Pitchmen

For the next few weeks, in preparation for our video debut, we began to write some copy. Naturally, I shared my ideas with John at which point he turns to me and states he had written some copy and he wants to surprise me with it. Well, that did not sit well with me and knowing how much pride John has in his work, it did not take too much coxing on my part for him to share. True to his persona, he took the ideas that we had and brought them to a new level. Much of which you hear today was John's doing.

With the weekend date set, my back yard as the location and my version of John's copy (with my own spin), I felt that we were ready to go. I began to envision how I would direct the shots, sequence and location. We were going to use John's Sony Handicam to recorded the pitches. On the day of the shoot, unfortunately, we needed to postpone the shoot due to inclement weather and rescheduled the shoot for the following Saturday.
Saturday, high noon, on the day of the shoot, the Ingrassia's walked over to my back yard. While his family quickly moved to the deck, John and I began to strategize on location. I wanted a more shady area, adjacent to the deck, while John desired a sunny spot in front of the deck. In the end, we filmed in both locations and left it up to me in the editing room to make things look good.
Like the pro's, we both had printed our copy and looked for a place to hang the copy, like a teleprompter. I, being the gentlemen, allowed John to pitch the product first, and truth be told, I was nervous. I told John that I would like to record this in segments, like the pro's. Unfortunately, he shot me down and wanted it all in one take. We took his monologue video and reviewed it on the PC, were we learned a few things.
Armed with the knowledge from the first, rough video, we tweaked the set by repositioning the charcoal, the CharBQ grill and the copy. Again, I played the part of the producer and John was the talent. We recorded in segments, in order and multiple shots for both John and myself. Then, we moved to the shady area and repeated the process. It took us approximately 3.5 to 4 hours, using two DVD disk and both prototype units.
Shooting was a blast, and I discovered a new found love, pitching products. Now for the hard part, learning to edit the video. After a week of many hours of edited, we had two main videos, with two different pitchmen styles. In the end, all videos, including the bloopers, were added to the website