#1 for Successful Campaigns in the NY/NJ Metro Area
Pre-Production
Producer, Miriam Richman, prepares shotlist and script breakdown.
Production
It all comes together seamlessly on shoot day.
A Survey Conducted by Account Managers from a Major Cable Provider
So, toward the end of 2022 approximately twenty account managers at the NJ headquarters of one of the largest cable providers in the Northeast conducted a survey. The goal was to evaluate their most successful advertisers to see if there were any obvious similarities that could be applied to future accounts. Out of hundreds of advertisers they narrowed it down to their top ten re-ordering new accounts. What did they have in common? 50% of the top ten had their campaigns written and produced by Richman Films. None of the other producers who made the top ten had more than one campaign.
We Have a History of Uncommon Successes
Is this unusual for us? We took a startup mortgage company and made them the #1 private subprime lender in the country. We started at ground-zero with the fastest growing fashion brand in the marketplace. We caused quite a stir when we produced the campaign for the first “fruit-only” jam on the supermarket shelves. When two international companies held contests for the best TV concepts, we didn’t just win first prize in one, we won first prize in both!
One Last Boast
We had the rarest of opportunities to test a campaign we developed for a client head-to-head with another agency’s campaign for the same client. Sidenote: That same year, the agency we were up against had developed the national campaigns for GEICO, Walmart and UPS! The outcome? In a six-month period, their campaign attracted 40% fewer leads than ours! (Truth be told, they had a much larger budget than us.)
With us, it’s not so much will you be successful, it’s how much success can you handle?
This fashionable shirt takes a camera person from studio to luau with tasteful aplomb.
Got a moment for a little story?
Back in the day, I was a production manager at a busy Manhattan TV studio. Celia was an NYU Film School graduate and a CBS camera woman with her own video camera (courtesy of a wealthy father). Our friend, Alan, was a young video editor already with a Daytime Emmy to his name. Here we were, an energetic young brain trust just bursting with raw talent ready to unleash on the TV commercial industry.
Our first client was Evelyn’s Beauty Land, a hair weaving salon in East Harlem. Not exactly a big name in advertising. On one hand, it was a thrill seeing footage we shot on TV at four in the morning. On the other hand, we felt we were destined for bigger productions than this! Yet, there was one little thing nagging at the back of my mind as I watched our spots next to the ads of the big guys. Our stuff didn’t look that good! I rationalized it by saying, “Well, they’re using big film cameras and all we’ve got is a crappy little video camera.”
A few tiny productions later, as the thrill faded, it was clear that the TV commercial world was thriving just fine without our great ideas. Celia left to focus on her CBS career and Alan went back to editing titles and bumpers for daytime TV shows. Having nowhere to go, I continued turning out low end spots believing that our equipment was to blame for the poor image quality.
About a year down the road we had a small stroke of luck. The jeans commercial craze descended on the world and suddenly everyone was denim crazy. We were approached by a few companies including one from the Philippines looking to shoot in New York. They offered us our highest budget to date. I decided to take this opportunity to shoot on 35mm film with a good camera. Here’s what happened… Our outdoor scenes shot at the exact right hour (it’s called “Golden Hour”) yielded acceptable results. But when it came to indoor shooting our work was still nowhere close to the big spots.
Eventually I needed to know what we were doing wrong. I approached a friend at Grey Advertising who was a mid-level art director. I asked her to be brutally honest. What she told me defied everything I had known to that point. She said, “it’s your lighting”.
Lighting? We knew all about 3-point lighting! After all Celia was an NYU Film School graduate and a network camera person. She was taught how to light. My next camera person after Celia was a School of Visual Arts graduate. He, too, was taught how to light. My friend went on to explain that the lighting they teach in film courses isn’t close to the lighting used by major advertisers in commercials. They demand directors to use cinematographers who are artists. Back at that time a commercial cinematographer of any note made between $3,000 and $6,000 a day. Although they added a lot to crew costs, they made the products look so much better and so much more impressive to the consumer. Not only was the expense justifiable, it was essential.
I decided for our next production with a real budget to hire a cinematographer with big agency credentials. Our break came when a national vitamin company hired us. We budgeted for a real DP (Director of Photography).
