Bolliball – Baby’s first commercial
Marketing a new product for children under the age of 2 isn’t easy. Since babies’ pockets tend to run a little shallow, it’s the Mothers you have to convince. Is it safe? Is it fun? Why should my baby need this? Lucky for us, New York-based toymakers OgoSport had already created a fun and exciting toy for developing little ones.
The Bolliball is a colorful toy that is not only easy to hold but aids development by giving the child something safe and soft to help in the teething process. We knew any commercial featuring cute babies would be a hit, but working with talent so young can prove to be pretty difficult. Up to the task, our Co-founder Mike Robertson took the reigns, developing a simple commercial starring 2 babies and their mothers. He had this to say about working on the project
Going into the project I knew it would be difficult because we were working with children. My biggest concern was getting them comfortable in the environment and with a camera around. The second concern was scheduling. We had a 8 hour shoot day, but how much time will a baby really cooperate? My assumption was we’d only have about 1 solid hour where the baby is entertained and awake enough to really have fun playing.
The plan was to first introduce the baby to the environment with me in it, I kept the camera next to me and or in my hands, always. I didn’t want the camera to be “new” when we started filming. I spent about 30min just playing with the baby, and allowing the baby to play with everything in the room except for the Bolliball. Keeping the Toy in sight but out of reach to try and build curiosity.
The second child actor (just under 2 years old) proved to be more challenging than the first. She was very attached to her parents and didn’t like when they left her sight. We spent most of the time working around her tears. Her mom let us know that she loves Madonna, so we hit play and she perked right up. We were able to capture exactly what we needed just before nap time.
All in all, working with kids is one of the more rewarding types of shoots for me, kids are goofy, unpredictable, and creative. When they ‘re having fun, you can’t help but have a blast.
Safety on set was a huge concern:
When it comes to the Lighting, I was really worried about the kids running around and playing, which is the main reasons I went with quasars mounted from the walls, and routed all the cables to a totally different room.
I wanted to allow the kids to be anywhere in the room and I didn’t want to have to tell a baby “Stand right here. Now play”.
Editing was easy thanks to the knockout performances we got from our little stars (Oscar status pending). We ended up with a really cute and fun commercial that shows real babies interacting with the Bolliball and LOVING IT.
Check the commercial below, and thanks for reading!
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