Reflecting their commitment to creating effective ads for the new media landscape, Committee LA, the creative production house led by Directors Frank Samuel, Jeff Reed and Executive Producer Lauren Bayer, teamed with insurance giant The Hartford to promote the companies sponsorship of the 2018 Paralympic Winter Games, which will take place March 9-18, 2018 PyeongChang, South Korea. The new ad, entitled simply ”I Will,” began airing nationally this month on broadcast television and online.
According to Committee LA Executive Producer/Co-Founder Lauren Bayer, the in-house creative team at The Hartford, which mostly focuses on their online content, wanted to create something powerful and engaging that was on par creatively with the company’s TV work.
“This was an important project for the Hartford’s in-house creative team, and the agency producer Jake Kahn knew the spot had to be great,” Bayer says. “It started out as a great concept and he was looking for a company that could do it justice. Knowing Committee LA, he felt comfortable that we not only had the directorial expertise but our production management was top of the line. He also wanted a company who could work with them as part of a team. We are very collaborative and were able to essentially create one cohesive unit that included agency, production and post. Not only were we able to bring them a great director, but we also used our relationships in post production to bring on a very talented editor and finishing team.”
Location, Location, Location
Directed by David Serota, the :30 “I Will” spot features a high-intensity montage of some of the U.S. best known winter paraolympians, including snowboarders Keith Gabel, Mike Shea and Evan Strong training hard. Those scenes are intercut with the athletes speaking directly to the camera affirming their commitment to winning. The voiceover ties in The Hartford’s commitment to the games with its commitment overall to helping “20 million American overcome challenges everyday.” The spot ends with Strong saying directly to the camera simply “I will defy the odds.”
According to Bayer, one of the key challenges the project presented them was finding a location that would work for all the athletes in the spot and allow them to create the different scenarios that helped show who these athletes are, what makes them tick and how they go about training.
“These are winter athletes and we needed a winter location,” Bayer says. “We shot in October and there was not a lot of snow, but we managed to find some at Copper Mountain in Colorado, where there was snow at the higher altitudes and captured the look we needed.”
Action Edit
Also playing a big part in the success of the spot was the intricate edit courtesy of Jump Editorial editor Erwin Fraterman.
“When starting the first rough cut, I was a little afraid the style I had in mind might be too quick and edgy for them, but The Hartford team gave me the creative freedom to explore and keep the style intact,” Fraterman notes. “The fun thing for me was to find little connections throughout, match cuts from action to action, with the occasional pause for pace and a strong finish. When cutting at this pace, you always have to be careful to not make it jarring, so we looked for a lot of organic connections that kept a certain flow.”
Frank Samuel, the veteran director and co-founder of Committee LA, adds that a great concept does not always equal a great ad, greatness comes when a strong concept is married to excellent execution. That’s why, he says, this ad proved effective.
“We knew from the beginning they wanted this to play big,” Samuel says. “For us, that is the ultimate goal. It’s one thing to want the best for the job, but in reality, it needs to be a mandate. It starts from the top and filters down to everyone on our team. If we don’t have that mindset going in, it will most likely not show up on the screen, and that is unacceptable in today’s media landscape. There is too much noise out there to go small.”
Click here for more info about the 2018 Paralympics: https://www.paralympic.org/pyeongchang-2018
About Committee LA
Founded in 2014 by Directors Frank Samuel, Jeff Reed and Executive Producer Lauren Bayer, Committee LA is a hybrid production company/creative special ops collaborative specializing in telling their client’s story through impactful, conceptual content perfectly attuned to their needs and goals. For more info contact Ashley Andy via email; East Coast rep Richard Fink via email; and on the West Coast Donn Kennedy via email For more info visit http://www.committeela.com/.
