Well after years of contests, I finally got paid to do a commercial!

Ok, so here's the backstory. As my day job I work at a shoe store in the Merritt Island Mall. The owner of "The Pretzel Twister" was talking to me and he mentioned that he just got done with a commercial for his business. I was curious so I checked it out.

IT SUCKED ASS!!!!!!

He wasn't happy about it either, so I charged him the same amount he paid for the first commercial (only $300, but he's a friend so I cut him a good deal) and gave him something a billion times better.

Here's what he originally paid for:
YouTube - The Pretzel Twister of Merritt Island, Florida (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAPTHZNQgwc)

This is what I gave him:
"The Pretzel Twister" Commercial on Vimeo

Let me know what you think.

Not a terrible local spot at all, but a jib, and a slider, and music license fee for $300 will put you out of business really really fast. Let this be the only time you cut someone that kinda deal or you'll regret it. Speaking of the music, what is it? Don't they use that in those Mozy commercials? It's used in something national, and I think that's it.

The only small quibble I had with it were the moving product shots. Those could possibly have been done as static shots to show off the product better, but then you would have had to do separate setups for each one and since this thing was $300 I doubt that was in the budget.

Good luck with the business.

Oh trust me, I've already had quite a few discussions on why I shouldn't charge that low from now on, and I totally agree. The music is actually one of the Freeplay tracks from Soundtrack Pro. So hooray for no music license fees!

And this was my first product shot so I definitely know its something I need to work on.

Thanks man, I'll definitely need the luck.

Awesome job man! The jib and slider were great touches and really made that commercial work. The other guys work makes me hate people like that who consider themselves anything close to an artist.

Don't sweat the lowball price, everyone has to do something like that at some point. Heck, I still give away work on almost all my projects because I want to try something new but don't want to bill the client for my education.

Your product looks great, I'm sure they were thrilled.