Cut Golf is the creator of The Best Damn Golf Balls Under 20 Bucks. It wasn’t going to spend millions of dollars to advertise during the Super Bowl. But it did want to catch sport lovers at the right time. The right place, it decided, was social. The right director, it knew, was Kiran Koshy from Los Angeles production company, SlashDynamic.
So Cut Golf aired its first commercial on Big Game Sunday, which is, coincidentally, also a big day in golf – the final round of the 2019 PGA Phoenix Open.
The film is exciting, suspenseful and ultimately endearingly funny. All of that was created through its direction. There are no words to tell the story.
Here’s how Koshy did it. Note that the film was written, directed, and shot without a crew – just Koshy’s DP and one actor – in Iceland, over two days, in the middle of a blizzard.
“Faced with a script I loved, a tiny budget, and a location that called for a glacier, we had to be unconventional and downright brazen to get this made,” Koshy explained.
“I found the perfect location while perusing Instagram, and narrowed it down to being somewhere on the south-eastern coast of Iceland. So, my DP [Michael Jensen (DP & colourist at Pixelworkers.tv] and I flew there with the actor, nervously confident of being able to get the footage we needed. We had no crew, or local support. We found the glacier using Google Maps halfway through our scouting day, which was marred by a serious blizzard. We never saw the Northern Lights due to this crappy weather. (Sigh)”
Jensen shot the entire film on his Red Helium in 8K and a drone, coloured and finished the spot.
“He did all this and managed to get his wife, who’d come along as the fourth member of our expedition, to the Blue Lagoon spa on time for their appointment,” Koshy noted.
The film was shot over two days, with about seven hours of light each day.
“All our gear had to fit in the Land Rover Defender we rented, as we were around 5 hours away from Reykjavik. I built a fairly accurate stand-in for the King Penguin out of an old Ikea lamp, and attached the CG tracking ball to it. It was easy to dismantle and pack into our limited luggage.”
Credits:
Director: Kiran Koshy
DOP, Colour & Finish: Mike Jensen
Editor: Adam Henderson
Production Company (director): Slash Dynamic LA
Production Company (DOP & colour): Pixelworkers Dallas
Agency: Nigel & Co.
Creative Team: Wade Sturdivant & Kiran Koshy
VFX Company: Arsenal Creative LA
Head of 2D: Chris Noellart
VFX Supervisor: Mike Wynd
Executive Producer: Cortney Haile
Senior Producers: Pravina Sippy & Persis Reynolds
Music Company: Shindig Music + Sound
Composer: Austin Shupe
Creative Director: Scott Glenn
Mix & Sound Design: Daniel Hart
Producer: Caroline O’Sullivan
