Commercial Advice, Help, Direction, Dangers, Don't Do's...etc.

[Donald Harvey]

I am going to be producing a Commercial for class, and was wondering if anyone could through what the title of this post says my way. Maybe give me a quick run through of what exactly is the basic of how a commercial for a restaurant should look.

Thanks for the help!

 

[j]

Not to be snide, but just watch what you see on local tv and copy it.

(I teach a production class and one of the assignments is to produce a commercial...)

 

[clang]

Plan, plan, plan. I'd do the entire thing as rough storyboards, then scan them in and load them into your NLE to create a pre-vis version of the ad. That will help immensely with knowing what sets/backgrounds/actors/costumes/etc you need, and whether the ad is interesting. I know it sounds like a lot of work, but it saves so many problems in production - and will probably also impress your teacher.

Is the ad for a fake/pretend restaurant, or a real one?

If the former, you'll need to work out how to fake the restaurant interior/exterior (or not show either, e.g. maybe just close-ups of food?)

If the latter, you'll probably need cooperation from that restaurant - make the most of the opportunity and treat it like a real ad, talk to the manager, work out what bits of the restaurant will look good, how's the lighting etc, when's a good time to film and so on. If the restaurant end up liking your ad (even if it's never shown anywhere except their Xmas party), that will also impress your teacher.

As for content, as j says, watch lots of real ads. An upmarket classy restaurant ad looks very different to one for your local greasy burger joint.

Either way, food is very likely to be shown! So where will you get it from? Photographing food (and making it look good) is an art form all by itself - some practice would be a good idea.