You Have Exactly 30 Seconds

Have you ever seen a commercial you really liked? Have you ever stopped to think why you liked it?  Was it funny? Did it move you? Was it so visually stunning you forgot you were watching a 30 second ad?

As part of our class discussion in my Video Camera and Lighting Techniques class, we shared links to our favorite commercials and discussed why we liked them. We replayed the commercials and analyzed the shots. We tried to figure out why things were shot a certain way to emphasize the story that was being told.

This discussion led to our next topic and our first assignment: creating a storyboard. Our task is to create a storyboard based on a TV commercial script. The storyboard is going to have several panels, which will include a rough sketch of what the shot will look like, camera directions, and dialogue. I think the biggest challenge creating a commercial is that you have exactly 30 seconds, no more, no less, to tell your story.

What’s cool about this assignment is that we’ll actually get to film it as well. I’m very interested to see how my classmates have interpreted the script, and what camera directions they decide to follow. I imagine we’ll all have different ideas even though we’re working off the same script, and we’ll learn from everyone’s creativity.