end of Part 1 to change the time.

Part 1:  Animating the Light Rays & Changing
Part 2: Exporting

You'll create a "credits screen" that will not be included in the 60 second timing of the commercial. Include:

  • Actors names in alpha order by last name
    (properly spelled and capitalized)
  • Credit for any clips, sounds, etc that you did not create.

Publish as H264, #_lastname_Doritos_commercial

Turning it in...

You will post your finished work on this 6 weeks page of your ePortfolio. Remember that your newest post goes at the top of the page.

  1. Title of the Challenge/Assignment
  2. Reflection Questions
    1. Name one frustration about this assignment. Explain.
    2. Name one thing you enjoyed about this assignment. Explain.
    3. Name one thing you'd like to do differently on it. Explain.
  3. Embed a screenshot of your Timeline. Press "|" to resize your Timeline. Use Snip & Sketch to take the screenshot. Upload your video to YouTube and embed the video