You don’t have to spend a lot of money to produce branded content that works. That’s the lesson learned by watching “Salon,” an adorable short film produced for CouponCode.com by ReelWorks Animation Studio, Minneapolis.
The Flash-animated short follows Fay the cat and Lindvall the mouse as they visit a local hair salon run by Selma, the metro chicken. Given that cats are vain creatures that love to be groomed, Fay is hoping that Selma will give her a fabulous new hairstyle. Selma doesn’t disappoint her, but Fay does go into shock when she gets the bill for Selma’s services. Luckily, Lindvall saves the day when he hands his cat companion a discount coupon from CouponCode.com.
In just one minute and 29 seconds, “Salon” depicts the benefits of using CouponCode.com, which offers consumers coupons for discounts on various products and services, and will likely serve to draw visitors back to the site as “Salon” is the first in what will be a series of shorts under the banner of Metro Tails.
According to ReelWorks executive producer Audrey Robinson Favorito, the project was “a blue sky assignment.” Dave Simmons, president of CouponCode.com, simply instructed ReelWorks to create a short film that was funny, quirky and edgy. The rest was up to them.
“It was a unique opportunity for us, and it was really interesting to see how our creative team responded to such an open-ended assignment,” Favorito shared.
“With any blue sky assignment, finding a starting point is the hardest part,” according to Todd Hemke, who wrote the story and designed the look of the short, which he co-directed with Morgan Williams. “The process began [with me] staring into space over my computer monitor asking the question ‘What should I do? What should I do?’ over and over.”
Ultimately, a chicken randomly came to mind. “Chickens have always been amusing to me, so I ran with it,” Hemke reflected. “From there it was a matter of letting other random thoughts guide the way–such as putting a fur coat on the chicken and finding friends in a cat and mouse. The stories [for “Salon” and future shorts in the series] developed in a similar way–a visual gag or scenario would come to mind, and I would try to build a story around it.”
From there, the project became more of a collaborative effort with storyboards further developed by ReelWorks’ Bruce McFarlan. Color models were developed using Adobe Illustrator to reflect the client’s interest in a Southwestern color palette with rich and warm tones. Contrasting colors were used to separate the inside spaces from the outside.
Once Simmons approved everything, it took the ReelWorks team, which also included producer Neha Upadhyaya Lang, about three weeks to complete the project.
Then Alex Berglund of Echo Boys, Minneapolis, composed music to accompany the short, while Tom Lecher did the sound design.
While ReelWorks, which has been in business since 1981, is known for producing commercial fare, the company is certainly interested in delving further into the branded content arena, according to Favorito.
For his part, Hemke enjoyed the creative freedom this particular piece of branded content offered. “All in all, I enjoyed working on this project because there was no time limit set for the film,” Hemke said. “It was a chance to have fun with trying to tell a story.”
