A Lipstick Commercial? During a Global Pandemic?

 

RK Kiss Lipstick But Make it Punk

You may be asking yourself why we thought a lipstick commercial would be perfect to shoot during these trying times of a poorly handled pandemic. You may even be questioning my groups state of mind and to be quite honest you're right for it. So, without further ado some possible answers.

Product and Concept

My group decided pretty much right off the bat to produce a lipstick commercial and to do it in a way that politely yelled we are marketing this product to alternative kids and we are very happy about it. Not really actually it was more like hey, maybe we can do a lipstick commercial and we wanted to take it in a direction most people probably wouldn't have thought of or would have avoided so we took heavy inspiration from some of the punk scene as well as other alternative subcultures. Personally I'm really glad we went where we did with this because I still remember being made fun of in middle school for being alt so creating something like this and seeing it be appreciated is kind of fun.

Process

My group tried to squeeze the entire process into as small a window as possible to get it all aligned with everyone's schedules and availability which felt much more daunting than it actually was. We all just talked about it for a solid amount of time and then split the pre-production work into it's respective pieces, gave it to it's respective people, and did the work to the best of our abilities so as to respect everyone's time and effort throughout this project.

Once pre-production was done we set our filming date and started talking more about art direction for the video. We had already decided on darker colors and outfits to fit with an alt aesthetic so the clothes for the most part were completely black just with different silhouettes. We gave Miriam the purple lipstick to match the tips of her hair and originally gave Shaylee a maroon one to match the tank top under the shredded t-shirt but we lost that and went with a nice black to match the whole fit overall.

Filming went smoothly for the most part. Towards the beginning we were all kind of unmotivated but by the end of it we had a good time and got everything we wanted done. Some of us even got lunch before and just kind of chilled since it had been around seven months since we last saw each other in person. That definitely took away from our filming because we all just wanted to talk to one another and see how these past months have gone for everyone. But yeah we filmed and then Shaylee worked her magic for the editing phase.

What I Actually Did

I wrote the little two column script for this commercial as well as the art direction and locations which honestly is shocking to no one. The script wasn't too difficult to figure out I just had to get used to where things needed to be and like keeping track of which column was for the audio or the video. After I kind of figured that out it went by really smoothly since it wasn't a very complicated commercial or anything like that. For art direction I just went really dark and what I would typically wear but on different people but, I only ever wear black so honestly this was perfect. I even brought in a couple of shirts that I had DIY'd myself in the past, and we ended up using a t-shirt I just completely shredded and through a maroon tank underneath for coverage because majority of that shirt is just holes. For location I just thought downtown in Olathe would be perfect for it especially with the parking garage and then the brick buildings and alleys.

Hey, What About Next Time?

Next time I would definitely try and flesh out the script more since there was some confusion in what shots were needed for some of the scenes that weren't described in as much detail. I might even work to put out a shot list just to really know exactly what needs to be filmed and the order that makes most sense to do it in. I'd also like to just give more time to art direction because I feel like we could have pushed more in that direction to make the visuals in the commercial more striking and different to what you would usually see in e-Comm. Otherwise I think it went pretty well and it was nice to kind of get back in the swing of things video wise.

That's a Wrap 

This was a good time and a fun first video for this year.