The Trailblazer Studios family of companies — Red Truck Films, Serious Robots, and Blazing Music + Sound — demonstrated the art and Xyience of making effective commercials with a pair of 30-second spots, shot and posted in HD, for the dietary supplement Breakfast Bars. The commercials, featuring UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) middleweight champ Rich Franklin and UFC welterweight champ Matt Hughes, are airing on MTV and SPIKE. Xyience is a major sponsor of UFC Pay Per View events.

Red Truck Films shot the two commercials in HD for PositiveImage Video, which produced the package for Xyience. Red Truck brought in Rob Cohen to direct the Wilmington, North Carolina-based shoot, which Red Truck DP Garye Costner lensed with a Sony Cine Alta HD camera.

‘It hard to get people from the West Coast to consider shooting in North Carolina, but we convinced PositiveImage executive producer Anthony Giordano to take a leap of faith with us,’ says executive producer Jeff Lanter. ‘Once we get people here, we have them. When we can get somebody through the door from outside the region, we’sve been able to keep them as customers.’

DP Costner believes the two-day 24p HD shoot at numerous locations gave ‘a unique look’ to the pair of commercials.

In the fast-paced ‘Xyience 101’ Rich Franklin plays a high-school science teacher who asks his students, ‘What is Xyience?’ To illustrate the benefits of the breakfast bars he puts his students through a series of physical tests — running on a treadmill, lifting weights. Those sampling the tasty Xyience product outperform their classmates who ate ?‚àö√ë‚àö‚â§other’s brands. The spot concludes with a student asking Franklin if he eats Xyience Breakfast Bars followed by quick cuts to Franklin in the ring and a Xyience vending machine in the school corridor with Franklin image on it.

In ‘Simple Life,’ Matt Hughes laments that with all the demands that come with being champ he doesn’st even have time for a country breakfast anymore. Xyience Breakfast Bars are a perfect breakfast replacement for Hughes who is shown juggling chores on his farm with training and making red carpet promotional appearances.

Serious Robots pushed to edit the spots in their native HD resolution to gain flexibility in compositing and color-correction ‘The spots were shot really well, which gave me a lot of latitude in post,’ notes Scott Roy who cut the commercials. ‘For ?‚àö√ë‚àö‚â§Xyience 101’s we simulated a very edgy bleach bypass look in Avid DS Nitris, while we gave ?‚àö√ë‚àö‚â§Simple Life’s a warmer look with sepia tones on some of the farm shots showing Matt throwing hay into a truck and carrying tires for the tractor.’

Roy onlined the spots and output them in SD letterbox; HD masters serve to futureproof the commercials. At another Trailblazer company, Blazing Music + Sound, Aaron Keane composed the spots’s dynamic original tracks, and Keane and Willie Elias performed the sound design and mix.

PositiveImage Giordano found that ‘we got more value for our dollar in North Carolina than in LA. We would have had to change the creative to make them affordable if we stayed in Los Angeles. By working with Red Truck, we were able to produce the commercials we wanted at the price we needed.

‘All of the Trailblazer facilities offered everything we required and more,’ Giordano continues. ‘Everyone was great, really top level. They did a terrific job on the spots. Xyience and UFC were very happy. We may do more spots, and if we do I’sll certainly go back to the Trailblazer Studios companies.’

Credits
Agency: PositiveImage Video Inc.
Director: Rob Cohen
Executive Producer: Anthony Giordano
Producer: Bob Nastasi

Production Co.: Red Truck Films/Raleigh
DP: Garye Costner
Executive Producer: Jeff Lanter
Producer: Graham Redmond

Editorial: Serious Robots/Raleigh
Editor: Scott Roy

Music & Mix: Blazing Music + Sound/Raleigh
Composer: Aaron Keane
Sound Design/Mix: Aaron Keane, Willie Elias