Westminster, An Austin Original

Posted by Storme

I was recently hired to produce and direct a series of web spots for Westminster, which bills itself as “the most distinguished retirement community in Austin” and “An Austin Original” (opened in 1967). Westminster is located in central Austin, has a terrific, friendly staff and is full of wonderful and extraordinary residents. CLICK HERE to see more of our Westminster spots on the Westminster YouTube page.

I was lucky to be assisted in my efforts by a fantastic crew. Jim Flores was the Director of Photography. We shot the spots on two Sony F3 cameras. Andie Redwine (Writer/Producer of Paradise Recovered) was the Associate Producer and was instrumental in making the day of the shoot run smoothly. Lee Rothenflue (Cut to Black Post Production) was my editor and post producer. Tim Allen (Tribal Iris) did the graphics and titles. And Matt Cooper (The Sound Suite) composed and produced the amazing score and did the sound mix on all of the spots.

Special thanks to Anne Keene and her team from the Crossnore Group for bringing us on and coordinating our shoot, and to Brian Robbins, Jenny Brown, and the rest of the Westminster staff for hiring us and supporting us through the entire process.

This project was a true pleasure to work on from start to finish.

Hand-Carved Makes Everything Better!

Posted by Storme

I’m very excited about the debut of my latest commercial! I directed this web spot for Schlotzsky’s and I am extremely pleased with how it turned out. The spot centers around Schlotzsky’s Hand-Carved Sandwiches and highlights their LOTZ Better tagline. Our team was able to take the concept and produce an upbeat, sweet and fun character based spot that really shines. I’m so proud of everyone who was a part of it.

Photo of actor Alan Blyton on The Director's Monitor on Set

Writer/Producer Andie Redwine of By the Glass Productions wrote a fantastic script for us and then helped us find and book a terrific cast.

Cast members Alan Blyton (Dad), Callie Flores (Daughter), Richard Jones (Co-worker 1), Heather Wallis (Co-worker 2) and Danny Bates (Co-Worker 3) were amazing. They all performed so well!

Director of Photography (And a Producer on this!) Jim Flores found us great locations and then really brought this spot to life with his exceptional lighting and camera work.

Art Director extraordinaire Scott Coventry (Pinkhaus) literally made everything Lotz Better! From the look and feel of every scene to the wardrobe to helping us make all the food look its best!

Editor Lee Rothenflue (Cut to Black) brought his tremendous talents to bear in selecting great takes and assembling the story in a way that really brings out the fun and joyous qualities we all wanted out of the spot.

Filling the role of Location Sound and Post Sound Mixer, Matt Cooper of The Sound Suite made sure everyone sounds great and he mixed the effects and music flawlessly.

Thanks so much to Schlotzsky’s for giving us this opportunity. The entire process was a pleasure and I couldn’t be happier with the result. I’m looking forward to working with this talented team again soon!

High Speed Storytelling, The Google Chrome Speed Tests

Posted by Storme

I love super high speed, slo-mo photography. But, for the most part, the really, really slow motion stuff seemed to me to be reserved for scientific and novelty projects. I mean, how can slowing something down enough to see a hummingbirds wings in flight be used to tell a good story? Enter the Google Chrome Speed Tests.

With slow motion, the faster a camera shoots, the slower the motion when the film or video is played back at normal frame rates. For example, if you shoot something at 60 frames a second and then play it on your tv or computer at 30 frames a second, you’ve slowed it by half. For this spot, they used the Phantom v640 High Speed Digital Camera. The v640 can shoot up to 2700 frames per second at full 1920×1080 HD and up to 5,850 fps at 1280×720 HD. Silly high speed. Do the math on playing something shot at 5,850 fps at 30 frames per second. That’s sslllllooooowwwwwww.

Check out what Google put together to demonstrate the speed of their Chrome browser. This is highly creative, highly entertaining, great storytelling done with high speed photography. First up is the spot and second up is the making of video:

Making of: