- 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
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
Excela Health wanted the region to be aware of the many accolades they’ve received from providing excellent healthcare. For their new TV campaign, Tom Chakurda, Excela’s Chief Marketing & Communications Officer, decided to use black & white for the medical procedures, combined with color for the various accolades.
Director-cinematographer, Glenn Przyborski had the challenge of shooting every scene during an actual medical procedure. There were no actors, rehearsed action or retakes. All the featured on-camera talent are the real doctors, nurses and hospital personnel.
Here’s a 4 minute “mini time capsule” of GNC’s early TV advertising. General Nutrition Centers had an amazing period of growth and profitability in the early 90’s. During this time, TV Advertising helped GNC realize it’s first quarterly profit as it went public for the second time.
From ’93 through ’96, Przyborski Productions produced most of GNC’s network TV spots. We introduced their “Gold Card” and many product lines that are still in stores today.
All the commercials were filmed in 35mm, then transferred and edited on 1″ videotape. By the end of 1993, we were editing on D2 composite digital. (In the 90’s, everything was standard definition.)
Most of these old commercials are dated and a little “corny.” Saturday Night Live even did a comedic parody on GNC’s “Colon Cleanser”, titled, “Colon Blow.” Thirty years ago, sophisticated computer graphics were in their infancy. The stock music GNC used also dates the ads. The commercials in this video were selected from several GNC campaigns.
Greg Yost, creative director of Lazor-Yost Marketing & Design, has passed away.
I first met Greg in the early 90’s. He was creative director of “The Kaiser Group”. Greg was the first agency art director I encountered that was sure computers would take over all mechanical aspects of layout & design in advertising. We both owned early Macintosh systems, and once a month we’d get together to swap 3.5” floppy disks of programs we either bought or borrowed.
The first project I directed and photographed for Greg was for Sheetz. Greg did much of the early creative marketing concepts and in-store signage for this family owned, Altoona based company. They were trying hard to be more than a group of “7-11 type” convenience stores. Greg created the advertising that introduced Sheetz Coffee, “MTO” food items, Sheetz Hot Dogs, “Sheetza Pizza”, “IT” Cola, “Jacks” cigarettes and Sheetz’s own brand of gasoline. When you pull into a Sheetz for coffee, food or gas… remember Greg Yost.
I also filmed many of Greg’s creative and sometimes crazy TV campaigns for Hoss’s Restaurants, HealthSouth Rehab Centers, Fruth Drug Stores, Unimart, CEI Cable & Internet and Atlantic Luggage. The projects always had limited budgets, but we always had fun shooting Greg’s concepts.
I last spoke with Greg in May and he never mentioned that he was sick and undergoing treatment for cancer. We talked about how the ad business had changed over the past couple decades and that today we’d never get away with what we used to do… He sounded positive, upbeat and directly involved in the marketing efforts of his clients.
As a remembrance, here’s a few of Greg Yost’s favorite TV projects from 1991 through 2009…RIP my friend.
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”.
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…
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 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.
Church’s Chicken has over 1700 locations in 22 countries. In Puerto Rico they’re arguably the most popular chicken restaurants with over 70 units.
For years, the late Pittsburgh based food stylist Shui Ziegler and her husband have created the food stylings for Church’s in-store menus as well as broadcast and print promotions. Przyborski Productions was brought on-board to work with Shui & Zig to create the introductory TV spot for Church’s new “Breakfast Pockets” (or in Spanish, “Pockets Desayuno”.)
Przyborski shot the digital commercial in John Sanderson’s studio, located in Pittsburgh’s strip district. Felipe Flores, Church’s VP of Marketing, asked Glenn to create a warm, golden, morning feel to the scenes, emphasizing the product’s natural ingredients.
Everything was shot on the RED “Epic” camera system, primarily using Glenn’s Canon lenses. For the extremely tight macro scenes of bacon and sausage, the unique Innovision “Probe II” snorkel lens was employed. Glenn feels the greatest feature of the Epic is its ability to shoot at almost any frame rate up to 300fps. The falling tortillas were shot at 240fps.
The commercial was edited and mixed by the Kamikaze Group in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico. They also created the original music track. The ad is currently airing in HD throughout Puerto Rico. In case you’re hungry, the closest Church’s Chicken to Pittsburgh is in Akron, Ohio.
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.
