Box Tops for Education

General Mills tasked TracyLocke to produce short-form videos that included their new Box Tops program messaging with the addition of a celebrity talent: Neil Patrick Harris.

My harboring of endless pop culture knowledge came in handy in the concept stage when I alerted the team that Neil was a real magician aside from being just an actor. The inclusion of magic tricks was a natural fusion between the school-age audience and to pay off the program name. Both the client and Neil’s team agreed it was a perfect synergy.

The production of the videos had a heavy emphasis on doing things as practically as possible. Neil expressed an urgency to keep all magic “real” rather than rely on any post-production editing. With this direction, I made storyboards illustrating different prop usage and theatrical settings to really play up the whimsy. I even collaborated with Theory11, Neil’s official magic assistants, with choosing which tricks would fit in within the script and time frame. The ArtClass production crew built an entire stage set, and I helped direct along in person which props and colors to use to keep the Box Tops branding present throughout. With the help of Oren, our director, we both were able to convey what the tone should be when directing copy lines to Neil.

Overall, this was a really fun first experience art directing for video and with a celebrity!