filming a lenovo commercial at sudoroom - sudo-discuss

24 Aug 2014

this guy wants to film me for 7 seconds for a commercial for a lenovo 
tablet.  He will pay like $400 or so, which i will donate to sudoroom.

he will bring a release which will need to be signed by John (the owner)

i told him to send me the release so i can show it to John, so we know 
ASAP whether that will be an issue (of course it shouldn't be)

does anyone know what Johns' schedule is, or if I can get his phone number 
so I can coordinate with him about the release?

i figure it's a sign that this guy wants to film me hacking robot, and i 
was planning on hacking robot anyway, and i'm about to get it to work.

thanks,
-jake

PS i know, it would be nice if Lenovo would just give us a pile of 
laptops, i will ask believe me.

-jake

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 17:03:14 -0700
From: John Tomma
Subject: filming roboticist

Hi Jake,

Paul Freeman gave me your name... he knows me by my nickname "Frisbay" - we went
to college together and I recently moved out to the bay area.

Anyway, I'm a video producer and I'm working on a Lenovo web commercial in which
we're hoping to feature a DIY type roboticist.

Lenovo is releasing a new tablet that has what they're calling an "infinity"
screen.  The commercial is basically an exploration of what infinity means.  We'll be
having people
in different situations saying a short line about infinity (a guy parachuting out of a
plane, a woman doing yoga on a surfboard, someone traveling across a suspension bridge in
Malaysia....).

Filming would take about an hour or so.  It would be a tiny crew, just me and 1 assistant
- we'd work with existing light.  In the final commercial the robot section would
take
up about 3-8 seconds, so it's not a lot of footage I need.  Basically a shot of some
work being done with electronics or hardware on a robot, and the "infinity"
line.

In principle, the brand is looking for someone around 22-30 and my understanding is
you're around Paul and my age.  Perhaps you've got youthful looks and it would
work :-) or
perhaps you work with someone younger who would enjoy being a part of it.  If someone
looks early 30s that probably would be OK.

Since it's a web commercial, budget is tiny, but I have around $400 budgeted to pay
whomever we feature and rent the location if necessary.

One potential challenge is that for legal reasons, I would need a location release signed
by the owner of the building, not the lessee.  If you're the owner of the location
where you work, that won't be a challenge, but if not, we'd need to work that out
beforehand.  One workaround is to film the bits we need outside where we won't need a
building
location release.

The biggest challenge is the timeline.  Web commercials often have crazy turnaround times.
 I got hired 2 days ago, and I have to submit the edited video by Thursday, so I would
need to do the filming sometime tomorrow.  Or if there is no other option, Tuesday late
morning.  I could also potentially film later today, although I'm sure you already
have
plans.

It should be a pretty cool spot - I've got filmmakers in Malaysia, Bulgaria, Canada,
and LA all working on it.

Please let me know if you're interested.  Obviously it's incredibly short notice
and a small budget, so I totally understand if it isn't practical.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Thanks!
John

--
Extraneous Noise
http://www.exnoise.com

--
Extraneous Noise
http://www.exnoise.com