From Home to Hollywood: Creating a Network TV Commercial with Zero Experience!

The whole idea of making an event-based commercial is to make it relevant to the audience that's watching. Remember, this is a debate. I want to show you something really interesting. You know, my companies in Aggregates spend millions of dollars each month buying advertising on linear television, the networks, cable, and then onto digital like Google, Meta, Facebook—all the platforms.

So, creating this content is a constant ongoing, you know, call it activity if you want. Sometimes it's a battle because you have to be creative. But years and years ago, I started my career as a film editor, cameraman, sound man. So, it's amazing in your career how things that you did decades ago come back to help you in your current career.

And so I view myself as an editor number one. I spend a lot of time thinking about the creative, working on the copy, actually cutting it. I still keep my chops up on Premiere Pro. What we're going to do today is actually show you how to create a broadcast network television commercial from your own home.

Now, 15 years ago, 10 years ago, you could never do this. But today, the equipment has advanced so much, so much incredible technology that you can pull this off yourself. We're going to create, for one of my businesses called Wonder Trust, which is the employee retention credit program, a brand new commercial.

Why? Because next week, in less than seven days, there is the first presidential debate. Millions of people are going to watch that, and we want to make sure that we have a fantastic 30-second spot in the first hour and the second hour. So, we're going to create it from scratch. We're going to shoot it, we're going to edit it, and deliver it to the network—all in 24 hours starting right now.

First thing we have to do is get the copy. So, I've collaboratively been working on the copy here with compliance officers and a whole bunch of other people to get this copy done right. We have to make sure I'm able to read it in 30 seconds and not scream through it.

So, in different countries, in different cities, I've got a whole bunch of people here looking at this stock to make sure that it's going to be compliant. There are all kinds of network rules, obviously, and also, does it have the right tone? Does it have the right message? We've been working on it for the last 18 hours, and above all, I've got to figure out if I can read it in 30 seconds, under 30 seconds so the editor can work with it.

So, what I'm going to try and do right now is just use my phone and put on a timer, just to see basically, can I read this in 30 seconds? Mr. Wonderful here, and there's no debate about this. You see that little reference to debate? How we can make a commercial that goes into a debate right off the top—that's pretty cool.

But of course, I gotta start again after doing that. Mr. Wonderful here, and there's no debate about this. Small businesses in America create over sixty percent of the jobs. But times are tough. Is there a solution? Yes! The government employee retention credit program. It supports small business, and you can still apply even if you received a PPP loan. Eligible companies can receive up to twenty-six thousand dollars per W2 employee.

The application is complicated, so I set up wondertrust.com, a team of live experts you can trust to guide you through filing for the ERC. Go to wondertrust.com today. Bingo! 29 seconds and a half—perfect! I'm going to add a couple of just pauses in here because I can afford it.

At this twenty-six thousand, I want to put an exclamation mark in so I remind myself to really make it hot and give it a comma because this is going into a teleprompter next, so that I can read this right through the camera lens. Always, I'm wearing a morning watch. I know I wear three different watches a day. The morning watch because it's 9 A.M. through 10. Actually, it's 11 now, almost 11, so I'll be switching this around one o'clock.

But I'm featuring Jordan today because I feel, you know, I want something clean so it keeps my mind focused, and I love the style. I love the dial. Always be thinking with your watch, you know. You want to really change your mood—change the watch.

Now, this is the studio. It's got some basics. Obviously, you need a really good lighting system. You have to have that, and that's probably your biggest expense right out of the gate. Sometimes before you get into the camera equipment, what you want is something that's going to give you a really good crisp look.

Now, the background's very important. I'm using a background that I could change. Let me show you. If I wanted to, I could simply go back to the source and choose one of multiple images that I have here. Maybe if I'm shooting a commercial about wine, I could go to a wine cellar. Here's a wine cellar—it's beautiful! This is where we make O'Leary Fine Wines. That's one of the sellers.

And there, that's a great shot, right? Looks like I'm in the cellar because I am, technically, in the cellar—that's the background. Or if I wanted to change it after the production, I could actually go to the green screen, which is different.

So, we could go to here, but the point is you need a really high-resolution screen to do this with. You want to make sure. Now, let's go back. I'll just show you green. Now, the thing about a green screen is, in post-production, you can basically put anything you want up. So, you can change the background after the fact, but we don't need to do that here.

