The Filming of a TV Commercial

Contributed by Rtr Vivien Kuah

Upon request by our beloved president, I have decided to write a little about my job while working in an advertising agency. This article might give a little insight to those of you who have no idea at all how a TV commercial (TVC) is done. The process might vary to different agencies and TVCs, but the below is an account of my experience in my job.

Upon successful persuasion and presentation of our advertising campaign, the agency will develop creatives (or storyboard in the case of a TVC) to be presented to the client for approval. Usually, there would be several rounds of revisions or new creatives before we have total approval and satisfaction from our client and then we will proceed to contact several production houses (recommended by our creative/art director of the project) to pitch for the job.

The agency storyboard will be given to the production houses and they will be asked to provide costings and director's treatment for the ad to us. We will then choose the production house with the best director that we feel is suitable for that particular ad together upon approval of the costings from our client.

Once the production house and director is selected, we will hold pre-production meetings with the producer and director to discuss about how we want the ad to be as well as what effects (computer graphics, etc.) are best to bring out the message of the ad. Changes or effects discussed will be reflected in shooting boards or sample shots by the director to be approved.

Locations setting will also be discussed as well as the talents (models) for the ad, their wardrobe, etc. After 2 pre-pro meetings with production house, the final pre-pro will be held together with the client to show them everything we've discussed in the earlier pre-pros to seek their approval.

Upon final discussions and revisions, we will proceed to the wardrobe fitting session, where we'll meet the talents and choose their dressing for the commercial.

Then, comes the day of the shooting. Shooting normally lasts at least a day, depending on the amount of locations needed to be shot for the ad. My experience so far was 1 full day of shooting, all in just 1 location only. We started shooting at 9am and finished at 11pm. There were about 25 scenes that we had to shoot and each scene took at least 6 takes. Totally exhausting!

We will then have an Offline session, where the rough shots will be arranged according to how they should appear in the ad without any touch up and computer effects for our aproval of the flow of the ad.

This will be followed by several CG (stands for Cine Graph if I'm not mistaken) Reviews where the computer effects are added in and the shots are touched up. Also needed would be the V/O (Voice Over) Recordings which will be done in a studio to match with the final compiled ad. After everything is thought to be finalised, we will have an online meeting, where the final outcome of the ad will be reviewed. If everything goes well, the ad can then be transferred into Digital Betacams and delivered to the TV stations to be aired.

P.S:
The above proceedings have of course been simplified and shortened, and is reflected in the most ideal of situatuions, where the client has total agreement with the opinions of the agency and production house, and the production house understands totally the 'feel' and requirements that the agency want out of the ad.

Another thing to bear in mind as well is that all these procedures and revisions have to be done within a very limited time frame, sometimes only of around 1 month to complete the whole TVC.