It's not Zen, it's Turtle Wax! Rough cut.

[Michael Azzariti]

Here is a rough cut from the demo I shot this weekend.

HVX200, Indian "Red Rock" adapter(crappy ground glass), Nikon 50mm 1.8

http://www.blackbagfilms.com/turtlesml1.mov

Comments welcome.

Updated 1525 CST.

Michael Azzariti
Director Cameraman
Black Bag Films, Inc.

[Carole Holli]

Hello, thanks for posting your work. It looks nice-- however, I would ask, what exactly are you demoing? Your shooting? Your story telling? you're ability to make a product appealing? I'm not exactly too sure what you want from this piece. For the punchline to work "dude, I'm not waxing your car, I think, (and this is my humble opinion) you would have needed to make it more about the man waxing the car and the car itself. Focusing mostly on the wax going on the car and the lines of the car, almost as though its a love affair. And then at the end cut to the other guy and say "Dude, I'm not waxing your car" But that being said, I know its all been shot, I would at least take away the shot of him walking in at the top of the scene, so it looks like he's been their listing the whole time. (also, I must confess the fellow who's the lead is a bit stilted in his acting) If this is demoing your shooting, you might have done a little bit more interesting shots and variance in them. It seemed kind of static. That being said, the image when it first came on screen was very striking. you just want to go further with it.

Best wishes,
Carole

[Paul Cascio]

Why so critical Carole? Michael, I think it's a nice portfolio piece that shows you have the ability to make professional quality commercials. Nice job.

[Mike Williams]

I like it! I think Carole is operating on another level. A much more expensive level :)

I like placement of the car with spotted sun on it and the feeling of relaxation one gets when waxing a nice car on your day off. That is the feel I got from it. At first I thought that he was talikng to the car and telling it how good the wax was for it.

I read Carole's post before viewing the clip and visualized the "waxer" as having an affiar with the neighbors car and getting caught, then saying "Dude" this is not what it looks like.. etc.

That would be rather funny as well. Catching the guy waxing your car in your garage at night or something and having the camera move over the lines of the car then a hand massaging turtle wax onto the paint etc.

Lights come on and......

Not sure if that will sell wax or not but you know what they say about S E X...it sells. :)

[Carole Holli]

lol.

Expensive? I hope not. I was just mostly talking about staging. I'm a storyboard artist so staging and story is what I focus on. What's the point of view of the piece? Everything tells a story. I hope it doesn't cost money to get those shots (yes, I know its money for each set up-- but you shot a short, so I would figure that there would have been time to get it in that day.-- but I'm not saying reshoot-- I know its in the can)

You have a nice idea here with his piece, it just could be sold a little more strongly...
I learned from working with other decision makers in the past, take the theme of what they're saying, even if you don't agree with the ideas they offer.

for me the themes would be
1)the punchline was not as strong as it could have been
2)I didn't get a feeling that I wanted to go out and wax my car or want to buy turtlewax
3)I don't know what you want to demo? Is it to show your writing? your Shooting? Your directing? Your editing?

but then again, like I said, that's my humble opinion.

I didn't mean to come off as critical as well, its difficult to gauge how one sounds when one writes. So, I hope I did not discourage you. Hey, you did a piece of work, an actual tangible object to show folks, which is a lot more than a lot of people do. They just talk but do nothing. I only gave you my truthful opinion because I just know for myself, I want to get better, so I prefer to hear the hard stuff, not just its good and I like it.

Best wishes,

Carole

[Michael Azzariti]

Hello all,

Sorry for the delay in responding, I'm on a "real" big budget job this week.

To answer Carol's question, I come from a table top background (which you can view if you browse the rest of the website) and I wanted to try to shoot some people stuff. After studying a number of current on air spots, I notice that a trend is what I call (for lack of a better term) under-directed. That is the talent is rather casual as well as the writing and the production values. Colors are de-saturated and the light is a little flat, and the actual product is not really the center focus of the spot. Volkswagen has been airing spots with that look a lot in our market. This is a far change from the heavily art directed spots that focus only on the product that i am normally accustomed to making.

And this was my answer to that kind of you-tube-ish kind of look. I was hoping to demonstrate my ability to take an idea from concept to finish where people are involved. Clearly I could have used the help of an experienced writer (and real actors). I had written a rough script and was relying on the actor (who claimed improvisation skills) to flesh it out. In the time we had, very little was changed from the rough script I had written. My fault then for trusting the actors.;-)

Kind regards,

Michael Azzariti
Director Camerman
Black Bag Films, Inc

[Mike Williams]

Hi again,

I was actually thinking about this waiting for my to go order the other night.

What do you think about this version...

Guy A ( Owner of nice Car ) pulls into garage...

Guy B waves and nods as his neighbor pulls in

cut to lower light scene maybe some candles or something followed by hands massaging turtle wax onto the cars paint.

cut to next morning guy opens door to garage, looks around like something is out of place, looks over at the Turtle wax container which is half finished and has finger marks in it. guy A perplexed puts wax down ...

close up of Tutle Wax container on glossy surface...." Turtle Wax.. Yeah, it's that good."

something like that...

:)

I know I know... but I had to put that out there.

[Michael Azzariti]

I've done a few adjustments to the gamma curve, the sound and some color correction.

Motion graphics / voice over to follow.