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They Wanted:
A creative video presentation spoofing four popular current commercials for the JC Penney’s annual managers’ conference. They turned to IdeaMan for creative solutions to their seriously complex production challenges.

We Produced:
Parodies of four highly recognized commercials airing at the time: Capital One’s “Viking” spots, Progressive Insurance’s “Flo” commercials, Subway’s “Five Dollar Foot Long,” and Geico’s “Talking Pothole.” Can you believe, they even let us alter the JC Penney logo to look like the three other brands!

How IdeaMan Did It:

Each spot came with its own set of challenges:

The “Viking” spot required an overnight shoot at a JC Penney store. Working with little time and resources, IdeaMan had to emulate the look of a spot costing many times more. The final shot involved the accurate timing of falling live objects, mixed with computer generation, to create the illusion that an arrow is shot and barely misses the spokesperson’s head.

Watch the Spot Here. The “Five Dollar Foot Long” send-up required shooting dancers on our green screen stage and compositing them into shots of the store to give the production a graphic layered look. A big part of the Subway spot is the music, so we wrote and recorded a “Penney’s” version of the song.

Listen to It Here. The Progressive Insurance spot involved casting a talented “Flo” lookalike, and shooting the spot on our green screen stage. Later, IdeaMan would composite the actors over a computer generated set, along with several layers of extras. Here’s the final result.

Watch It Here.

They Wanted:
An engaging video to increase student enrollment by demonstrating the benefits of attending The Shlenker School, Houston’s oldest private Reform Jewish day school for students from 15 months to fifth grade. Oh yeah, just a couple minor details: the school had never shot anything before so the project had to be put together completely from scratch (just the kind of project we like!), and the finished video was needed for Show and Tell at a major conference one week later.

We Produced:
A nine-minute video that presented a well-rounded view of The Shlenker School, combining on-camera interviews with teachers, students, parents and administrators, with classroom and outdoor footage. The production received high marks from school administrators who told IdeaMan the video has helped tremendously in their recruitment and enrollment effort.

In addition to the completed video, Shlenker also had hours of material documenting their school that they will continue to draw from for years. The following year, IdeaMan was called upon to pull from the existing material and edit a welcome video for those newly accepted students and their families. We didn’t have to repeat a thing.

How IdeaMan Did It:
Quickly and efficiently. We spent three days in Houston getting interviews with teachers, kids, administrators, and parents. We shot the interviews using the RED ONE™ camera to give the production a high-end film look. At the same time, we shot Steadicam material of all the unique classroom situations and outdoor activities that Shlenker offers.

Next, back in Dallas, we poured through over 800 GB of interview footage to find the gems that would tell the final story. We posted the videos at various stages of completion, so the group in Houston could see how the piece was developing. The day before the screening we added the final music and graphics to the piece. Shlenker downloaded it the next day and it showed to a crowd that evening. We were happy to help.

They Wanted
To wow employees with a motivational opening video at the Symantec annual conference in Las Vegas.

We Produced
A mind-bending reloaded version of “The Matrix” starring Symantec executives with Keanu Reeves and Lawrence Fishburn.

How IdeaMan Did It
Picture hundreds of Symantec employees – in Vegas! Neon, flashing lights, slot machines ringing everywhere. This video had to grab attention, entertain, encourage and motivate a live audience of tech-focused people who make software like Norton AntiVirus and Norton Utilities for a living.

Our big idea was to inject Symantec executives into the story line of the film “The Matrix” and have them exchange dialogue with Reeves and Fishburn’s characters about the advantages of using Symantec software to keep their systems safe.

Created for presentation on a huge screen, the video involved shooting the executives on green screen. Several of the shots were hand held or dolly shots, using motion tracking to match their movements to the scene in the movie. The green screen footage was then seamlessly embedded into existing movie footage in our digital edit suites. We laid down a completely new soundtrack in our audio studio, using a voice actor to impersonate Keanu Reeves as Neo and Hugo Weaving as Agent Smith, and remixed the audio with new sound effects and music.