Case Study: US Promotional Video
eBudgets™
We were contacted in late 2000 by raycity* to help produce a promotional video for the US-based company eBudgets. The ebudgets™ system is remote accounting software that allowed staff at any stage of a process to view budgets that affected their part of the overall job. It was a great business idea and we were happy to help.
Dale van Haren - Cast member
The American client was launching his software to an international market and needed a video made quickly. He wisely chose to take advantage of the favourable Aussie dollar and came to us to create a solution.
The tricky part for us was that the video had to look like it was made in a variety of international locations, without the accompanying budget. We were able to create this little bit of ‘movie magic’ through our multi-faceted network of resources.
Part of our brief was to satisfy certain casting requirements that would make our actors seem as ‘international’ as possible. We worked closely with Mullinars Casting agency, and ultimately used Australian actors from Anglo, Asian, African-American and Hispanic backgrounds to portray people from different countries. On set we jokingly referred to ourselves as the ‘United Nations’ shoot.
We also employed Sydney as our host of nations. Western Sydney played a remote country road, an office in the CBD looking over the Cahill Expressway posed as Manhattan by day, and Hong Kong at night, and a bar on Broadway became a New York City hot spot. We even turned a factory in Sefton into a Chicago based operation!
Our client was very happy with the finished video. The venture was extremely successful for him, and his program eventually became part of a larger and very well-known software family.