Based in Austin, Siete Family Foods is a Mexican American, family-owned and operated food company. They make gluten-free, non-GMO, healthier Mexican food that still tastes great.
We love to support local and family-owned businesses, so Siete inspired us to create a spec ad.
Our main goal was to visually show that Siete’s foods are bursting with flavor, even though they’re gluten-free. So we decided to use a volcano as inspiration. Volcanoes are also all over Mexico, so it seemed fitting.
We enlisted the help of our friend, local director and editor Corey Crumpacker (who recently did work for KFC) and got to work.
MAKING THE VOLCANO ERUPT
Studio Director Ari Morales built and designed the set. He constructed the fake stucco background, and laid out planks, on top of which he placed the rug and food. He avoided nailing down the planks because he wanted to emphasize the shaking effect.
For lighting, we used a 7ft octobox and a Leiko edge light. For the background, we inserted a GoBo into a projector light to make it look like there were trees in the background.
For each shot, Crumpacker and Post Supervisor Michael Zumaya shook the ends of the table to create the volcano eruption effect. For variety, we filmed every shot with and without the shaking.
To make the chips explode out of the bag, Crumpacker squeezed the bag of chips as the robot moved in—that pop was real. To add the effect of the flying chips, Morales selected the best-looking chips, threw them into the air, shot it at 1,000 frames (slow motion), and then composited the shot onto the footage of the bag popping.
For the rotating chip shots in slow motion, Morales hot glued chips to sticks and put them on a lazy susan, then composited that onto the footage of the robot dropping toward the table. We used a green screen for the shot of the chips flying in the air.
The last shot is steady to mirror the calm after a volcano erupts.
Got an ambitious video project that you need help with? Reach out to us at [email protected].
