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Pillsbury

Birthday Surprise

:60 commercial
Writing and Creative Direction
,
Production
,
Post-Production
,
Brooklyn, New York.
November
2023
00:00
00:00
Overview

When we think Pillsbury, we think making memories with family and friends. Traditionally, Pillsbury commercials are couched in happy situations — but we thought, what if we brought the magic of Pillsbury into a more complex life event? With this challenge in mind, “Birthday Surprise” was born.

Pre-production

Crafting the concept

What’s a life event many of us can relate to? We decided to write the script based on the heartwrenching feeling of moving away from someone you love. In this story, a young Brooklyn family moves to the suburbs — and our main character must leave behind his best friend.

production

Bringing the Vision to Life

Over the course of two days, we shot in south Brooklyn and the Rockaways. With production magic, we captured an authentic-feeling Brooklyn-to-burbs storyline.

Post-production

Fine-Tuning the work

In our final creative stage, we massaged the piece to be as emotionally evocative as possible — a perfect nexus of sentimentality and joy.

Credits
Director

Maple Shipp

DP

Dries Vandenberg

Producer

Luke Geissbühler

Line Producer

Max Geissbühler

AC

Alex Haas

Gaffer

Jay Hillman

Grip

Gabe Solorzano

HMU

Maiko Ando

Production Designer

Kelly Sullivan

Child Guardian

Carolyn Volpe

Editor

Maple Shipp

Color

Modern Post

Sound

Zoltan Juhasz

Modeler/ Animator/ Compositor

John LaPrime

Cast
Boy 1

Matthew Vitkovsky

Dad 1

BJ Gruber

Mom

Stephanie Pham

Boy 2

Nathaniel Dickson

Dad 2

Jared Williams