Azad Jafarian is an Iranian born filmmaker who came to the U.S. at 14, graduated from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts in 2001 and began making films, including “Lady Liberty,” a short film about a young girl who blackmails a U.S. senator that won the Palm de Grease award at the Duke City Shootout moviemaking competition in 2005. Jafarian turned his attention to video advertising recently and made spots that are running at Current TV and iFilm. “Not for Girls,” the L’Oréal spot that is running on Current TV, has received over 1.3 million views on YouTube in the past two months.
His experience making broadband video ads displays the medium as a valuable opportunity for young filmmakers. Not only do they learn how to perfect their filmmaking skills by making short films that express “the value of each and every frame,” as Jafarian said, but they also can earn money that makes life in the frenzied world of filmmaking a little easier. Jafarian discusses his experiences shooting video ads with iChat.
iSPOT: Tell us about your background as a filmmaker.
Jafarian: I went to the USC film school and graduated in ’01, then made a lot of short films for myself. I made them for personal reasons to experiment with low budget or no budget filmmaking. I submitted the screen play for Lady Liberty to a film festival in New Mexico and it was picked to be one of seven films they funded to make. The idea was to fly out filmmakers to make the films in seven days in New Mexico. The jury, headed by Tom Jones, selected it as the best film, best design and best music.
iSPOT: Tell us more about the film.
Jafarian: It’s a film about a girl who blackmails a U.S. senator with the help of her boyfriend. It’s my answer to Bush’s reelection in 2004. I didn’t want to make another Bush-bashing Moore-esque film, but rather a short film that questioned the democratic process as a whole. It’s too big a story to be told in 12 minutes, but that’s what I did.
iSPOT: How did you get started making video ads?
Jafarian: A friend told me about Current TV, which is the TV station started by Al Gore that has a section called VCAM (Viewer Created Ad Messages). I submitted the L’Oréal short. I shot it in about one hour with a couple of my friends and posted it on the website. After a couple of months it was picked by Current TV to air, then L’Oréal bought the web rights so they can use it to advertise on the Net. I saw it on YouTube. In the meantime I did other ads for Current TV and entered a competition on iFilm for Quiznos that won second prize. It’s playing on iFilm and it may be playing on the Quiznos website.
iSPOT: How did you come up with the idea for the L’Oréal spot?
Jafarian: I set a limitation for myself. I wanted to do it quickly. Most good commercials have a hot girl in them and it’s a product for men. I know men don’t pay attention to products like lotion and don’t do the shopping. If anyone will buy it, it’s a woman, a girlfriend, wife or a mother even. I wanted to appeal to both men and women so I came up with the idea of a girl turning into a frog who would have to be kissed by her boyfriend.
iSPOT: How did you shoot it?
Jafarian: It took a half hour to shoot by myself with one camera in a room and no lighting. I used a Panasonic DVX camera. The few frames with the frog took another 45 minutes to get the frog to do what I wanted. That was the only cost for the film, $6 for a frog, and I returned it to the pet store.
iSPOT: Did the Toyota and T-Mobile spots also play at Current TV?
Jafarian: The T-Mobile spot was picked and is now airing on Current TV. The Toyota spot hasn’t been picked yet.
iSPOT: How did you shoot each of them?
Jafarian: Same method as the L’Oréal spot. No crew, no lights, just me, a Panasonic DVX100 camera and my friends-as-actors. The T-Mobile spot I shot in my house in about two hours using my sister, Niousha, and an actor friend of hers, Chris Waters, playing the boyfriend. In one shot I sat in as the boyfriend’s best friend and had my sister operate the camera. The Toyota spot I shot in my garage. My friend Daniel Lee played the lead and provided his Toyota Corolla, while my actress friend Cecile Bull played the part of the angry girlfriend. We shot her part in 20 minutes, then we shot Daniel’s part in another 30 minutes. Editing was the fun part for both spots, because you have to tell a story in 30 seconds and you learn the true value of each and every frame. I spent about four hours editing each spot.
iSPOT: Can you tell us how the Quiznos spot was made?
Jafarian: My friend Tony Swarthout and I learned about the Quiznos/iFilm ad competition and their $10,000 first prize on a Thursday and decided to shoot and submit a spot each the following Sunday. So I came up with the “Don’t be cheap” idea based on my own personal feelings towards Subway compared with Quiznos. Ironically, the only money spent for this shoot was for Subway sandwiches that I bought everyone for lunch. We gathered at my friend Jennifer Hutchinson’s apartment in Hollywood and shot the spot in less than an hour. Her apartment was very dark, so I was surprised that I got anything to register using the natural light from the window, and the Gain set to 12db. Luckily, the web medium is very forgiving when it comes to technical flaws. By Sunday night I edited the piece and submitted it. Later they called me from iFilm and told me my spot won the runner-up. So I got a year’s worth of sandwiches and a video i-Pod. Not bad for a day’s work. Snippets of the spot ran on a random VH1 show.
iSPOT: How did you develop the ideas for the spots?
Jafarian: I came up with the ideas by thinking about what I had to use in my immediate surroundings. For the Toyota spot I had my friend Daniel Lee, who had a Toyota, and our garage. It’s always good to have a pretty girl in a commercial. So the idea derived from putting all those elements together. The T-Mobile spot was written for my sister who I knew I could always count on, her friend and my living room. The Quiznos spot was based on my friend’s apartment and my available friends on that day.
iSPOT: What do you think of the opportunity from Current TV to make ads for young filmmakers?
Jafarian: I think it’s a really great opportunity. I did it for fun, but with YouTube doing so well and other sites like it, filmmaking has become so accepted and sites like Current TV promote film production and promote creativity at its lowest level. I like writing and coming up with good ideas and think it’s great and I’m glad I’ve seen more and more of it to let people like me have the opportunity to have their ideas put out.
iSPOT: What’s the benefit of video ads as a medium for young filmmakers?
Jafarian: I want to make feature-length films and with commercials you don’t get stuck with a long project. You can do it very quickly, you tell a story in 30 seconds or less. Editing the L’Oréal spot took four times the production time but it was valuable for me. It makes me a better filmmaker. Making ads also provides a financial incentive. For L’Oréal, I ended up getting $6,000 for something I did in a day, $1,000 from Current TV and once L’Oréal bought the web rights they paid another $5,000. It’s a good chunk of change for me, I don’t have to do odd jobs.
iSPOT: Did your success at Current TV lead to other offers to make ads?
Jafarian: After Current TV, a lot started popping up on the Net, a lot of people have contacted me, some from London and Canada. But I haven’t had the time. I moved out of L.A. to pursue my film career. I haven’t tried to do any more yet.
iSPOT: Do you think you’ll make more video ads in the future?
Jafarian: I am in the process of making a feature film, so I might not have the time to invest in making ads. But if I come across another ad competition online, I will consider submitting if the prize appeals to me. It’s not good to be after money as an artist, but I see it as an opportunity to stay away from odd jobs. I’d rather get paid for making films (however little and short they are) than to be serving food.
