3 Surprising Champion Xpress Feel Better Ads: Wash Your Car
When we said 2024 was kicking off with a bang, we had no idea just how true that was. Back in January, we got a call from Amy Wood at Flint Avenue Marketing here in Lubbock, Texas. She gave us a little rundown on a client that she said needed a television commercial campaign and she wanted Hamil Bros Studios to come have a meeting with Flint and this client.
We’re always glad to have a meeting and check out the landscape of a project, so we met up and set a really incredible video project in motion for our production company. Without further ado, we present the top level of the Champion Xpress Car Wash Spring 2024 “Feel Better” Campaign.
The Concepts
When we initially sat down with Flint Avenue Marketing and Champion Xpress, in Lubbock, Texas, the ideas started to flow. The concepting phase had to happen relatively quickly due to the nature of the project, so as soon as we were done with the first meeting, we hammered down on concepts for this campaign.
Looking at taking a page out of the Harmon Bros University playbook, we initially went down a path that would result in a comedic long-form video production that would primarily involve our spokesman, and the Champion Xpress mascot, Champ the Lion. These would also be broken out into smaller, broadcast-friendly television commercials.
From car chases to army tanks, we had Champ running the gamut on some hilarious shenanigans.
We assembled the pitch and met with Amy and her Flint Avenue Marketing FAM to pre-pitch the idea. They were rolling. Comedy gold and no other car wash would have any television commercials in the same realm.
We prepared to make our pitch to the folks at Champion Xpress. Flint Avenue reserved one of their conference rooms at the Texas Tech Innovation Hub and off we went.
Nervous? Probably. We had never pitched a job of this scale before. But, we knew the messaging and we knew what we needed to convey.
The pitch went without a hitch and it was well received… Until it wasn’t.
Sometimes a larger-than-life approach is harder for some to imagine than others, but we were back to the drawing board.
After throwing several ideas to the wall to see what would stick, many meetings, texts, phone calls, and emails, we landed on the three you just watched.
We had a lot of fun writing the ads, but that’s just where the work began, we were going to have to also make sure that the ads could happen. Pre-production was going to make or break this project and we preferred to make it.
Pre-production
As soon as we knew the requirements of the television commercial project, we immediately reached out to William Hellmuth, Director of Photography, to see what his availability was. In our conversations, William told us that he had the perfect producer in mind. That producer was J Scott Worthington.
Now these names might ring the inkling of a bell in your mind, because we’ve had the pleasure of working with William and J before on two occasions. The first was the short film “Alone” in which we did visual effects for UI design and screen replacement / compositing. The next being a beautiful short film called “Dixieland” (starring Tony Todd) where we did a lot of green screen replacement, set building, and various other visual effects.
William and J have worked together for years and as soon as we made the phone calls, they were ready. Let’s just be clear, this amount of pre-production takes an immense amount of work and they did a stellar job.
First things first, we needed to budget out the production. When it’s just the two Hamil Bros, the budget is pretty easy. For this we would be wrangling upwards of 40 people and animals, including crew, talent, agency and clients.
While we have no idea how J put it together so quickly, he managed to iron out the video production budget and we signed off. Then it was off to the races. J and William worked tirelessly to assemble the rest of the crew, all the while making a trip from Los Angeles to Albuquerque, New Mexico to scout our locations.
The Shoot
I think it’s safe to say that this Hamil Bros Studios production was our single largest video production to date. We had between 25-35 crew members and talent on set for every single day we rolled cameras. We shot in the main Champion Xpress hub of Albuquerque, New Mexico and sourced various crew locally as well as California and Texas. We had five days to pull off essentially 3 ad sets: Life Happens, Hard Work, and Nap Time.
Those five days were pretty intense to try to pull off three relatively different concepts, but with our exceptionally talented crew, we were able to crush every day as it happened.
Feel Better About Hard Work: The Ranch
Our first two days took place at Christian’s Nevermind Ranch out in Edgewood, NM and that location was absolutely gorgeous. It’s a really cool modern ranch with all the ranch animals to boot (including some highland cows). The landscape was stunning and we were very lucky to get such gorgeous footage all in the two days we had scheduled there.
Call time for our first day was around 4am. It was not our favorite time to arrive at the set, but we had to do what we had to do to get the sunrise.
The idea for this shoot was that we followed a rancher and a dog through everyday tasks that would dirty up the ranch truck. Tasks that would involve loading hay, feeding livestock and traversing the ranch. At the end of the commercial, the reveal was that the rancher was a woman.
Curve Ball #1: Extra Talent On Set
While getting things ready to begin photography of our main talent, we received a call on the radio that we may have an issue.
Ross went up to the trailer where hair, makeup, and wardrobe were being done and was met with the news that there was some information about our actress that no one was aware of.
She was pregnant and the pregnancy was visible.
This immediately presented some challenges. For one, it would be extra difficult to pass her off as a man, thus making the reveal at the end more challenging.
Secondly, some of the tasks we had in mind for her, while mildly challenging, at best, were more that we were comfortable with an expecting mother attempting. Things like loading hay bails and feed sacks were going to fall outside of what we would allow her to do, given the acceptable lifting restrictions often placed on pregnant women.
