Stanley Steemer’s “That’s Gross” TV Campaign

On June 4, 2019, in Uncategorized, by Glenn Przyborski


Here’s a fun look at a crazy network ad campaign produced for Stanley Steemer, America’s largest residential and commercial cleaning service. 

Corporate creative director, Jim McCabe called with an unusual production request. In 2006, the company had marketing success with a funny commercial that featured “Toby” a Labrador Retriever scooting his butt across the living room carpet to the shock of the homeowner and her friend. Jim wanted to revisit the concept, only this time “Toby” would scoot over carpet, tile and hardwood floors. Plus, Jim also wanted a trained parrot who harasses Toby.

Glenn Przyborski directed and photographed the campaign using 2 cameras on each shot for more editorial options. 2 cameras also gave an “insurance factor” just in case the trained animals “lost interest” after several takes. Everything was shot and edited in 4K UHD, then downsampled to 1080 for final release. 

SmithFoods “The Children’s Table”

On November 5, 2018, in Uncategorized, by Glenn Przyborski

SmithFoods of Orrville, Ohio is a family owned company, founded in 1909. They supply premium dairy and other food products throughout Ohio, Indiana and Missouri.

The Innis Maggiore Agency of Canton, OH chose Przyborski Productions to produce SmithFoods’ latest TV campaign. The concept called for casting 5 children and 5 adults who could be those same kids, only now in their 40’s.

Glenn Przyborski directed and photographed the commercial in 4K digital. Props and wardrobe stylists selected kid’s clothes and table props that were popular in the mid-to-late 80’s. Back then, all TV was standard definition, so we rendered the opening sequence in the 4 x 3 ratio of older TV sets. After several visual tests, we decided not to alter the color or contrast of the opening sequence.

The commercial runs throughout Ohio and selected portions of the Mid-West.

Throwback Thursday TV Spots

On May 29, 2018, in Uncategorized, by Glenn Przyborski

A short time ago, I ran into Russ Streiner, an old friend who’s best known as the producer of George Romero’s, “Night of the Living Dead”. He has the unique distinction of being the first person in the film killed by a zombie. Russ was excited about the Blu-ray HD release of this classic horror film. In the 60’s & 70’s, Russ produced dozens of television ad campaigns. Many people are unaware that his business partner, the late George Romero, was a popular director, cinematographer and editor of TV spots before moving on to motion pictures.

Russ asked if I had saved any of the old commercials created by Hartwick-Przyborski Productions. Paul Hartwick (who passed in 2013) and I founded the company in 1975. From 1975 to 1987, “H/P” produced hundreds of TV commercials for clients and ad agencies across the USA. At one time, we had offices in New York, Chicago and Pittsburgh.

I located several boxes of old 2” and 1” videotape. All these spots were originally shot on 35mm film. In the 70’s & 80’s, commercials were distributed to networks and TV stations, exclusively on videotape.

In no particular running order, I selected 25 commercials. They look and sound so dated when compared to what we do today. Check out the popularity of musical jingles and just how bad electronic title graphics looked 35+ years ago. If you’re over 40, you might remember some of these ads from when they originally aired…

This video is also on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/272371561

Przyborski Productions & Stanley Steemer 2017

On March 15, 2017, in Uncategorized, by Glenn Przyborski

Stanley Steemer is America’s largest and best know cleaning service.

Przyborski Productions produced their new 5 spot TV campaign which currently airs on both network and cable stations. The week long production was shot in Tampa, FL which historically has some of the country’s best winter weather. The most difficult production challenge was staging a parade, complete with an original Stanley Steemer float, marching bands and a hundred extras.

The campaign was created by Jim McCabe, Stanley Steemer’s Creative Director and produced by New York based, Frank DiSalvo. Glenn Przyborski directed, photographed and edited the spots… “It was great working with old friends from the past. James and Frank were the agency creative team behind dozens of successful Giant Eagle, Autozone and Alliance Capital commercials that we previously produced.” Glenn adds, “This campaign is traditional, solid marketing… In an easy to understand way, each spot shows that Stanley Steemer is the best solution to household cleaning problems.”

Space Junk and Mills-James shared the visual effects work. Rob Deaner of Contagious Music created the original music tracks and mixed the spots.

“Doctor D” Does College Commencement

On May 18, 2016, in Uncategorized, by Glenn Przyborski

D at KentState
Jim DeVincentis has been my business partner and Executive Producer at Przyborski Productions for the past 28 years. We started the company together in 1988. Every agency person and client we’ve worked with calls him “Jimmy D” or just “D”. 

This past weekend, Kent State University asked D to give the commencement address for graduates of the College of Mass Communications and Information, College of Business Administration and College of Applied Engineering, Sustainability and Technology.  D also serves on the National Athletic Development Council for Kent State and is featured in their Athletic Hall of Fame.

 Jimmy’s daughters, Dina DeVincentis and Maria DeVincentis were part of the 7,000+ Convocation Center crowd. Dina graduated in 2011 and Maria graduated that same day.

 We’re now calling “D” the honorary “Doctor D”.

Actor Tom Atkins… Just for Fun

On April 7, 2012, in Uncategorized, by Glenn Przyborski

Tom Atkins is an amazingly talented actor who’s appeared in dozens of major motion pictures and TV series. He often plays a tough guy on the wrong side of the law. Most recently, Atkins played Pittsburgh Steelers founder, Art Rooney in the one man stage play and movie titled, “The Chief”. Tom Atkins has a great sense of humor and is excellent at improvisation.