The shoot day was eye opening. Lights were placed in counter-intuitive positions. The light coming from every lamp was modified and bounced in ways I never imagined. The gaffers and grips responded to the DP with an efficiency of motion I had never seen before on a set. After screening the dailies fresh from the lab, we sat around in stunned silence. There was a texture and vibrance to the footage I was completely unaccustomed to. This was the real deal!
On my next production I tried recreating the techniques I had learned by observing the cinematographer. The results were beyond disappointing. I still had a lot to learn.
Fortunately, the vitamin spot was very well received. It opened agency doors that were previously impenetrable. From then on, we took every opportunity to hire an assortment of top DP’s who specialized in different disciplines including hair, food, beauty and automotive. Obsessed with the artistry of their techniques and reasoning behind their choices I would spend every spare moment applying what I had observed taking still photos with my own lights.
Eventually, on one multi-day shoot, the DP was only available for one day, I lit the scenes on the other days. I felt confident in all my choices. I was happy with everything I was seeing in the monitor and so was the client.
With rare exception, I’ve been the Director/DP ever since that shoot. Today, we’ve become proficient at handling some of the toughest specialties like food, hair, beauty and automotive.
We strive to achieve a national look on every production. We feel that it makes a big impact on the success of the project.
Champion Mortgage
Joseph Goryeb came to us when his company had only four employees. During a downturn in the lending industry we developed a strategy that catapulted him into becoming the highest grossing retail subprime lender in the country.
In a field of 10,000 competitors he was #1.
Sergio Valente
Back in the ’80’s it seemed that Americans couldn’t get enough denim in our diets. Richman Films was just starting out in business but somehow we became the “go to” production house for cheap jeans and fashion commercials. In addition to twenty or so Sergio spots we shot numerous spots for Seruchi Designer Jackets and Jeans, Arpel Jeans, Chams de Baron, Bonjour, Jesse James Jeans and at least a dozen others.
In the process we also wrote more tacky jingles than you could imagine. We’re waiting for Time-Life to release a collection of our greatest hits. One suggested title was “Nothing But Butt Songs”.
Lifted from an article appearing on NJ.com
“Fifteen years ago it would have been difficult to produce commercials in Westfield, NJ. But now, because so much is done digitally and online, it’s very do-able,” said TV Director Sheldon Richman. Richman Films moved from Manhattan several years ago.
“In Manhattan, we mostly produced commercials and corporate films for mid-sized and larger companies. But we didn’t start that way. In the beginning we worked for very small companies… a lot of startups,” Sheldon explains. “We became the masters at turning out high-end looking productions with minuscule budgets. This formula worked really well for our clients. So well, that quite a few of them became famous for their marketing successes.”
“In the late eighties we started making commercials for a tiny mortgage company which grew to become the largest in the industry.” Richman said. “We developed campaigns for a tiny fashion company that became a major department store brand, We took a start-up food product and got it onto supermarket shelves nationwide.”
Richman Films successes began to attract the attention of larger advertisers. Richman explains, “In the late nineties we had become one of the most prolific production companies in New York. The high point had to be one night when I was home alone watching a primetime sitcom and they broke for a commercial island. Most breaks on the network affiliates are comprised of a mix of national and local advertisers. This break had two national spots and two local. All four of the commercials were spots I had directed. Unfortunately no one else was there to witness it and it loses quite a bit of impact in the retelling.”
Digital Changes Everything
In the mid-2000’s the world began to change. The digital revolution took over the production industry. All of the features of the $800 per hour edit suite we were used to using became available on a laptop. The elusive film-quality image requiring large crews and large budgets became virtually achievable with small, inexpensive digital cameras as long as you had the experience and talent to know how to employ film-style lighting.
Strong lighting skills and vast experience directing award-winning performances has brought Richman Films into the spotlight as one of the Northeast’s premier resources for high-end productions on a budget.
Sheldon talks about the future for Richman Films, “We’ve become incredibly prolific in this new arena. We’re showing people that they should expect much more from their video productions. And that just because our productions look expensive, it doesn’t mean that they were expensive.”
(917) 797-6499
13 Glenwood Road
Fanwood, NJ 07023
info@richmanfilms.com