This meant that we would have to opt for stunt doubles.
Curve Ball #2: Old Dogs and New Tricks
The second thing that came as an unpleasant surprise was when we were informed that our canine talent, Sonny, had never been on camera before.
Working with animals is always going to be a challenge, just as working with children will always be a challenge. There is a degree that, with a certain amount of budgeted time, you get what you get.
Since so many of our shots hinged on Sonny, and his apparent lack of interest in being the star of our television commercial, we had to spend extra time trying to get him to do what we wanted.
Looking back, it was probably a ploy because he knew that the amount of treats he would be bribed with was directly proportional to his level of cooperation. Maybe he had us outsmarted the whole time.
Regardless, we were able to get what we needed, but not without copious amounts of snacks.
The Camera Package
This entire ad was shot primarily on the newly released Blackmagic Cinema 6K full frame camera with Zeiss lenses. Ranging from tripod to handheld to gimbal shots, this camera was put through its paces and performed flawlessly.
The rest of the footage was captured by Shawn, our tried and true aerial photographer from West Texas Aerials.
Big shoutout to everyone at Christian’s for helping us navigate the ranch every step of the way as well as to the owner for letting us do dirty things to his Denali, like literally flinging mud on it with a broom. For this set of commercials, we wanted the feel to be more on the cinematic side as opposed to feeling “commercial”.
It had all the lens flares, all the rugged outdoors, and the beautiful vistas to boot. The early mornings (and copious amounts of coffee) were worth it as the production crew tackled every potential roadblock before any of them became an issue. We got dirty and windswept, but we think the results are worth it.
Feel Better About Nap Time: The Hero Car Wash
The second concept was a mother, at her wit’s end, trying desperately to calm her crying infant into a nap. Seeing a Champion Xpress location while driving, she decides to give it a go.
The journey through the tunnel works pretty well the first time, but the baby wakes back up, and she decides to go through again (unlimited means unlimited at Champion Xpress). The second time is the charm and mom gets some peace and quiet.
Since we were shooting ads for a car wash, we knew we needed the right location for our “hero” car wash. It does not wash heroes, unless you consider William Hellmuth a hero (we certainly do). Anything labeled a “hero” in a video production basically says it’s the top tier visual for that particular thing, place, or person.
Champion Xpress requested we shoot the Rio Rancho location and after the location scout, we knew why. Look at the backdrop!
This location was beautiful. However, the weather was not beautiful. On this particular day we had 25 mph winds sustained and gusts much higher. Again, the crew was INCREDIBLE and a good portion of the production was centered around this day.
Our first order of business after call time was car-rigging the camera for the driving portions of “Nap time”. The grip and electric team did an amazing job rigging for Kerri’s driving portions of the ad. Once we got our regular driving footage, we moved to getting Kerri exiting the car wash so we could keep the same camera setup. This took several takes and the sun was not our friend; moving just enough between each take that our landing marks changed by the minute.
After we removed the car mount rig we had two more “driving” setups to get.
First was another angle of Kerri interacting with the fussy baby. For this set up, we used what we would call the destitute man’s process. It’s like poor man’s process, but with extra less.
William staged the camera outside the vehicle door, low to the ground while a couple of crew members shook the car to give it a driving bounce. You wouldn’t know that the car wasn’t moving by watching, but, alas, it was in park for those shots.
For the final bit of the commercial, we set up for the interaction between Kerri and Bri (the car wash employee). This is a great little interaction. The wind still managed to give us a bit of a hassle, so our amazing grip team went to crafty and grabbed a couple of folding picnic tables to use as wind breaks. This reduced the amount of wind hitting Bri where it was manageable for us to get her takes.
From there, it was just a matter of getting William suited up for the car wash interior (thus earning him the nickname “Wet William”). Townsend (1st AC) and Rebecca (2nd AC) helped William get into his waders and get the camera wrapped up so it was water tight. William trekked through the car multiple times to all the shots and angles of the car getting washed.
The end of the day wrapped with William riding in the car with Kerri to get her profile angle. After that we thought we were done, but the weather decided to cooperate. We had Bri stand in for the establishing shots of Kerri driving up to the wash because our mountain backdrop was significantly cleaner than the first time we shot them.
This was the only time on production that we went into over time, and it was at the request of Champion Xpress, so it worked out very well.
Feel Better When Life Happens: The Driveway of Disaster
Our last two days were certainly the most technically complex shoot days we had. This is where we decided to do motion control for this concept. We wanted to show time passing and life happening around this car, but not in a time lapse. We wanted to time jump between moments for this family. We decided to go with Emotimo for our motion control rig because it’s perfectly integrated with Dana Dolly.
Given that we were in the late stages of winter, our house’s exterior wasn’t great. There was no foliage, and nothing was green. Our props master, Derek, spent hours laying down some turf and adding buds to the trees to give us some greenery.
The two most complicated shots to accomplish were the date night shot and the milk spilling.
