We filmed a $30,000 commercial

When artists make a launch video

We had a lot of fun working with Clint Dunn on Hazel’s launch video.

Hazel is AI software for e-commerce and consumer goods teams.

This launch video was the tentpole asset for a larger launch strategy that involved gift boxes and personalized DMs.

Hazel’s marketing goals were to generate meetings, ultimately leading to qualified pipeline.

Creatively, we thought the best way to accomplish this would be to tell a story that every marketer could relate to:

Your boss Slacking you on the weekend.

Cast & Crew

Founders: Clint Dunn and Patrik Devlin
Marketer: Rachel Newman
Hazel: Brooke Brazer
Cashier: Clint Dunn
Director: Hailey Choi
Producer: Jamie McNeill
Producer: Ira Ko
DP: Chiao Chen
Gaffer: Alexander Fischetti
Props: Hailey Choi
Production Assistant: Joohee Park
Post Production: Hailey Choi
VFX: Liam Walsh & Max Retik
Post Sound: Reid Andersen
Art Assistant: AJ Serrano
BTS Video: Anthony Hull

Concept

Hazel sells to marketers so we knew we didn't want another video of founders on a couch, humble-bragging about how much they'd raised.

Instead, we wanted to ground the story in a real customer experience, so much so that a marketer watching would say “That’s totally me” or “They really get it”.

We also felt strongly that Hazel should feel like a real person, a co-worker as opposed to a robot or tool that would displace humans.

“The first magic moment was when your team came to our office. I had a rough vision of what I wanted, but you guys took it and turned it into a real story.”

— Clint Dunn, Hazel CEO

This came to life when we met Clint at the Hazel office, and learned about Hazel’s ICP, problem, and use case.

We really wanted to understand the customer’s “before” state (their pain points and their unresolved desires) and their “after” state (their transformation post Hazel).

Clint shared a story where a customer saw a precipitous decline in revenue, realized they could use Hazel to troubleshoot, uncovered and resolved the root cause (a Dunning flow issue) in minutes.

Before Hazel, this would’ve taken hours of analysis across multiple dashboards and databases, and resulted in thousands of dollars in lost revenue.

In hindsight, establishing rapport between Clint and the team was what made this launch video successful. We don’t work on launch videos anymore without meeting the team in real life. Trust makes a huge difference.

- Ira

Real world vs Hazel world

Inspired by this story, we wanted to depict a busy, stressed-out marketer without Hazel (the before state) and contrast it against the experience with Hazel, a calm, relaxed marketer perhaps in a spa.

Clint had the foresight to ask an existing customer what they thought of the spa concept.

We learned from Chelsea that running errands like buying groceries would feel more grounded in reality.

Our actor Rachel holding products from Hazel’s customers and prospects: BOGG BAG, One Skin, and Mr. Beast’s Feastibles

Finding a grocery store

Now that we had our concept, the next challenge was to find a grocery store that would allow us to film. With just a week before our team left New York for winter break, we scouted 20 grocery stores that we could shoot at.

We used Claude Code to access the Google Places API and generate a CSV of addresses within driving distance of the Hazel world studio.

Jamie and I then visited each location and asked the owners if we could film at their store.

Prices varied and we got a lot of No’s, but we ultimately landed on Key Food in Clinton Hill because it had the most big box “grocery store” look.

I didn't realize how much unforeseen work goes into a video. We spent entire days traveling to grocery stores, explaining our idea, and negotiating rates. Grocery store owners are eclectic people.

I later learned what they call "movie magic" is just resourceful PAs turning lemons into lemonade, or perhaps more appropriately, water into wine. 

- Ira

Pre-visualizing the concept

Our creative director Hailey drew a series of animatics to help us take the concept from our imaginations onto the screen.

The animatic helped us:

1. Spot gaps in the storyline

2. Align our vision with Clint and

3. Set up the video for success algorithmically

Even then, there were some rough patches in the concept. For example, we couldn’t visualize an opening shot that would be catchy enough to stand out against the LinkedIn algorithm.

We ended up going to the grocery store ourselves and filming a version of the animatic with our iPhones.

Me making my acting debut. I realized that novice actors (me) tend to over-exaggerate their expressions. I'll be more subtle next time.
- Ira 

The final animatic before film day.

Hazel will return

I’m out of space for this email, but subscribe for Part 2, where I’ll share the bts leading up to the shoot, and how we filmed in a live grocery store.

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