- About Przyborski Productions
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- Behind-the-Scenes Prop38 (2000)
- 1991 Pittsburgh Penguins
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- Behind-the-Scenes Pagetime (1998)
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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.
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
Very few cities have their own submarine. Pittsburgh is the final resting place of the USS Requin, a diesel-electric sub that was built in 1945. WWII ended 3 days before the Requin’s first wartime patrol. She never fired a torpedo in battle.
2015 was the 25th anniversary of the USS Requin’s arrival at the Carnegie Science Center. It also marks 70 years since the sub was christened at Maine’s Portsmouth Navy Yards. The interior of the Requin looks and feels like she just returned from one of her many sea patrols.
I was testing a prototype camera filter for an optical manufacturer and thought the detailed interior of a submarine would be visually interesting. After shooting for an hour inside the sub’s cramped quarters, I developed tremendous respect for anyone who could spend months at a time inside these machines. Not to mention the constant smell of diesel fuel combined with the danger of being a few hundred feet below the surface. The only submariner I’ve known is Chuck Aikman, a talented editor at PMI, who served on a nuclear attack sub.
The USS Requin is well worth a visit at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Science Center.
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.
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.
Forbes Regional & Allegheny Valley Hospitals from Glenn Przyborski on Vimeo.
Over the years, I’ve directed and photographed literally hundreds of TV spots for medical centers across the country. This multi-hospital campaign featured similar commercials for Forbes Regional, Allegheny Valley & Canonsburg General Hospital.
Rather than using professional actors and voice-over talent, the campaign’s concept required a real doctor at each facility to talk one-on-one about the services his hospital offers to the community it serves.
Our challenge was a very tight, one day production schedule at each hospital with a limited time to shoot the on-camera doctors. Fortunately, I’ve had years of experience shooting, directing and working with non-professional on-camera talent.
We broke the scripts down to minimize each doctor’s on-camera segments. You can overwhelm “talent” if you ask them to memorize a long, complicated script. The doctors were told that they never had to deliver more than 2 on-camera sentences in each sequence. We didn’t waste time shooting copy that was intended to be covered with “B-Roll”.
Most of each production day was spent shooting the necessary, non-sync footage in and around the hospitals. Everything from intense operating rooms to patient-staff interactions were shot with a combination of HD digital cameras, including the Panasonic AF-100, GH2 and the tiny GoPro Hero2. To achieve an extremely shallow depth-of-field, the on-camera sync scenes were filmed with Canon’s new 5D Mk3. (A few of the cutaways were footage that I had photographed from previous campaigns.)
It’s like the story of David vs Goliath… only this time Goliath wins. It’s all from the crazy mind of political media superstar, John Brabender. The spot’s a visual metaphor for the unfair tax advantage a big internet business has over small local shops.
I shot the commercial using a RED One camera at Pittsburgh’s 31st Street Studios. At the rear of the 31st facility is the interior of an old industrial warehouse. A crew erected a full-sized, professional boxing ring as our set. We used 4 “space lights” over the ring as a primary light source. Numerous other HMI’s and other lights were used to highlight portions of the old steel warehouse. 
I used the RED for most of the camera setups outside the boxing ring. The fighter’s “punches” were shot at 96fps. Inside the ring, I used a Panasonic AF100 for POV shots from both fighter’s perspectives. All the POV scenes were recorded at 40fps to add a “bigger than life” feel to the action. For several intense fight shots, I wore the primary boxer’s glove on my right hand and punched past the lens to the actor’s face for action cutaways. In case you’re wondering, it’s hard (and very unusual) to shoot a scene while you’re punching your actor.
Senior editor, Thad Christian of Pittsburgh’s, Phenomenon Post edited the high energy spot and created the original title graphics.
A couple weeks ago, I had the opportunity to direct and photograph Steelers’ coach, Mike Tomlin in the new TV spots for “The Extra Mile Foundation.” This worthwhile, non-profit organization gives urban kids the chance to attend a school where they learn in an atmosphere that’s free from drugs and violence.
