White Allen | “Keep Driving, Dayton”
Local Car Dealership Commercial Series
Television Commercial Series
Client
White Allen Chevrolet & Honda
Roles
Writer | Editor | Voice Over | Compositing
2015
Local car dealership commercials aren’t supposed to win awards. Around this time in Dayton Ohio, Hidy Honda was the king of crappy commercials—and damn were they successful.
But White Allen thought that you could make something more meaningful. Dayton has a rich history of invention and manufacturing, and they wanted to tap into that historical pride, linking it to their shop; the oldest car dealership in the city.
Real Art built a 1 minute commercial made almost entirely of historical footage sourced from Carillon Park. That commercial was the jumping off point for 3 more cutdowns and a proper sequel over 2 years time.
It turns out local car commercials can win awards.
Awards
White Allen: “Keep Driving, Dayton” 2015 Addy Awards - Gold Addy
2015 Addy Awards - Best in Show
White Allen Honda: “Greater Dayton” 2016 Addy Awards - Gold Addy
30s Commercials
“Greater Dayton”
Storytime
In 2014, Cody Brown and I created an emotional video for Dayton Children’s Hospital as a pro-bono project donated by Real Art. It premiered during the NICU fundraising gala, playing only that one time. Due to the sensitive nature of the stories in the video, we were asked not to put it in Real Art’s portfolio.
In fact, I’m still not supposed to share a link to the video.
I was told that the audience had a powerful reaction, but wasn’t there to see it. It only played that once, and no one has really seen it since.
Tim White
But, someone in the crowd remembered it. Months after the gala, he showed up at Real Art and wanted to talk about a project of his own. We sat down, had many long conversations about his business, its history, the city of Dayton, and the importance of reidentifying ourselves as a “driven” city.
After a few weeks of creative exploration and a few trips to visit Curt Dalton at Dayton’s historical epicenter at Carillon Park, I roughed up a video that ended up being extremely close to the final piece.
In Carillon Park’s archives, you can get access to tons of footage but you can’t leave the premises with it. So, as I previewed the content, I filmed the computer screen with my phone (sorry for being sneaky, Curt). I used that footage to mock up a test video, and with Tim’s enthusiastic approval, we bought rights to the footage and began editorial in earnest.
Without Tim’s vision and charge to do something completely different, this piece never would have existed. And if Cody Brown and I hadn’t put our hearts into the Dayton Children’s piece a year earlier, Tim would never have known who the right people were to help him create it.
Thank you, Tim, for seeking us out.
Voice Over Narration
I didn’t mean to be the voice of this campaign. In the industry, we call this “demo love”—when something early in the creative process is meant to be improved later, but you get used to it, and you even think it’s good enough to keep in the final version.
I directed a professional voice over artist and re-recorded all of the lines for the original video. But when we presented the final version to Tim White, he was all like “why’d you change the voice? Change it back!”
Objectively, I can say that the professional voice was better. And personally, I was embarrassed to hear myself on TV and get texts from my parents and aunts and Josh Howard every freakin time it was on. And I think they still play these during pregame warmups at UD games.
But honestly I’m proud that I have a personal touch in this video. It certainly meant a lot to me, and I learned so much about Dayton while I researched.
John Harden
Only a few shots in the original piece had to be manufactured. I had a specific look in mind for a particular moment where we saw a Daytonian reading the newspaper on December 8, 1941.
John is a local actor who came in for that shot’s photo session at Real Art. His IMDB page is ridiculous, and this was just a tiny job.
But John reached out after the commercial was running on TV. He was really pumped to be part of it. He’s a real one, and this hometown homage did him proud. We formed a friendship around it. When the piece won a Hermes Award he came to Real Art to get his picture taken with us and the Hermes head.
John Harden - pt II
A year later, we were filming the sequel.
I had an idea for one more shot, but I had to hit John first.
He agreed to meet me downtown to reprise his role from the original video. Cody knocked it out with basically no preparation and the shot made it to the final cut.
John’s appearance in both pieces is one of my favorite details from this project. The fact that I still keep in touch with him today is one of my other favorite details from this project.
Behind the Scenes
Credits
“Keep Driving, Dayton”
Sam Parker- Account Exec
Cody Brown - Concept, Art Direction, Photography / 3D
Andy Nick - Writing, Editing, Compositing
“Greater Dayton”
Sam Parker- Account Exec
Jon Powell - Live Action Producer
Cody Brown - Director of Photography / 3D
Kevin Passmore - Creative Direction / Camera Assistant / Color
Andy Nick - Writer / Director / Narrator
Kel Lind - Editorial
Special Thanks
Tim White for imagining something different
Curt Dalton for teaching me so, so much about the city I live in.