For the date night, that shot was green screened out the front of the car and getting the timing on the popcorn spilling was crucial. That took several takes, but when we heard the Champion Xpress and Flint Avenue Marketing folks howling with laughter from inside the house, we knew we had the take. The popcorn begins to spill and, in a desperate attempt to stop it, our “son” makes an even bigger mess, sending popcorn flying everywhere.
Now, for the spilled milk shot, anyone who has seen Breaking Bad probably knows the story of Walt throwing the pizza on the roof. While we can’t remember exactly how many dozens of pizzas were bought for production, Bryan Cranston nailed it on the first take and they were left with tons of leftovers.
While we didn’t buy dozens of gallons of milk and several wardrobe changes, we knew we had a limited amount of takes to get Kerri spilling the milk.
After a few practice runs, it was time for take 1… And that’s all we got. Kerri used a hip to close the door, let the milk slip, caught it with her arm, and covered the car with 2% amazingness. That shot was a one-take wonder.
If that wasn’t complex enough, we also had to time out our talent to get them to perform their actions at the right point on the camera move. Lastly, it took us 2 days to shoot this concept. Our camera team did an amazing job, marking, setting, and duplicating the end of the first day move as the beginning of the second day move. Can you see where that cut happens?
Like we said, this commercial was the most technically difficult. That didn’t just include the motion control issues, it included our under-age talent.
Given that we had two children on set, we had to secure an on-set teacher, and the children were limited on shooting time and had a required amount of teaching time.
This was the only Champion Xpress commercial that was shot in order of the script. Basically, it had to be given the motion control requirements.
The honorable mention on this ad, and the martini shot of the principle photography for the entire campaign was when Ashton, from Flint Avenue Marketing, got to do the slate for the last shot. Unbeknownst to us, that was a lifelong dream of hers and that dream came true.
We wrapped out and got ready to leave Albuquerque the next morning.
Post Production
Because of the work we did in pre production and production, the post on this job went pretty smoothly. Ross tackled most of the up front edits and all the VFX while Jacob worked on getting the motion graphics and placing the sound effects.
Most of the visual effects were clean-up, removing unwanted objects from our shots.
There were several VFX shots that we were very proud of in this campaign.
First, in the ranch ad, the ground-level mountainscape. The sun, the sky, the flare coming off the truck, and the mountain fog, were all added in post, creating a gorgeous vista to get the work day going.
Second, the shot out of the truck windshield was certainly one of the more challenging. This shot included mud hitting the windshield while a Champion Xpress car freshener hung from the rearview mirror.
Again, the sky, the mud, and the air freshener were all added in post.
In the Nap Time commercial, the shot of the Champion Xpress Car Wash location as Kerri sees it while driving, was a massive cleanup job. There was no parking anywhere around the location so we had to park in the parking lot, needing to remove all of our crew and U-Haul trucks from the shot.
Additionally, from the side of the building we were shooting, no Champion Xpress signage on the tower, so we had to create a 3D sign and affix it to the tower. Did you notice it?
Finally, in Life Happens ad, the date night shot was its own challenge. We wanted the car to appear to be at a drive-in theater at night. It being the first shot of the entire commercial, we had to shoot it during the day. Then, combining a stock photo of a drive-in and some stock footage of a man walking outside the car, the photo and footage were turned to night, and we added footage from the ranch commercial on the big screen.
Next, the car interior in the rain. Again, broad daylight and it was extremely sunny. Tracking the car interior and adding the rain elements while making the exterior look gloomy took its fair share of time.
And did we mention that we had an out-of-state, week-long vacation in Missouri during the middle of this?
With every spare minute we could find, we worked on these television commercials in our condo and got the majority of everything done that we could.
Once we got approvals on the longer form ads, we could start whittling down on shorter form edits like the 30 second and 15 second edits. Overall, we had 17 master edits and from that we created over 70 deliverables of varying aspect ratios for various media outlets.
This project was incredible. Champion Xpress was amazing to work with alongside Flint Avenue. Our crew was 12 out of 10!
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Credits
Director: Ross Hamil
Director of Photography: William Hellmuth
Producer: J Scott Worthington
Producer / BTS : Jacob Hamil
1 Assistant Camera: Townsend Dixon
2 Assistant Camera: Rebecca Baliko
1 Assistant Director : Rachel Rogers
2 Assistant Director: Paul Gleason
Production Operations: Karen Corbett
Digital Imaging Technician: Robert DelTour
Aerial: West Texas Aerials
Gaffer: Mark Lopez
Key Grip: Hunter Rodgers
Grip and Electric Swings: Brianna Robison | Tony Engaldo
Key Production Assistants: Phil Gee | J Wallace
Production Assistants: Nick Hennessy, Mischa DeWait
Production Sound: Scott Ross
Props / Art Department: Derek Bensonhaver, Lorae Caldwell
Hair and Makeup: Madeline McCue
Wardrobe: Jesse Dell
Talent: Kerri Hellmuth, Brian Halley-Allen Russell, John Salazar, Nellie Silentwalker, Sunny the Dog, Jessica Dorsey, Happy the Dog
Animal Wrangler: Amanita Barto