Student Spotlight

Whether you were rooting for one of the two teams in Arizona on Sunday February 1, lining up stats for your fantasy league, or watching Katy Perry fly around the stadium on a shooting star, you probably caught a few commercials during the NBC telecast. With a thirty-second commercial worth upwards of $4.5 million dollars (not including production costs), the stakes of getting it right and pushing product cannot be overstated.

The unofficial public response to this year’s offerings seemed to tug, or punch, the heartstrings more often than tickle the funny bone. Not to be lost in the move towards the melancholic, some students in SCM took up the challenge to create a comedic commercial for the Doritos® Crash the Super Bowl contest in hopes of having their submission air during the big game telecast.

Steven Lopez and Burak Ayodgan were given the task to create a commercial as part of their class in Motion Graphics. After reviewing a list of potential contests they could enter, the two settled on the Doritos® contest and began to consider how they would frame the concept. Without the massive budgets available to other production companies, the students looked for a way to incorporate what they had on hand. After spending some time in Morehead hall following their class, a peek into the small pantry nearby started the wheels of inspiration.

The directors set the scene with a small group of students eyeing bags of Doritos® just beyond reach in the faculty and staff pantry. A textbook titled, Introduction to Doritos®, guides the students in the proper use of the cheesy snack to reach their ultimate goal. The powerful chip unlocks the door as the students celebrate their achievement and a stunned professor laments, “the one time they read the textbook.” Sure, it may seem like thirty seconds of silly fun, but there was an incredible amount of work and support that helped make this commercial a reality.

Starting with Steven and Burak, who wrote, directed, and edited the final cut, many others contributed to the final project. Chad Servidio served as Gaffer, Gerhard Patterson and Mike Miller served as Mixers on the first and second shoots respectively, and Jackson Rezen was the Boom Operator. The talent included Christian Balacuit, Rachel DeLeonardis, Meg Foley, Daria Forte, Kristie Keleshian, Nicole McArdle, and Janet Wilson as the professor. Steven describes this supportive community as an essential part of putting this project together in addition to the lessons and skills learned during his production classwork.

Reflecting on the experience, the growth in abilities, not to mention the fun along the way, made it a big step forward according to Steven. Procuring over forty bags of the chips and taking up over 450 gigabytes of hard drive space were just part of the commitment to tell their story through a commercial. They went through many cuts trying to fit in jokes, a challenge of maximizing all 720 frames of the thirty-second commercial that even seasoned companies understand. While the team’s work may not have appeared during the big game this time, with the lessons learned at SCM, it may not be long before their work reaches a screen near you.