A few years ago, Atkins was the TV spokesman for Blue Cross of Western PA. I directed and photographed about a dozen spots with Tom, including an Addy winner that featured fishing on the Allegheny River.

On several occasions, after we finished shooting the actual on-air TV commercial, Tom would do his own unique version of the copy.

Just for fun, here’s a couple of Tom Atkins’ “interpretations” of the Blue Cross scripts. They’re pretty much identical to the original scripts, but I can assure you, they’re far more memorable…

CMU Showcase 2014

On March 21, 2014, in Uncategorized, by Glenn Przyborski

Carnegie Mellon’s School of Drama is one of the nation’s finest dramatic schools. You can’t watch an evening of network TV without seeing CMU alumni. The CMU School of Drama is celebrating its 100th anniversary.

My friend and CMU Drama professor, Don Wadsworth asked if I would volunteer to film their Showcase 2014 video. Each year, the school creates a music driven video to introduce the graduating seniors to America’s top producers, directors and casting agents. CMU then flies these seniors to L.A. and NYC to personally meet and perform for entertainment industry leaders.

JohnAtCMU-2

Working with CMU professor & director, Randy Kovitz, John Przyborski and I filmed the video on the day students returned from Christmas break. As a two camera shoot, it was my first opportunity to film a project with my son. I’m proud to say that half the scenes in the video were shot by him.

Bob Chamberlain, Chad Calcagno, Tom Gregg, and Ben Perkins all volunteered their Sunday to crew the shoot. Pittsburgh’s LightSpeed generously supplied the crab dolly, lighting and grip equipment .

Check out CMU’s “Showcase 2014” and remember the names and faces. The next time you see them, they might be in a movie, TV series, or Broadway play!

Images from a Summer Carnival

On September 30, 2011, in Uncategorized, by Glenn Przyborski


All across the country, traveling carnivals setup shop outside hundreds of small towns and cities. Within a day or so, workers transform an open field on the outskirts of town, into a midway with rides, games and lots of junk food. Where else can you enjoy chocolate funnel cakes and deep-fried ice cream?

For many residents, a trip to the carnival’s an annual tradition. For the $5 admission, you can spend all day and night cruising the fair grounds. There’s groups of girls checking out the guys and catching up on mid-summer gossip. As day slowly dissolves to night, young lovers stroll the midway hand-in-hand.

At a Midwest carnival, tractor and truck pulls are very popular. A powerful truck or tractor drags a weighted sled down a dirt track. It’s not a sophisticated sport, but it’s fun to watch and very loud! The owner of the winning entry gets a prize, but more importantly, all his friends know he drives of the most powerful truck in town.

I shot this video to capture moments from a hot, humid July day, at the fairgrounds, just outside Butler, Pennsylvania.

The Ramp of Hope (1991)

On November 24, 2011, in Uncategorized, by Glenn Przyborski

Back in the 90’s, I directed and photographed many TV campaigns for Cleveland based ad agencies. The most talented agency creative director I worked with was Alan Glazen. His agency was given an assignment to produce a TV spot and long-form video for Action Technology (now part of the Invacare Corp.) The company manufactures specialized, wheelchairs that are used throughout the world by athletes. The video was produced to be played at a major wheelchair athletics competition.

The Americans with Disability Act (ADA) had just been signed into law, but many public buildings weren’t “wheelchair friendly.” Alan Glazen created an amazing script that was designed to let the world know, that people who have a physical disability, don’t want your pity or sympathy. They just want you to get out of their way and treat them as you would anyone else.

Alan and I filmed the intense, stylized action scenes of the wheelchair athletes in an old basketball gymnasium at Cleveland’s Case Western Reserve University. I shot all the scenes with my Arriflex 35BL4 equipped with Zeiss super-speed lenses. During film-to-tape transfer in Nashville, the clipped color and accentuated grain was added.

The “news event” scenes were filmed the following day in the lobby of an old downtown Cleveland office building. After transferring the 35mm negative to 1″ analog tape, I edited part of the project in Pittsburgh, with Glazen handling the final edit, original music and audio mix at a Cleveland facility.

As a footnote: Some years ago, Alan Glazen sold his ad agency and today is the successful owner of multiple restaurants in Cleveland, Ohio.

GE Information Services

On January 6, 2012, in Uncategorized, by Glenn Przyborski

A few years ago (before HDTV) I directed and photographed a project for General Electric Information Services. Michael Doherty, Stan Muschweck and the late, Joe Baird of The Birmingham Group, created the original concept. The 3 minute video, titled “Reaching Beyond” was created to open GEIS’ national convention. The concept was to show how a person’s ability, imagination and creativity “grows” over their lifetime.

We cast 3 young girls, a teenager, and 2 adult women who could all have been the same person at different stages of life. The original concept called for each of the actors to be drawing or painting their version of a tree. We hired 2 local Pittsburgh artists to “pre-draw” and “pre-paint” multiple versions of the various stages of artwork. During the shoot, these same professional artists helped the actors do a believable job of working with pencils, water colors, charcoal and oil colors.

I shot all the footage with my Arri 35BL4 equipped with Zeiss super-speed lenses. The 35mm film was then transferred to tape in Nashville by colorist, Brent Clenny at Filmworkers Club. The music was composed and performed by the late Sue Hartford at Euphoria in Pittsburgh. I edited the long-form video at our Pittsburgh facility.