We shot everything locally. We had about 25 extras that came in and we had a “staged” night club scene.

We shot for about three hours and produced a 3 minute promo. Not bad.

You can check it out here at DJMoTo’s website.

We’ve already completed the first editing session and have made lots of progress. We’re aiming to have the film completed by the end of January 2010.

Check it out here!

The story line takes place in a park. The opening shot is of two guys who are sitting on two different park benches.  One is a nerd with a bag of Doritos.  The second is waiting for this girl friend with flowers.  Then with the power of Doritos, the unthinkable happens.

There was a CG scene that required the boy friend to be smashed by a Doritos bus. This was completed with After Effects and Photoshop.

Watch and laugh!

Here’s the commercial on Doritos’ website.

“Doritos Makes the Difference”

Six finalists will be chosen and given $25,000 cash prize by December 21, 2009. Then America will vote on the six and the top three commercials will go and be aired at this year’s Superbowl. Then whichever commercial is voted 1st, 2nd or 3rd on the USA Today meter after the superbowl, the prizes are 1st ($1,000,000), 2nd ($600,000) and 3rd ($400,000).

We’ve had a lot of people view our commercial and thankfully we’ve had a lot of laughs.

Some of the screenshots of the final commercial are shown below.

We took about 4.5 hours to shoot. I was DP and visual/fx supervisor. I had to set up several scenes for some animation later on in post. We also used a green screen during one scene.

We are not allowed to post the commercial until after the superbowl, but you can view the commercial here on Doritos’ website.

“Doritos… Don’t Ever Run Out!”

Kevin Barnes with Media Samurai was the director, and I was director of photography.

We also had Billy Baker as second camera opp and Ben Bradshaw who was our audio technician.

Director of Photography:  Michael Gentilini, Jr.

Plot: Being a new Christian has it’s challenges. However, it’s amazing how much power there is in prayer. You’re about to witness the power of God, His Word and the power of prayer.

We shot down in Taylors SC on Saturday.

We had about 20 extras.  The director (Justin Robinson), his brother Jeff, and good friend Joe were the main characters.

We’re now in the process of post production.

How cool it was to learn how the Cove began and what all took place that allowed the Cove to grow and become one of the largest Christian training locations on the east coast.

Hundreds of Christians come from all over the country year after year to learn more about God, and learn how to share His Word more to the world.

We were able to capture some amazing history!

(Below) Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Miller

Green screening is one of my favorite parts of film making. I enjoy the creativity of setting up the raw plates and planning ahead for what kind of creation is going to take place in post to complete the visual/fx. It’s like making a painting. Start the masterpiece in the field and put on the finishing touches in post.

In order to have the scene look real, proper compositing is crucial.  The lighting of the subjects and surrounding props needs to be the same as the “keyed in” footage, otherwise the two different layers will not match up and will look different.

Another critical effect with a moving car scene is motion blurring.  You must remember that if we were really filming the side of a car moving at 50mph, the background would be out of focus and quite blurry.  All of these effects must be created/tricked in post.

The process can be quite meticulous, but when the final outcome looks real, it’s the best feeling you can have in post!

This car scene required a total of 9 different layers. This consisted of background plates, shadows and reflections. It takes a lot to make something so simple look real.