This August, Tongal launched the Lenovo Infinity Video Project. This Project was a “Gig,” meaning the top 200 filmmakers on our Leaderboard were invited to participate. Legendary Tongalers Extraneous Noise won the Pitch, and did something incredible…they assembled a team of Tongalers to work together on the Project! The dream team was North of Now, Mean Low and Zoran Petrovski. The result was the first Tongal collaboration of its kind – a Tongal milestone, if you will. Here, we bring you a spotlight on the creative process, from the perspective of all the Tongalers involved!
The Epiphany:
John Tomma and Meghan Federico from Extraneous Noise: After we won the Pitch, we had a moment of, "how are we going to pull this off in time?" It was an insane timetable - 6 days from Pitch win to delivery! …We decided that the best way was to involve other producers. We'd already been thinking about collaborating with other Tongalers whose work we admired, so this Project was the excuse we'd been waiting for. It was great working with other Tongalers because they essentially come pre-vetted: we've seen their work, and we know that they're familiar with the typical challenges of Tongal Projects.
Keeping in line with the "Infinity" concept, we wanted the Video to feel big, so we prioritized international producers who had access to various locations and talent. During our pre-production phase, we sent our Pitch to Tyler, Min and Zoran, specifying which part of the treatment we wanted them to shoot. We also asked them to come up with their own variations that they could pull off given the timetable and resources they had available. All of them came up with some amazing ideas that made the spot so much better than it would have been otherwise.
First Impressions:
Zoran Petrovski: I was so happy that day. It was the day I met my new girlfriend! John wrote to me at the right moment. When I received the e-mail from him, I replied right away with a "Yes" – no questions asked!
Tyler Funk from North of Now: I was super excited. It’s always fun working with new people and it was great to chat with John. I missed him and Meghan at the Tongies last year and was excited to meet them.
Min Low from Mean Low: I was super surprised, of course! This was one of the most interesting Tongal Projects on the site! Of course, right after I said yes came the “is this is even possible?” concern.
Working Together:
EN: Everyone we worked with was incredibly punctual. We connected with them on a Friday and by Sunday they'd already starting filming. We got the last of the footage on Tuesday. We'd assumed that, working with a group of international producers each shooting multiple scenes, not every scene would work, but almost all of them did, and we ended up having more awesome footage than we were able to use.
NON: Meghan and John gave me a lot of creative freedom, yet also knew exactly what they wanted which made for a really fun project. After skyping with John, I tried to figure out just how many scenes we could possibly shoot over the weekend, I think we ended up shooting five scenes, four of which made the cut.
ML: It was really exciting, not knowing how the whole thing would turn out. I had a rough idea of what the whole Video was about, but not the specifics of what others were shooting. John explained the concept of the project and I suggested a few possible locations. John then let me know which locations I should prioritize as well as the type of shots needed so that the final footage could gel together.
ZP: Our time difference is like 12h. When they’re waking up and checking their e-mail, I’m checking my email before going to sleep. But, in the end when you are working against a tight deadline there is no time difference. You work ‘til the last minute. They told me what they needed and I came up with some ideas. They loved them and I shot the scenes.
“Dude, this is hard” Moments:
EN: The day after winning the Pitch was pretty stressful since we weren't sure if we'd be able to get enough producers on board, or how much we'd have to change the script based on who was available... Other than that, trying to get location releases on limited budgets is almost always the most challenging part of Tongal Videos. To work around this we shot virtually all the footage outdoors where we wouldn't need to deal with releases.
ZP: The most challenging part for me was to find our lost recording camera in the bottom of a wakeboarding lake…we spent all night looking for it! In the morning one of the scuba divers found it on the muddy bottom. The footage on it was like watching National Geographic live. We managed to pull out the material we needed and the shots found their places in the Video.
NON: I had several crew and cast members drop out last minute so that was a challenge, but it just forced us to be creative and to find new solutions.
ML: The shoot lasted a whole day and I had to hike quite a bit in the morning with all my gear to get to the hanging bridge. By the time we climbed down, I was hungry, and I had to run all the way to where my car was parked and then rush to get lunch so that we could proceed to other locations. The locations weren't near each other and the traffic jam made it worse! Staying awake to prep the footage late at night after all this had to be the toughest part.
“Dude, this is awesome” Moments:
EN: It was really exciting seeing the footage as it started coming in…Zoran's car drifting and synchronized wakeboarders, Min's Malaysian temples, and Tyler's cliff jumping, infinity sparklers, and surfboard yoga. It was definitely one of our favorite editing projects.
ZP: It’s nice to know that you've helped someone. A guy across the world asks for a favor. Knowing that you helped him with just a few e-mail conversations was awesome. I want to be an example of how we should do things. I want to be that guy who will make the first step and help you.
NON: It was awesome to see what everyone had created and how John and Meghan brought their vision alive. Getting to sleep in the morning after the crazy two-day shoot was definitely great!
The Verdict:
EN: Teaming up with others can really increase the scope of what you can accomplish. Each of the producers brought their own creative visions and made it far greater than what we could have done on our own. There are still a lot of other producers at Tongal we'd love to collaborate with, so expect more like this from us in the future!
ZP: Tongalers across the world unite and break the boundaries of this modern society! Enter the new era of unlimited possibilities…just kidding. Team up, and have fun!
NON: John and Meghan were great communicators and I think that’s really the key to a great collaboration.
ML: Just do it. Get in touch with other Tongalers and discuss the possibility of teaming up and how to distribute the work. It's as simple as that.