When you’re the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, every hour of your day is blocked out with meetings, interviews and other activities. Mike Tomlin was kind enough to give us 3 hours of his time. Producer and production coordinator, Judy Gurchak and I worked our entire shoot day around Tomlin’s schedule.
Stan Muschwek wrote and produced the new ad campaign. Stan thinks in visual terms, so he wrote scripts that didn’t require our featured talent to rush through his on-camera and voice-over copy. Stan and I have worked together on numerous projects for the past 25 years.
I shot all the 1080P “B-Roll” footage in actual working classrooms. For these scenes, I used Panasonic’s new GH2 camera. It makes great images and it’s small enough that kids don’t feel intimidated having it close to their face. Gaffer, Ted Weigand used small LED soft panels, bounce cards and battery powered LED fill lights to minimize classroom disruptions.
I shot Mike Tomlin’s on-camera segments with Panasonic’s new AF100, HDTV camera. I also photographed the still images for The Extra Mile Foundation’s 2011 print campaign. It feels great to give your time to such a worthwhile cause.
The concept sounds deceptively simple… real cancer survivors sharing their stories with the home viewer. We all agreed that the TV campaign would be most effective if these non-actors could talk one-on-one, directly to camera.
At Florida’s Lynn Cancer Institute, I mounted a through-the-lens teleprompter system in front of a Sony HDTV digital camera. The prompter’s monitor was fed by a video camera focused on an off-camera interviewer. Suddenly, our cancer survivors were talking and relating to a live human face, instead of a cold glass lens.
Producer/production coordinator, Judy Gurchak deliberately kept crew size to the bare minimum so the on-camera people wouldn’t be intimidated. Black flags and “floppies” were used to block the talent’s view of equipment and off-camera people.
During post-production, I decided to cut the best thoughts together and not worry about jump cuts. We made no attempt to hide the fact that the material had been edited. I felt that once the home viewer feels engaged with the talent and their story, why introduce random side cutaways, shots of hands or other distractions.
Usually, I’m shooting nice things… like attractive people eating food while smiling. This project was completely different.
John Brabender (BrabenderCox) is one of the country’s top political media consultants. For over 10 years, he and I have worked together on many successful TV campaigns. John rarely thinks anywhere near the box, much less inside it.
John gave us less than a week to put together this project. Fortunately, I remembered scouting an old abandoned manufacturing building in Pittsburgh for a previous TV campaign. My producer and production coordinator, Judy Gurchak and I re-scouted the location and it was still available.
I set up most of the shots to take advantage of a wall of windows that lined the North side of the building. This became my primary light source, supplemented with 1200 and 2500 watt HMI’s. We used smoke machines to add atmosphere and distance to the scenes.
Growing up in Florida, I hate shooting in freezing cold weather. For the entire shoot day, our set temperature was less than 50ºF. We couldn’t use heaters because they quickly dissipated the smoke. Our shoot day was overcast and snowy, so we knew we would loose useable window light by 4:30PM.
I used a motorized, 7′ slider for the marching feet scenes and all ground level camera angles. This slider can smoothly move 25 pounds of camera.
I photographed everything with a RED Epic M using the standard set of RED primes including the 300mm telephoto. Every scene (except the fall) was shot at 30fps for playback at 23.98.
Thad Christian at Pittsburgh’s Phenomenom Post did an amazing job editing and grading the 90 second spot in less than 2 days including numerous effect shots. Michael Goodis handled original sound design. Steve Parys worked his butt off as my assistant director. Without the talents of gaffer, Ted Wiegand and scenic designer, Rich Schutte none of this would have been possible in such a short amount of time.
PLEASE: No political comments… I’ve uploaded this commercial to show an interesting assignment and production treatment… it’s not intended to be a political statement.
