Pre-Production
This brief came to us during the final weeks of the year, and needed to be turned around super quick at the start of the new year in order to meet the broadcast deadline. This meant that we needed to get most of our pre-production done before the holiday break, so once we returned in 2025, we could hit the ground running!
Given that this was for broadcast, we were able to explore a more dialogue heavy narrative as that is best for a traditional television advertisement. After drafting up the script, the client gave us the go ahead to then start our casting process.
Utilising our casting platform on our Spicy Tiger website, we briefed out the roles and requested self tapes from those who we felt best suited the requirements of the characters. Once we sent those off to the client to review and make their final decisions, we at Spicy moved on to securing our location.
We knew we wanted an intimate space where we could control the elements (lighting, sound, traffic etc), so we spoke to a local business near our Spicy office in order to keep our travel and equipment management to a minimum. The business is a bar, which, thankfully, meant that they opened to the public from 5pm and were happy to give us free reign of the space from 9am. Being a cosy little bar, we could also convey with our camera setups that the space was full and vibrant, without having too much space to contend with.
Finally, we opted to book in some gear to rent for the campaign, namely the Blackmagic Pyxis. As this was going to be The Jerky Co.’s first venture into Broadcast, we wanted maximum quality in our footage. This was also when we were able to have some fun creating a ‘Meat Your Match’ banner that would be used as a prop to connect the notion of the speed dating event and the brand. George, our graphic designer, used bold colours and design to ensure that this aspect of the narrative wasn’t missed when viewed by audiences on television.
After sending out all the booking in our talent and finalising callsheets, we started the new year off by jumping straight on to set our first week back!
Production
The main section of the narrative takes place during a speed dating scenario, so this was where we spent most of our time. We kicked off our shoot morning by running through the direction of the scene and establishing the rhythm of our shooting process with both the cast and crew. Thankfully our cast were pros, so we could simply focus on the technical approach and know that the performances were consistent, playful and on point for the brand.
As mentioned previously, we wanted the space to appear full, as if this was a bustling speed dating event and selling the notion that our hero ‘MARK’ has been going through date after date, with no luck connecting with someone who understands his passion for Jerky. Until… ‘SALLY’. We accomplished this through clever camera angles and lenses, keep an eye on the outer edges of our frame, utilising our limited crew to consistently contribute to the world.
We found that the continuity proved to be a challenge, using wine glasses and candles throughout the shoot, meaning the amount of wine in the glass, or the amount the candle was burning (and even the flame itself). This added a layer of attention to detail we had to arise to, otherwise our edit would suffer. Thankfully the crew as a whole were across it and we reduced our setups to make sure that changes were kept to a minimum in terms of props and lighting.
Once wrapped at our first location, we took two of our three actors to the next location and shot some run & gun style footage of their relationship in a semi-flash forward style. The weather was precarious on the day, meaning we had to come prepared to shoot for both rain and sunshine. We found that keeping our cast inside the car, sitting in the boot having a date overlooking the view, made for a more flexible arrangement for our camera setups. We played around with cameras both inside and outside the car, and ultimately a drone setup that we found didn’t necessarily add much to the scenario. After trying it, we realised that this portion of the commercial was our hero product shot, so while taking in the view via the drone appeared cinematic, it took us outside the narrative and away from the banding focus.
Post-Production
Post production for ‘Meat Your Match’ was initially difficult, but truly for all good reasons. We ran into an issue people wish for, which is that so much of the footage and our talented performances were so good, we had to be cutthroat when making decisions about takes and timing.
We also had the benefit of having 3 separate deliverables: 15sec broadcast, 30sec broadcast, and a 1 minute social campaign. This allowed for us to tease out the narrative in a fun way that allowed for audiences to go and discover the full story online. Once our assembly was locked off, we could go through and tackle a detailed sound design to build out the world, enhance the comedy and elevate the cinematic quality of the campaign.
This was also the stage that we got to lay in our very first use of our ongoing voice over artist who has recently been established as the voice of The Jerky Co. Having this level of professionalism gives the brand a more consistent and recognisable voice as a whole, and really enhances our ability to deliver the conceptual messages briefed in the campaign.
Results
The client was thrilled with our turnaround of this campaign, having delivered their vision at a new level (for broadcast) while retaining the brand's central tone and voice. And we, as a company are really proud for taking the leap into broadcast television campaigns - the first of many to come!
