- About Przyborski Productions
- Show Reels
- Misc Videos
- Introduction of 24P (from 2002)
- Americana
- Images from a Summer Carnival
- River Rafting
- Scenes from a County Fair
- America Lost
- Moments@24fps (1999)
- Behind-the-Scenes Prop38 (2000)
- 1991 Pittsburgh Penguins
- Barth Bartholomae (1997)
- Behind-the-Scenes Pagetime (1998)
- Frontier Telephone (2000)
- Time Capsule: GNC 1993-1996
- Glenn
- Jimmy D
- Map
- Contact Info
- Scrapbook
For 25 years, I directed and photographed almost every Eat’nPark TV campaign. During that time, Cliff Miller was the driving force behind Eat’n Park’s advertising. First as Creative Director at Ketchum Advertising, then as Eat’n Park’s own VP of Creative Services. It was Cliff’s idea to use Eat’n Park’s iconic “Smiley Cookie” as a key part of the company’s image & logo. (Cliff retired from Eat’n Park in 2016.)
From 35mm standard definition to HD digital, I thought it’d be fun to look back at a dozen Eat’n Park’s TV commercials from 1990 to 2015.
For the 50th Anniversary of Boca Raton Regional Hospital, Tom Chakurda, vice-president of marketing and communications, asked Przyborski Productions to create a moving video that would be a tribute to their doctors, nurses and thousands of employees.
For the celebration, the medical center secured the rights to Barbra Streisand’s “Ordinary Miracles”. This inspirational song celebrates the work that people do everyday for the benefit of others.
Clients sometimes ask if I miss shooting commercials on film as we used to do on every project. Our last “film” production was in 2006. Looking back, my business partner, Jim DeVincentis and I had a lot of fun on film shoots in the late 80’s, 90’s & early 2000’s.
In the mid-90’s, JVC introduced a small mini-DV camcorder. We bought several of them and asked clients and crew to shoot some behind-the-scenes video during our film productions. I located several of the old tapes and edited them together with the actual footage we were filming. Of course everything back then was standard definition.
Most people think of the past with nostalgia… as if things were always better in the “good old days.” Do I miss shooting film? I’ve always enjoyed working with agencies & clients to create commercials that everyone was proud to air. The specific production “medium” was never the most important part of a project.
My son John said, “Dad… If the vinyl LP record can return to popularity, movie film has a good chance of a come back.” You never know…
Here’s a visual “time capsule” of KDKA-TV (CBS Pittsburgh) promos from ’79-’96.
Friends at a retirement party for KDKA’s Drew Moniot reminded me of the many promotional campaigns Przyborski Productions produced for KDKA from 1979 through 1996. Those were the “analog” days of 35mm film production, film-to-tape transfers, and tape-to-tape video editing.
I was fortunate to work with 3 of KDKA’s creative services directors… Brad Crum (1979-1982), Art Greenwald (1985-1988), & Lorraine Sneebold (1988-1996). The promos we produced were often music-driven, high-energy spots that featured KDKA’s on-air talent and their interaction with the community.
The earliest of these promotions aired 45+ years ago. They’re a visual tribute to KDKA’s talent and staff, many of whom are retired or unfortunately, no longer with us.
Over the past 30 years, John “Buzz” Moyer has become one of the most sought after cameraman and Steadicam operators in the film & TV industry. John has shot over 70 feature films & TV series including Marvel’s, “The Avengers” and Stephen Spielberg’s remake of “West Side Story”. John won the 2022 Society of Camera Operators (SOC) Camera Operator of the Year Award for his work on “West Side Story”.
He began his career as a Steadicam operator working on numerous TV commercials, including hundreds of ads for Przyborski Productions. In the mid-90’s almost every major TV project included Steadicam cinematography. In the early 90’s, John bought a used Steadicam and taught himself to be an excellent operator. Today all his camera equipment is state-of-the-art.
John’s filmed projects all over the world, but still lives in Pittsburgh with his wife Kathy and their sons, Hayden & Grady. He’s also an excellent woodworker and talented pianist.
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.
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.
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
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…
Consider yourself lucky if you’re not familiar with the pesky stinkbug.
These insects have migrated to portions of the US from China. They multiply by the millions and destroy crops such as apples, tomatoes and virtually all other fruit that they stumble upon.
They don’t bite or sting, they just irritate everyone they’re near. In the fall and winter, they hide inside your home. When you least expect it, they appear on a wall, a couch, table, your bed or whatever. During cold months, you might come upon 2 or 3 stinkbugs every day!
My son, John and I have been having fun exploring unique methods of killing these worthless bugs.
