no time like now

See the ad. Read about the Splash into Life! ad too.

concept This was the first ad we produced. We wanted the "feel" of the commercial to be calm and relaxing. Kind of like the television commercials for Corona beer (usually just one shot of a beach scene, no music, natural sound), but to a lesser extent. We sketched some pictures of serene-looking visuals and went from there. Thinking of the slogan was kind of challenging. The visuals (and the fact that we planned on having them in sepia) seemed to suggest serenity and peace. We felt that the sepia tones would evoke the past as being simple and carefree. That's what led us to include the idea of time in the slogan. We wanted to say that yeah, times were simpler then, but you can still get that feeling by drinking Splash. We were considering "there's no day like today," but we felt it was too similar to RENT's "no day but today." We finally decided on "there's no time like now" because, to us, less syllables means more impact and it just sounded more like an ad. In fact, the slogan doesn't make all that much sense when you really try to analyze it, but for a 15 second spot, we thought it was pretty good. production This ad was fairly straightforward to shoot. One of the biggest challenges was getting Sneakers (Dawn's dog) to act bored. The second biggest challenge was lighting. Because all the scenes were shot outdoors, natural lighting was incredibly important. We found that afternoons were the best because the light tends to have a warmer quality and unlike noon sunlight, when the sun is directly overhead, afternoon sunlight allows for some shadows (which add depth to the subject being shot, uh, filmed). The concluding shot of Darren sitting under the tree brought up the issue of race. Because the ad deals with the past and seems sort of "classic," we felt it might be a bit jarring to use a Japanese actor. So we had him sit facing away from the camera :-). We purposely did not include the Splash soda can in the advertisement. This is because we wanted the emphasis to be on nature and peace, rather than on the soda which is pretty much sugar, artificial flavoring and water. This is a technique once used by Marlbroro print ads to emphasize clean and pristine qualities of nature rather than the harmful side effects of smoking (one ad consisted of a few cowboys in the foreground dwarfed by a vast expanse of sky and plains). post-production As mentioned, we used sepia tones to make the ad seem warmer and to evoke the past. However, we couldn't find a good sepia filter in Adobe Premiere or Adobe After Effects (and since we were relatively new to both programs and were on deadline, we couldn't make one). This meant using the video camera's sepia effect. Since we wanted to give visitors the option of seeing the ad in color also, we needed to get each shot twice; once in sepia and once in regular color. We used slow dissolves to transition between almost every shot because dissolves are gentler than plain cuts. We also reduced the speed of each clip to 65%, adding to the peaceful feel of the ad by giving it a slower dreamlike quality. Because file size and download time were important issues, we compressed the ad so it was less than a megabyte. If size weren't an issue, we would have set the frame rate to 24 frames per second, that of film, rather than uasing the standard video rate of 30 frames per second. We ended up making the movie at 8 frames per second. NOTE: The actor in this ad is Dawn's brother Darren Sueoka. Check out Rock Revolution, his entry into the Think Quest '98 competition. sources: Leslie Savan. The Sponsored Life. Courtland L. Bovee and William F. Arens. Contemporary Advertising. H. Ted Busch and Terry Landeck. The Making of a Television Commercial. Douglas Kellner. Media Culture. back