We know what background we want, so we're going to go back to what we're going to be shooting for the ERC debate presidential debate commercial. So, let's go back and set that up. And by the way, because there's so much social media today, you have to have a screen that you can rotate. If I have to shoot in a vertical format, I got to be able to do this.

You see that? Now you're shooting vertically, but we're going to go horizontal because we're doing Network television, 1080p. What we're going to do is we're going to use a teleprompter on a tablet and stick it right in front of the screen and read the script.

Now, the amazing thing about this is the technology actually listens to you and keeps pace with you. I'm going to hook my phone up Bluetooth to this prompter, and it'll use the mic in the phone to actually listen to me. So, you can actually see it on your phone screen as well as what you're seeing in the prompter, but you're not going to use this because you're going to look right into the lens and basically have to learn how to not move your eyes back and forth when you're reading this.

I'll be closing all the windows in here, so there's no reflections. That also dampens the audio. Just for the sake of a test, this is the mic I'll be wearing—a lav mic. So, I'm feeding it now. I’ll show you all the different cards because I actually shoot this in multiple resolutions, you know, because television needs one resolution. But I want to have an archival version in 4k just in case later we reshoot the commercial in a higher resolution. This is the great thing!

So, let's start with a quick test. Mr. Wonderful here, and there's no debate about this. Small businesses in America create over 60 percent of the jobs, but times are tough. Is there a solution? Yes! The government employee retention credit program. So, you need a laptop. If you want, a laptop is great.

So, if you can do a zoom or Skype, it's used by some networks, so they have all their own proprietary links. You want one of those. You want to have a really good camera. I'm using a Sony right now, which is the FX9, which is absolutely spectacular and gives me a good feed that I could send to all kinds of different devices.

There it is! Multiple feeds coming out of there, right? One of them I'm sending to is where I can record off a separate screen right here, and I can set the resolution. So, the recording I'm making right now is going into this card, and that's probably the one that I'll take the file off of and send it directly to the editors.

There's the teleprompter I talked about, right in front of the screen. You see, it's in mirror reflection—that's it. And I have some side cams that you've seen in other. This is running live right now and bidding us, and I've used side cams to give you an idea of sort of film verité.

I'm streaming networks, watching what's going on at any one time. Multiple laptops—you really need those when you're doing production because if you're editing, maybe you're working on a larger screen. This is where I do a lot of my television from. The network calls me saying, "Look, give us this background, give us green, give us whatever we want." And then I'll come in two minutes before.

Rarely wear any pants because you don't have to. Post-pandemic chic is no pants necessary! And we just basically shoot. I do the hit, and then I record it for them so they have a feed from here and native audio from here, which is very valuable in case there's any screw-up in transmission, and then it airs.

If it's a pre-tape, it'll have the same day, or it's live TV, which is often the case. Mr. Wonderful here, and there's no debate about this. Small businesses in America create over 60 percent of the jobs. But times are tough—is there a solution? Yes! The government employee retention credit program. Go to wondertrust.com today.

What's cool about this is we're going to actually see this commercial. On top, we're going to see it before it goes to air. We'll look at the rough cut from the editor, and we'll also see it live in the debates.

Now, that's what's so cool about this. This is the technology that's changed so much. You can now do this, be really responsive to changing in the market or something—shoot a commercial specifically for a single show, upload it, and have 6, 10, 12, 15 million people see it.

Let's put little Wonderful up so the networks have something to look at because that camera is actually live to New York right now, so they can see that. Welcome to the first debate of the 2024 presidential campaign, live at the Advisor Forum in Milwaukee.

The whole idea of making an event-based commercial is to make it relevant to the audience that's watching. Remember, this is a debate! So, let's check it out.

It's here! Mr. Wonderful here, and there's no debate about this. Small businesses in America create over 60 percent of the jobs. But times are tough. Is there a solution? Yes! The government employee retention credit program. Eligible companies can receive up to twenty-six thousand dollars per W-2 employee.

The application is complicated, so I set up wondertrust.com, a team of live experts you can trust to guide you through filing for the ERC. Go to wondertrust.com today.

So, that's what I'm talking about. Is it going to work? We'll find out in the next 48 hours. We'll start to see what kind of yield this commercial has. This is the new way of using digital to determine what's the content, what it should be. Should it produce it, cut it, get it up to the networks—all in a matter of hours? Not only is that the future, it's the present today.