Last year I was schedule to shoot a new commercial for Fright Kingdom in Nashua NH. It was scheduled for the weekend following my 40th birthday, and well, anyone who has half a memory knows what happened last year at that time. Its hard to shoot a commercial when pretty much the entire state is without power and covered in a foot of snow. Now every fall I swear to myself I’m going to go to a haunted house, or ghost hunting, or something Halloween-ish, and of course last year I didn’t do any of that, but this year is different!
I was lucky enough to get another call from the great people at Fright Kingdom this summer to discuss shooting their commercial again. I had never been so this was my first time inside and seeing the attractions and sets. I met with the owners and they offered to give me a tour. Now keep in mind, this is the middle of summer, and the place was not fully ready for the season being all set up in its frightful glory. They turned off the house lights and we toured the five massive attractions, to give me a sense of how I would shoot the commercial.
Now, I’m as tough as the come, U.S. Army vet, horror fan, the whole deal, but five minutes into this tour and I was having massive anxiety attacks, this place is SCARY! There is so much detail in the sets and attractions, its like a Hollywood movie set, its amazing. Needless to say I was beyond excited to shoot the commercial, because never before had I had access to such detailed sets and locations. I know my fall spooky season was going to have to start early in order for me to get prepped for this commercial.
The thing I always try to remind people is that Earl Studios consists of one person, me. Well, actually two, me and my fiance Gretchen who handles all the administrative and planning aspects of the company, but I do everything related to the video production and photography. I planned my gear accordingly, knowing we had tight spaces and were going for a horror feel. The jib was out, so I brought the steadycam, some 1000 leds, 2 7d’s, 60d, and some wide glass.
We started out with the zombie apocalypse set, and this alone is an amazing set. The detail in the pieces is incredible, you would think a Hollywood production company had set this up. I got my lights in place, picked my angles and set my shot list and I was ready to go….and thats whey SHE showed up, Sydney, my zombie. From the scars, the blood soaked mouth, and the contacts, she looked frightfully amazing. I was starting to get giddy with excitement, this was turning out to be a real movie. So I gave Sydney her instructions, blocking, and direction and we rolled. And man, did she nail it, perfect, each time. Not only was I working with a world class set, I was working with world class actors, not to mention and amazing make up artist.
The rest of the shot went better than I could have hoped, and it really is due to the incredible energy of the cast as well as the enthusiastic involvement of the owners. It was honestly my best time working with a first time client ever.
So after we wrapped I headed back to the studio to begin the process of editing, color correction, and vfx. I had just bought all this new vfx software, like Element 3d from Videocopilot.net, Mocha pro, ect. But as I began the edit, the performances from the actors were the real stars and so it became clear that no extensive vfx needed to be done. The only effect that I did was to replace the eyes of the bloody girl at the end of the hallway with black. It was simply tracked in after effects, then two black solids were masked out, feathered, and overlaid on her eyes to give her a little more “umphh”.
The soundtrack and sound effects were key as well, so using pond5.com and audiojungle.com I was able to find some great sound effects as well as the perfect track for the piece. The title was simply animated in 3d space in After Effects.
They are rolling this commercial out now on broadcast tv stations all around the area, and I’ve already received a request to travel to Ohio to shoot a similar commercial for another haunted attraction.
This is, by far, my best commercial ever. It really shows what a little one person video production company from New Hampshire can do, and I am extremely grateful to the incredible people at Fright Kingdom for the opportunity to work with them on this spot. Hopefully they will read this and remember my kind words and not scare me half to death when I go to Fright Kingdom as a customer this season 🙂
