COmmercials & Music Videos

This was the 2nd project I made for the Heinz Ketchup contest on YouTube.  I was going for something much simpler here, trying to be a little abstract and arty, but comedy is in my blood, so I had to end it with a joke.

Written/Directed/Edited by: Ross Williams

Starring: Steve Hackett

This was made for another YouTube contest, this time Tax Cut Online.  I came up with this idea and planned on shooting and starring in it at the same time, something I wasn’t looking forward too.  Luckily I learned that my friend Steve was up for the task, and his hilarious performance as these four different characters makes the spot.

Written/Directed/Edited by: Ross Williams

Starring: Steve Hackett

This was the third film project I ever created, so it’s maybe not as crisp as some of my later work, but I still think it’s a lot of fun.  When I was working for an internet company in Seattle, I ate a ton of this spicy instant soup.  It was good and it was cheap.  I came up with this idea while carrying a bag of it back to the office, and just had to make it a reality.

Starring: Leo Lam, Aaron Golson & Zac Brownell

Written & Directed by: Ross Williams

Edited by: Eric Firth

After making the Monostereo video (below) I wanted to make a video for one of my favorite Seattle bands, Blessed Light, who my friend German played bass for. Three weeks before my family and I planned on moving out of Seattle, it finally came together. I met with the band's lead singer and founder Toby Gordon and we talked about some ideas. He wanted to make a video for a song German had wrote. I came up with a couple ideas for it, but nothing that begged to be made. German came to me with his ideas, which I liked much more than my own. We were shooting a few days later. It was my first time working on an concept that wasn't totally mine. I found it an intriguing challenge, as I didn't know exactly where it was going, but I think the whole thing turned out pretty unique.   Every time I watch it, it gives me more meaning.   

Starring: Blessed Light

Directed & Edited by: Ross Williams

Written by: German Nuestro

At the premiere of eRATicate my friend Ian, who plays drums for the Seattle band Monostereo, asked if I interested in making a video for them. "Sure," I said. I didn't have much of concept built for it, except the slight story of the band on its way to a show. But I grabbed my super-8 camera anyways and we began shooting. I roamed around Seattle with each band member individually looking for fun stuff to shoot. With Ian, I shot hand-held frame-by-frame to make his stuff look jumpy, like "drums". Damon, the bass player, got the frame-by-frame treatment also, but I put the camera on a tripod and asked him to scoot around to make it look smooth. For Lea, the singer and lead guitarist, I rolled the camera at 12 frames a second to give it a slight "off" look, but to make her section the most consistent. I didn't want to use these techniques all the way through the video, so I employed my talented photographer wife, Kristan, to shoot stills of their show. It was a lot of fun to put together.

Starring: Monostereo

Directed/Shot/Edited by Ross Williams

Photos by: Kristan Kelly

My daughter’s first starring role.  We rolled around on the floor playing together, while mom held the camera, for my 2nd entry into the Crunch Gym commercial contest.  Another super quick & cheap production, that’s worth a laugh or two.

Written/Directed/Edited by: Ross Williams

Starring: Ross & Zoe Williams

Yeah, that’s me playing the Burgess Meredith role in this cheesy Rocky II spoof.  Crunch Gym’s was having a commercial contest to bring back their mascot the Crunch Bunny.  A friend of mine had the idea, we were shooting it the next day, and I edited it the day after that. So it came together really quickly.  This commercial made it into the contest finals, but unfortunately didn’t win anything.  I still think it’s worth a laugh, and a good example of what can come together very cheaply and quickly.

Written/Directed/Edited by: Ross Williams

Starring: Josh Short & Ross Williams

Surfing the Vimeo website I came across this Moby music video competition.  I didn’t think much of it at first, but after listening to this song for 30 seconds, these images popped into my head.  Suddenly I was obsessed with creating this video.  The deadline was two weeks away. Production included two time consuming aspects, the stop-motion animation and building the robot-suit. With the help of two talented actors and my new Canon 7D camera the video turned out almost exactly like my vision, which is often the toughest thing about filmmaking to pull off.

Written/Directed/Edited by: Ross Williams

Starring: Danielle Kelly & Levi Anderson