THE DOCU-COMMERCIAL

GOAL

The goal was simple: make a commercial that moves within “real” classrooms while emphasizing the STA’s message. 

THE MESSAGE

Every day in Saskatoon schools, dedicated professional teachers create connections with children. In our classrooms, we inspire hope, joy and discovery in academics. Helping all students reach their potential creates healthy communities. We all have a stake in quality local education. A message from the Saskatoon Teachers’ Association.

CHALLENGES

A. How to make commercial style scenes while utilizing real classrooms and people.

The biggest thing for me on this commercial was that it felt more like a commercial, and less like a documentary promo. We wanted the visuals to really bring people in to best support the message. To do this we did a few things:

1. Location Scouting: Something we don’t always have the opportunity to do in docu-promos was pick our locations. In this case, there was no specific school this had to be, other than it had to be in Saskatoon. Based on our short timeline we looked into about six schools chosen by our client, in which we picked two specific schools. What was great about the two schools we chose was that they both had two rooms we could get unique looks in. This would allow us to waste less time on packing all our gear and moving locations so we could really focus on tweaking our shots.

When picking our locations we were looking for things that would make each room unique from each other, two being in an elementary, and two being in a high school.

Elementary English: White board, blue banner with alphabet, big windows

High School Art: Messy art class tables, colourful, big space, mural filled with art, overhead windows

Elementary Math: Square tiled wall, projector, white board

High School History: Chalk boards, globe, old style desks

2. Set Decoration: Each classroom wasn’t perfect when we found them, and I think that’s where a lot of the fun came in because each classroom had so much potential. We brought props in from other classes (maps, desks, etc.) and we made sure all the boards had relevant lesson plans on them that would fit the look we were going for.

3. Lighting: Lighting was a bit of a challenge because we were only going to have about an hour or two with each classroom, so we had to be prepared for when the students would arrive. What we did was prep our lighting before school hours. The difficulty was lighting our scenes without having subjects, so we had our Production Assistant sit in each desk to help us light each character. This allowed us to be almost camera ready when the bell rang.

Our set ups entailed:

Elementary English: Soft and harsh light coming from frame left, recreating sunshine.

High School Art: Soft overhead bounce, and soft fill light, to imitate overhead windows on main subject.

Elementary Math: Projector light with haze, along with added blue light to add to the ambient light.

High School History: Soft and harsh light coming from frame right, recreating sunshine, and spotlighting our main student subject.

4. Casting: With this commercial, we were asked to use real students and teachers (as we could not afford to cast actors or film during non-school hours). This is when the production got exciting. Students walked into the classroom totally forgetting their parents signed for them to be in a commercial, almost all of them begging to be front and centre of each shot. We had the luxury of being able to hand pick students we felt seemed confident around the camera and who would give us our desired look. We then were able to direct each student how to act when we called action: some would be chatting in the back of the classroom, some would not be fully paying attention, some would be very attentive, some would be conversing with their teacher, etc. Once this element was added, we had a commercial.

NOTE: The class would be in regular session as we set up our shots, and the talent only had to act for our shots during our 5 - 10 minute takes. 

B. How to create a film that is always moving, without becoming noticeable or predictable. 

When we were asked to do this commercial, one thing that intrigued us was our clients need for motion. We then created a shot list of 8 very intentional dolly moves, creating four mini scenes consisting of two shots each. Our goal was to have each shot move into each other without being overly noticeable. There is a lot of movement in the film, but almost each movement is drastically different from the other, causing it to not feel repetitive.

1A. Elementary English: We open our film in a wide shot slowly pushing in on TEACHER A, acknowledging STUDENT Awho raises his hand.

1B. Elementary English: The camera slowly rotates around STUDENT A in a medium close-up, totally engaged by TEACHER A, asking a question.

2A. High School Art: We see a wide shot showcasing art class, only to dolly backwards to reveal TEACHER Bhelping STUDENT B in the foreground with his art project.

2B. High School Art: We slowly push in on TEACHER B as she responds to STUDENT B with a smile.

3A. Elementary Math: An abrupt cut from TEACHER B’ssmile, we see a projector light as we dolly right and pan down to reveal STUDENT C learning math.

3B. Elementary Math: We dolly from left to right revealing a full classroom, TEACHER C crossing the projector light, engaging his students.

4A. High School History: We slowly push in on STUDENT Dactively debating with TEACHER D in history class.

4B. High School History: We close the film with a simple dolly out, showcasing the conversation between TEACHER Dand STUDENT D. 

To make these shots a reality, we knew we would have to step away from the DJI Ronin and utilize our new Kessler Crane Shuttle Dolly to create very controlled movements. This gave us the ability to adjust focus as we please, and easily swap out lenses without re-calibration. The look of a dolly shot was also much more suitable for what we were going for versus a gimbal shot. 

WHAT DID WE LEARN?

I believe that the best thing you can do on every project is learn or relearn something. This shoot re-solidified how far extra prep time can get you. Although we were given the guidelines of not shooting after hours and casting actors, we were still able to utilize the same shooting style if we gave ourselves extra prep time. We had solutions in our pockets for as many situations as we could think of and refined the shot list so we wouldn't have 4 - 6 set-ups per classroom. Though we were a small crew of three most of the time, there was no excuse to not powder and place our talent, add props to our sets, or even to use bigger gear to get more dynamic shots. All we had to do was plan how to go about each tiny aspect ahead of time.

Here is the final product, along with a behind the scenes look at our production.

Thank you for reading our first film-making blog about the production process of our “Stake In Education” commercial for Saskatoon Teachers’ Association.

THE TEAM 
Dylan Hryciuk | Director / Cinematographer / Editor
Simeon Taylor | Cinematographer / Camera Operator / BTS Stills
Brianne Janex | Production Assistant / Make-Up / BTS Video Camera Operator
Andrew Roberts | Production Assistant
tBone - The Sound Lounge | Audio Post Production
Elsa Gebremichael | Voice Over Artist