Behind the Scenes - ALLVOI National TV Commercial

Yesterday morning I filmed a national ad for this phone company called ALLVOI.  I've been making their graphic national ads for a long time, but yesterday they gave me an opportunity to actually film one of their ads.  It was a fairly simple concept, a testimonial ad, so not much pre planning went into it.  I mean, we just find people, have them sign a consent, and record them saying a line or 2 about the product.  On a normal day, this would've been a problem, but we ended up filming it during the India Day Parade on Madison Ave.  Finding people was the least of our problems.

Looking through the monitor on the camera.

Me overlooking the filming of a scene.

Our crew consisted of 4 people.  This is def. one of the smaller crews I've worked with, but in a situation where there's hundreds of people around you, I wouldn't suggest any more crew members.  It was:

Raj Belani - Director













Omkar Gauchan - Director of Photography

Brian Murphy - Sound/1st AC

Orietta Leva - Make Up















We shot this ad on the RED ONE camera.  The next best thing to film, but apparently it's already started taking over film.  There were quite a few movies that came out within the last year which were shot ENTIRELY on the RED ONE.  I've actually been using the RED ONE for quite a while now, and I believe I'm going to make it my standard camera for live shot productions.  I will no longer take jobs that don't have a budget for the RED ONE or for Film.  I'm done with HDV  There!

One of the major things I was worried about that day was direct sunlight.  The worst thing that could ever happen on an outdoor shoot, is direct sunlight.  It casts these nasty shadows and highlights, that can only be diffused by huge silk screen rigs, which weren't an option yesterday.  But, THANKFULLY, it was a cloudy overcast day.  God had put up natural diffusers for me.  Needless to say, the footage came out incredible.  Here are a few frame grabs.