Pro Moviemaker Autumn 2019

G-TECHNOLOGY AND SANDISK ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE SanDisk and G-Technology wanted to show how their world-class products can help to improve any movie production – even a commercial for a monster car – but how do you do that? Why not make thempart of the story? Monster cards

S anDisk and G-Technology are two of the biggest names in digital storage, helping professional moviemakers all over the world capture, edit and store their precious footage. As well-known and respected as their products are, though, greater visibility is always desirable. But how do you make a campaign about something so instrumental to the process, yet so embedded within it? It’s easy to glorify cameras, lenses and lights. Even rigs and supports, as they’re big and dynamic… But hard drives and memory cards? That’s more difficult. Despite everything in filmmaking being reliant upon them, they’re virtually invisible by design. They’re part of the machine.

Making movies Then a neat idea was hit upon. Why not create a series of ‘making of’ shorts, showing G-Technology and SanDisk products for what they really are – an essential part of commercial filmmaking. The short behind-the-scenes films would show the entire workflow and processing chain of various storage media, from SanDisk’s MicroSD, SD and CFast2.0 Cards to G-Technology’s portable SSD RAID. The idea was simple, effective, but… missing something. There was another problem. How do you make a ‘making of’ without an ‘of’? Fabricated behind-the- scenes content would quickly be spotted by G-Technology and SanDisk’s discerning users, so something real was required.

Problems solved A subject was quickly found in the shape of German TV station DMAX (Discovery Networks Germany) and one of its celebrities, the US car importer and refiner Karl Geiger of GeigerCars.de, who has a show on the channel. The showwas set to feature the first of only two 2018 Dodge Demon monster cars, the world’s most powerful production car, to come to Europe. The concept of shooting a commercial advertising the show was a perfect fit for the TV channel, and it allied SanDisk and G-Technology to a proper ‘influencer’, increasing the impact of its own storage campaign. DMAX would use the spot on TV, online, and on its social media channels while Geiger also distributes the clips on his social media channels. Now it was time to shoot with filmmakers Holger Frick and Florian Wolf of Superama productions taking the reins. The shoot Filming was slated for a single day with two camera crews and two directors, the target being one 35sec Image Spot for DMAX, two seven-minute ‘making of’ clips, and eight product videos for SanDisk and G-Technology. All the products shown were actually used during the shoot, so the statements in the ‘making of’ clips were spontaneous, a true testament to the functionality of the gear being used.

ABOVE The show featured one of only two 2018 Dodge Demon cars to come to Europe

PRO MOVIEMAKER AUTUMN 2019