Be it nine-to-five or on-call, dream job or temping, studying or saving, whatever it is you are working towards, earning your money and building your future comes at a cost. This is the premise behind the latest TVC for Coronation Fund Managers, driven by the investment house’s understanding of how hard it is for their clients to earn their money.
Making use of scenes of real people in their real jobs, and set to a tune almost assured to get stuck in your head, the TVC shows a string of hard-working South Africans in a smorgasbord of scenarios that show the blood, sweat and tears behind the triumphs of making a living.
Along with their campaign, Coronation has a microsite becauseitsyourmoney.com where a series of short films look at the lives of a SA fireman, a pro golfer and a businesswoman.
Coronation’s slogan ‘Trust is earned’ is encapsulated in the ad’s message, with the company recognising that clients have had to pay their dues, make sacrifices, step out of their comfort zones, and overcome all sorts of challenges to make their money. So they know what a big deal it is putting it in the hands of a financial advisor. “If your money came easy,” says the TVC, “you’d invest it with anyone.”
Produced by Star Films for Net#work BBDO, the commercial was shot over seven days in and around Cape Town. “The concept of the commercial was to portray a variety of people working hard, in all walks of life and all careers,” says Adam Thal, executive producer at Star Films. “No matter who you are, you work hard for your money, so why not let Coronation invest that for you because they work just as hard to earn your trust.”
Speaking about the look and feel, Thal says they aimed to portray real life: “Everything that we showed in the commercial was real and nothing staged. We used real people in real professions in real environments in real careers. Even our camera technique was to go as real as possible using handheld movements and natural lighting.”
The TVC was shot using an Arri Alexa with Hawk Anamorphic lenses. “We kept the lighting and gripping as natural as possible and hence used minimal lighting in each space and handheld camera movements throughout,” explains Thal.
The commercial was shot in March 2016 and released to television on 1 May 2016. “Although the shoot process was seven days,” Thal says “The entire process once Star Films was brought onto the project lasted more than four months.”
This posed the biggest challenge the production would face. “We had to shoot 60 scenes within seven days,” says Thal. He explains how the team were constantly on the move throughout the week, shooting more than eight scenes per day. “Scheduling was the hardest part as each scene required its own cast, location, wardrobe, lighting, etc,” Thal adds. “So the job was scheduled down to the last extra using every minute of available daylight.”
Post-production was done by Upstairs LUDUS, who were contacted by Star Films to facilitate the international grade performed by Company 3 in New York. Joe Erasmus, executive producer at LUDUS says: “Our colourists Nic Apostoli and Michele Wilson supervised the process to make sure that everything ran smoothly.” He explains that they set up a live feed with the post house in NYC so that Star and Net#work could view and give feedback as the grading took place.
Star then completed the project in Johannesburg with LUDUS online artist Nicholas Young. The grade was completed on Davinci Resolve and the online by Young was completed on Autodesk Smoke.
“We worked well with the other facility in creating a workflow that best suited the situation,” says Erasmus. “The only real challenge we experienced was the time difference between New York and Johannesburg. With an excellent team, however, comes excellent expertise and in the end an excellent product. It is great to be able to show the industry that we are capable of providing a standard of product and service that is on the same level as some of the best in the world.”
Marc Algranti was responsible for sourcing the music track and managed to find a seemly track that had not yet been released commercially. “With music playing an extremely important part in any commercial,” adds Thal, “we found that we were able to marry the picture perfectly to the edgy soundtrack.” By Cera-Jane Catton
Key crew:
- Coronation Fund Managers: Marketing manager – Janis Feuillette.
- Network BBDO: Chief creative officer – Mike Schalit. Art director – Juliet Honey. Copywriter – Jeff Tyser. Producer – Lee-Anne Jacobz. Client service – Lena Smith.
- Star Films: Director – Tristan Holmes. Exec. Producer – Adam Thal. Producer – Ksenija Micic. DOP – Danny Hiele. Art Director – Wendy Frederikson.
- Deliverance: Editor – Ricky Boyd. Grade – Tom Poole.
- Ludus: Grade facilitation – Nic Apostoli. Online – Nic Young. Post producer – Joe Erasmus.
- Frequency: Audio – Dave Harris.
- Music – Marc Algranti
