My job was to create a Judge Judy campaign for 5 CBS Television Markets - Los Angeles / Boston / New York / Chicago + San Francisco
Inspired by the 1994 Rolling Stones Video "Love Is Strong" I thought Larger Than Life Giant Judy walking through "her" City could be fun and visually stand out while getting the biggest bang for my production bucks.
I had a quick turnaround time for all of the deliverables.
I asked my creative teams in those 5 markets to shoot assorted angles of video and backplates matching the given storyboards with assorted vantage points. Worm Eye view / Iconic Rooftop Architecture / Something to Step Over, etc.
I also needed a small list of additional shots to help feature the city identity
A wide establishing shots of each city (Skyline or Aerial)
A stimulus / reaction shot like Birds or Pigeons being startled
Needed a Wide shot of something Iconic that Judy would "Step over"
Directed them to get shots of people looking / pointing to the sky in awe or wonderment / Smiling and NEVER FRIGHTENED
I flew to Los Angeles and had a huge green screen cyc set up inside CBS Television City and I had a small window of time with Judge Judy to direct her
Each shot had to work with the limited set up time and what I needed Judy to do for the shot list.
Close up of her walking / strolling
Wide shot
Frontal Wide / Head to Toe Walking
Close up of her walking towards camera / legs + shoes "stepping over something" and her closing line with audio
The spots came together / I worked with my old friend Craig Tozzi of 2000Strong for compositing Judy's green screen shots onto the supplied backplates and rotoscoping the assorted frontal elements.
I hired Tozzi to bring the entire project to life and added flocks of birds, keyframed shakes to the BOOMs of her steps + soft lens flares when needed
Tweaked the Coloring to mute it all down and get all 5 spots looking uniform
All parties involved were happy with the results.
Judy called me at home and left me a message to say how excited she was to see it on air : )