“ER Just Got Easier” – Valley Health System, Las Vegas, NV
This pair of television commercials was done as part of a wide-ranging campaign to introduce new Emergency Department operations at four Las Vegas hospitals. The commercials starred John Ratzenberger, the actor who played Cliff Clavin in the hit TV series Cheers.
I was aware of John’s work, so I decided not to attempt humorous scripts and instead to write traditional scripts and let John improvise during the shoot.
John delivered the scripts word-for-word, just as I had written, but added his own vocal inflections, word emphasis, and body language to add comedic elements.
“I Choose” – Aiken Regional Medical Centers, Aiken, SC
“I Choose” was a two-year campaign for Aiken Regional Medical Centers in Aiken, SC. The campaign consisted of a series of television commercials that featured patients explaining why they chose to receive their medical care at Aiken Regional, or physicians and nurses explaining why they chose to work at the hospital.
No one in the commercials had any prior on-camera experience, so we decided to make it as easy as possible for them. After interviewing each person about their experiences at Aiken Regional, I wrote the scripts as a series of short statements. We asked each person to read the statements one at a time and recorded them from multiple camera angles. In post-production, we assembled the clips to achieve the results you can see in the commercials