Editor Igor Kovalik and Santa Monica-based Beast further extended their creative reach on “World of Betters,” a six-week viral campaign for Western Union out of agency 180 Amsterdam. Well known as an editor, Kovalik, who’s chief creative officer of editorial house Beast, not only cut the project but directed several components, including a series of hourlong webcasts done over a six-week span, each live streaming event in a different city (New York, Mumbai, Paris, Johannesburg, Miami) and featuring a notable celeb, namely Alicia Keys, John Legend, Somali-born singer K’naan, Bollywood star Sunidhi Chauhan and rapper Pitbull.
Beast, part of the Deluxe Entertainment Services Group family of companies, served not only as the editorial house on the job but also teamed with The Bridge.com to handle production.
While Kovalik has directed a smattering of jobs in the past, this campaign for Western Union’s money-wiring services marks his highest-profile helming assignment to date. In addition to directing the streaming webcasts, Kovalik was one of three directors–the others being producer/director Bill Boyd and executive producer/creative director Michael Jurkovac, both of The Bridge.com–handling the pre-built packages designed to be used as B-roll during each 60-minute live event.
The campaign brought stars together to ask the question, “What would you do with $1,000 to make someone’s day better.”
Singer Keys gave back to her old high school, the Professional Performing Arts School in New York. During the students’ performance of “Empire State of Mind,” Keys made a surprise appearance and encouraged them to “continue to learn as much as you can learn and give back.”
Chauhan’s live stream focused on giving young girls in India the full Bollywood treatment. The young girls Mumbai embraced Chauhan when she entered their dressing room. Each girl learned the choreography for their video and received professional wardrobe and make-up. In their new outfits, the girls performed what they had learned in front of their parents.
K’naan hosted the live stream in Johannesburg, where he tapped into children’s love of soccer as a way to help them with their education. He gave to the students soccer balls that store the kinetic energy from kicking the ball and then use that energy to power a light that is attached to the ball. By playing with the soccer balls, the students are able to provide power to a light that they can use to study at night. K’naan’s gift equips the students with a way to learn and play.
In Paris, singer-songwriter Legend performed a free concert with a busking orchestra made up of street musicians from the city. The orchestra included singers, violinists, percussionists, guitarists, and saxophonists.
Pitbull’s live stream in Miami took place on December 17 and was the last stop in the campaign. Pitbull hosted an event at a public park were he makes it so Miami’s youth can express themselves through art, music, and physical activity. During his live stream, Pitbull conducted instructional demos of double dutch, break dancing, and rap battles.
Venus Brown of Buddah Brown Entertainment played a major role in assembling the artists for the campaign. Jurkovac, with help from Brown, wrote the concepts and soft-scripts for the live streams after approval from the artists. DP Brandon Cox oversaw the shooting of the roll-in packages and the live events.
The extensive undertaking involved new types of challenges for Kovalik, who would show up at each location (along with three or four camera operators using Canon 5Ds) to create all the B-roll, interviews and other elements unique to each specific city. Then, after shooting, he would edit clips together in Final Cut 7 on his laptop and have them all prepared for the livestream. Each event had about two to three days lead-up to accomplish everything in time for the livestream event. “The workflow was crazy,” said Kovalik. “It was totally guerilla filmmaking. We would be transcoding to ProRes 422 and cutting all night and shooting again all the next day.
“It helped that I was one of the directors of these B-roll packages though,” he explained. “As a director, I knew exactly what I needed for the edit; as an editor, I knew precisely what had been shot. It would have been almost impossible to do this with a more traditional work method where a director hands footage off to an editor. I can definitely see editors being more engaged and taking on more of this kind of creative roles in the future as these types of viral campaigns become more common.”
For the live streaming presentations, the team made use primarily of a NewTek TriCaster. Up to six cameras, mostly Sony EX3s, were patched into the TriCaster and all the packages Kovalik had put together were pre-loaded onto the unit’s DVR. “We could cue everything up and switch live,” said Kovalik, who subsequently built short cut-downs of each of the events. “It all went very well.”
Kovalik believes that this kind of alternative approach to marketing is going to become significantly more common in the future. “Agencies are trying to find different ways of piquing interest in what they’re doing,” he related. And as the kinds of productions are changing, he observed, so too are traditional roles.
“We editors have already ventured out of our comfortable edit rooms as the technology has allowed us to become more mobile,” Kovalik said. “And I think these kinds of productions are the next evolution in the ‘mobile editor.’ We can be more involved than ever before in the creative process.”
The 180 Amsterdam team included executive creative director Al Moseley, creative director Dean Maryon, creatives Bryan Stewart and Ed Ryder, digital designer Matthew Steenburg, user experience director Jonathan Conaty, managing director Stephen Corlett, head of production Susan Cook, sr. producer Stephanie Oakley, producer Eline Bakker, sr. digital producer Anna Stolyarova and digital producer Tamara Mahoney.
Kamala Harris Receives Chairman’s Prize At NAACP Image Awards
Former Vice President Kamala Harris stepped on the NAACP Image Awards stage Saturday night with a sobering message, calling the civil rights organization a pillar of the Black community and urging people to stay resilient and hold onto their faith during the tenure of President Donald Trump.
"While we have no illusions about what we are up against in this chapter in our American story, this chapter will be written not simply by whoever occupies the oval office nor by the wealthiest among us," Harris said after receiving the NAACP's Chairman's Award. "The American story will be written by you. Written by us. By we the people."
The 56th annual Image Awards was held at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium in the Los Angeles area.
Harris, defeated by Trump in last year's presidential election, was the first woman and the first person of color to serve as vice president. She had previously been a U.S. senator from California and the state's attorney general.
In her first major public appearance since leaving office, Harris did not reference her election loss or Trump's actions since entering the Oval Office, although Trump mocked her earlier in the day at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Harris spoke about eternal vigilance, the price of liberty, staying alert, seeking the truth and America's future.
"Some see the flames on our horizons, the rising waters in our cities, the shadows gathering over our democracy and ask 'What do we do now?'" Harris said. "But we know exactly what to do, because we have done it before. And we will do it again. We use our power. We organize, mobilize. We educate. We advocate. Our power has never come from having an easy path."
Other winners of the Chairman's prize have included former... Read More