My SPW NewsPage View

Academy Award^® nominee, Jeffrey Karoff, recently partnered with Commonwealth//McCann to create a holiday campaign for Chevrolet featuring not actors, but real employees. “The focus of the creative was warmth and sincerity, so the challenge for us was to help these real people to feel relaxed enough for that to happen naturally,” says Karoff.

“To create a natural feel, the bar couldn’t be higher—asking real folks to say scripted lines,” says Karoff. "It’s never natural for non-pros to speak into the black hole of a lens. The Interrotron is a great solution, but I wanted a handheld, homey look. We searched for a lightweight Interrotron—no one had it. So I tasked my DP, Anghel Decca, with crafting a solution.”

“I won’t tell you how we did it, but Anghel’s rig made it possible for the camera to be close to our talent with the digital me supered over the lens. We achieved all the intimacy of handheld while providing the non-actors the comfort of talking directly to me.”

Both Karoff and the agency also wanted the spots to convey a sense of scope and scale, with just one day’s shoot per spot. “We were able to pull this off because we had such a close, collaborative relationship with the whole Commonwealth//McCann team. Everyone was totally on the same page creatively, which allowed us to make decisions quickly and efficiently. The agency and GM are proud of how the spots turned out, and so are we.”