CHICAGO — Utopic (www.utopic.net), here, recently completed editorial on a Web video for Esurance that promotes “Election Insurance,” should a policy owner decide to head north to Canada after this November’s presidential election. The 2:00 video was dreamed up by agency Leo Burnett as an April Fool's Day prank. Directorial team Gentlemen was awarded the job and brought Craig Lewandowski and his team on board to cut and finish the spoof.
The project is narrated by Esurance spokesman, Jon Krasinski (The Office). Election Insurance, is it is positioned, is designed to protect the homeowner’s property while spending the next four years out of the country. They can receive regular garden maintenance and even upgrade to a premium package that includes holiday decorations and lighting. The whole project was scouted, shot and finished in just a week. Lewandowski attended the shoots in Villa Park and Elmhurst to make sure he had all the shots he needed for the edit.
“We thought it was very important to have the actual house in the commercial be the one with the Christmas lights. It would throw off the continuity to cut to a stock shot between the other two packages, which showed the same house that the family left.” says Heather Mitchell, Utopic executive producer. “They couldn’t decorate a house and shoot it in the timeframe or budget the client had, so instead of cutting to stock footage, our Flame artist, Justin (Winkler), took the house, at dusk, color-corrected it to make it look like nighttime, and added all the Christmas decorations in Smoke.”
“We also had to do a fair amount of ‘gardening’ in finish,” adds Lewandowski. “Shooting Chicago lawns in March is not ideal. But Justin was able to color correct and patch the dead, brown spots and make it look really good.”
The video was edited using Adobe Premiere.