SPRING BREAK with 7DAYS

Champaign on a Beer Budget

“No money”. It’s always a good place to start. Especially when you need to generate interest in one of the longest running and most successful comedy shows in New Zealand. But, that’s where we were. And, undaunted, I developed an idea to take the talent out and shoot them all buried in the sand at a fixed location one morning. We’d save on budget by not needing wardrobe. Just a couple cheap party props littered around the beach… And dogs. The dogs weren’t cheap. Luckily the fake urine was. Here are the storyboards I used while developing the shot list:

Animatic

Of course, anytime you pitch something a bit risqué people will have questions about it. To help ease their minds I took my images from the storyboards and cut them together in a quick little animatic to give them an idea how the finished spot would go. Ultimately, we did shoot some extra dialogue and improv by the comedy talent on the day. The animatic helped the talent to see how the spot would come together. Here it is in all it’s glory:

Final Spot

And then we buried them. Well, we actually had a pretty neat rig that was purpose built for the day that had the majority of their bodies sheltered from the weight of the sand by a piece of plywood. It was a tough scramble to get all the coverage I needed as quickly as possible because the guys were quite uncomfortable. Also, the tide was rising, and I didn’t want headlines about a crazy director that drowned New Zealand’s top three comedians. Here’s the finished spot: