Author: sumra1

My commercial tells the story of 5 kids on a treasure hunt and for most of their journey they are on bikes. Filming the bike scenes were a challenge, but researching ’80s films that managed to capture the intensity, magic and adventure of a bike chase helped to gain an insight into how to best film it.

The most important thing is the setting – choosing a wide, almost barren landscape is ideal. However, there were limitations set on me – I couldn’t realistically take the kids I’m shooting with out of the area we were filming in, which is a built-up area. This did take away some of the magic of the scene.

However this clip in particular helped me to still capture the action and adventure through POV shots (1:17), close-up shots of dirt and wheels (2:27). Furthermore, the music (fast-paced and quick) also sped up the action, with the sounds of the bikes, and kids further enhancing an already action-packed, adrenaline-inducing, and emotional scene.

 

My commercial will be set in the present day but draws heavily on ’80s nostalgia, particularly adventure films like The Goonies. Much like The Goonies, my commercial follows a straight-forward linear narrative of a group of kids finding treasure using an old pirate map.

I made a decision early on to not include any actual sounds or dialogue – just Devo’s “Whip It”. So I needed to be able to clearly convey a linear narrative with no dialogue , almost like a silent film. To me, Cyndi Lauper “Goonies R Good Enough” music video is a great example of this, making good use of wide shots to blatantly show actions.

Furthermore, in the actual film the song is used to start the adventure, filling the audience with anticipation for whats to come.