A look into filming for LearnKey

How many wardrobe changes are needed for a short 3 minute promotional video? Well, in the case of David Clemons it took three. Three different shirts, two backgrounds and glasses off, just to get the best video that we could capture.

Being in the film studio is always an interesting experience. I realize every time how diligent and detail oriented our Salt Lake City crew can be. David Clemons and his colleague Oliver were in town for short time on a Monday morning. We had about three hours for Oliver to shoot a testimonial for LearnCast, and for David to shoot his version of LearnKey’s history.

Oliver’s shoot went off without a hitch; he was filmed in front of the blue screen as the crew already had an office type background picked out for him. Elizabeth McUen, or Liz our new production manager, was prepared with a barrage of questions that she directed at Oliver. He then responded with amazing detail and eloquence, he was such a great speaker that I was tempted to take notes. At the end of the shoot David added a few more questions for Oliver, we filmed for five more minutes and it was a wrap. The crew and Oliver made it seem so easy.

Then it was time for Dave’s History of LearnKey, a marketing video we requested to help promote LearnKey’s 25th anniversary. As Art Director of the marketing team, I had some input into how the shoot was organized, so I requested a different background. I wanted a white background “Apple-style”, instead of the blue screen. Dave’s cream colored shirt had looked great in front of the blue screen but seemed washed out in front of the white, luckily he was prepared with a few wardrobe options. I got the feeling that he’d done this before! He quickly changed into a black dress shirt and we started filming, filming… cut. The crew in the booth noticed that his cuff links were very distracting. Kudos to the crew! David graciously removed the cuff links and rolled up his cuffs and once again we start filming… cut. Five minutes into the take the crew decided the the stripes on the rolled up cuffs are distracting. So it was off to change to the third and hopefully final shirt, which luckily was a winner!

David was dynamic in front of the camera and shared some interesting insights into the birth of LearnKey. In fact he gave us 35 minutes of raw footage from which we’ll create a 2-3 minute video. Thank you David, for being such a great sport.

It’s a wrap, or at least the filming is finished. There is still a lot of work for the Salt Lake City crew to do before they send the footage to the marketing team in St. George. Once we receive the footage on a drive, Hyrum from the design team will spend many hours cutting and editing the film to create a nice little marketing piece for our 25th anniversary. I can’t wait to share the final product with all of our customers, and maybe Hyrum will blog about his part of the video making process!