St. George Carnival PSA
No sooner had I re-launched my website when I was approached to do a quick, 15-second PSA announcing the annual St. George Carnival in Guilford, CT. With little more than a rough script and some hand-held standard-definition shots from the previous year’s carnival to work with, the challenge was how to turn this into a beautiful, HD spot to be broadcast on the local ABC and MyTV affiliate stations.
The answer was to create a graphically-driven spot that used the footage as a nice supporting element on the screen, while emphasizing the important information that needed to be conveyed to the viewer with bold graphics and font.
My wife gave the script a good polishing, then I sent it to my voice-over guy who turned it around for me same-day. All the carnival footage was on a DVD, so I needed to transcode the file and break it into some individual clips that I could work with. I also grabbed a stock animation that could use as a subtle background element. Once I had everything in the computer, I got to work on the design. I chose a font that was reminiscent of an old, traveling circus poster and nice deep red color that complimented the colors in the background. At this point, everything just fell into place and it was simply a matter of animating the type to match the voice-over.
The client was very happy with the result…, and so was I. 
