Jimmy Kimmel Live
Ryan Reynold’s marketing company Maximum Effort was tasked by the Jimmy Kimmel team to recreate classic 80s commercials for their special “Live in Front of a TV Audience” episode. We recreated classic Jack in the Box, Brain on Drugs, and more. With that we shot everything in 4:3 aspect ration with lots of zooms as they would have shot them back then.
This was also a union shoot so everything moves a little slower. My team was one of the biggest i’ve been thankful to have. We had 3 cameras, 2 Geminis and 1 Raptor. 3 operators, 3 ACs, DIT, VTR and G&E was 4 and 4. Without everyone we wouldn’t have gotten through everything in time. We had 1 prelight and 2 days of shooting including some spots that never aired. With Maximum Effort they are creative geniuses and keep changing scripts until the last minute to the point we added 2 spots last minute. The entire cast, production team, everyone was amazing.
The most difficult part about this shoot was the kool aid man. He’s a giant mirror and much bigger than something like a helmet. His entire being reflects everything. The normal way to solve something like that is you have massive white diffusion so there isn’t any edges for the reflection however we did not have any room in that tiny studio. Everything inch of it was covered in the next set, lights, and people. So I did my research and turns out all the old commercials have light reflections literally all over him. It’s not something I was a huge fan of but it matched exactly the look we were trying to hit.
Sadly I don’t have any specific hidden secrets about this shoot but for anyone young reading this, we did use a decent amount of aputure lights which are very affordable and powerful. My gaffer and i have been touting them for years and now people are starting to catch on because of the 600D being such a beast. It’s basically an M18 for only $2,000.
Enjoy the BTS pictures below.