Rebrand Social Shoot
In the summer of 2025, BetMGM went through a rebrand. The central campaign commercial was the first place that rebrand would be reflected on film. I was part of a team tasked with writing and shooting social pieces around that commercial production. We had access to the commercial team's sets, actors, props, and locations, but had to steal shots between their setups, which gave us only 20 minutes at a time to capture our concepts. Even so, across five days we planned to come away with 15 or more concepts and wild lines.
A Week of Shooting
The first two days were in a studio, on a UFC ring set and a subway car casino set. These were a lot of hurry-up-and-wait scenes, grabbing what coverage and wild lines we could against a green screen. Later in the week we shot short-form and long-form paid social concepts at several restaurant and bar locations, an apartment, and a school reunion. These were all sets from the larger commercial production, so we were able to grab high-quality, natural-looking assets, though most concepts had to be cut down to one or two shots because of time. The exception was the concept "Once A Legend." We had an hour on set with the actress, which let me get real coverage, making it one of our more cinematic pieces.
Post Production
Post-production rolled out over the next two months, focusing on the football and UFC themed pieces. Wild lines and generic concepts were templated so phone screens and on-screen content could be swapped out easily. The biggest post lifts were Toss Up, Legendary Rewards, and Once A Legend. Toss Up required matching and adjusting the lighting to mimic sun. Legendary Rewards had the same challenge, combined with match-action editing and camera tracking.