Lights.
Camera.
Action!
On April 22 and 23, Susan B. Allen Memorial Hospital was ready for its close-up.
With a crew on-site to film a trio of 30-second commercials, SBA was setting out to highlight the Cancer Center, surgical technology and the hospital's community involvement.
As director of marketing for SBA, Gene Kimble works with Armstrong-Shank Creative Services, an ad agency out of Wichita, to find a direction for the print, radio, television, brochures, billboards and “other little incidental projects” that get the hospital’s name in the minds of potential patients. Their partnership has lasted about 12 years, said Ed Shank, senior vice president and creative director.
Armstrong-Shank then sub-contracts i25 Productions from Denver, Colo., to produce television spots that will run on local cable or network stations. This will be the third series of commercials for SBA as directed by i25.
i25 has created national commercials for Taco John's and Village Inn, as well as business films and documentaries.
“We think that we bring resources and creative thinking to the market,” said Steve Bowlby, who directed the commercials. “Strategically, the direction is crafted by the relationship between the ad agency and the client. They work together to work out which areas are to be focused on.”
With only two days to shoot, Armstrong-Shank, i25 and SBA spent a good deal of time beforehand discerning schedules and strategies to minimize the production’s footprint in the hospital.
“It’s like the circus coming to town, to a certain extent,” said i25 Producer Susie Scott.
“A hospital's a busy place,” said Bowlby. “We do what we have to do, but we try to be unobtrusive. We don't want to get in anybody's way.”
The filming team got a script before traveling to El Dorado.
“We look at the script ideas and say ‘Let’s create the pictures this way, let’s have this kind of visual sensibility,’ and talk about all of that,” Bowlby said.
As part of the shoot, the i25 crew went on location to Jefferson Elementary to film part of the community outreach segment, featuring members of the hospital’s volunteer Vision 20/20 group who mentor kindergartners there.
“Oh that was just terrific,” Bowlby said. “The kids were wonderful.”
To extol the Cancer Center’s efforts, the crew filmed the testimonials of six survivors who received treatments at SBA.
“We want them to tell their honest opinions,” Kimble said. “We don’t want to pay people for their thoughts. We don’t want people in the community thinking ‘Well, the only reason they said that is because they gave them $100.’ It’s worked out really well in the past.”
