Posts by Jaemin Yi

What I learned from my Doritos commercials

13 Comments read Filmmaking

Wow, this feels good. I just posted all three of my Doritos commercials online (‘The Red’, ‘First Date’, ‘The Breakroom’, and check out behind the scenes pics right here) and now I can call it a wrap. Done. Finito. My first personally funded, professional shoot is now officially in the can. Ahhhh.

But before I can move on to the next project, I need to wrap up my thoughts and so here we are at this blog post. How convenient.

So this shoot was a big deal for me for a few reasons:

1. It was my first professional shoot that wasn’t funded by a client. Meaning me and my creative partner Jesse had to front $2,000 ourselves. Now a lot of you filmmakers are scoffing at that, but for a guy who just graduated into this horrible economy without rich parents, that’s a lot of rent and spaghetti right there.

2. It was my first time really working with dialogue. If you take a look at most of my work, I’m definitely more of a visual filmmaker. Dialogue has always scared me, but I really wanted to learn so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to stretch my wings.

3. It was my first time seriously working with a production team. I’m usually on my own when it comes to my personal projects, but not this time. My creative partner, Jesse Epstein, and producer, Jenny Ahn, were right there with me every step of the way. For a straight month of craziness, these guys were pulling long hours and late nights to make our commercials the best they could be, and no way in hell could I have pulled it off without them. Continue reading →

Doritos ‘The Red’ +commercial

8 Comments read Made by Jaemin

In 2008, Doritos held a nationwide Superbowl commercial competition so I created three commercial entries of all different styles. Check out the other two spots, First Date and The Breakroom and read more about the making of here.

A lavish couple dines in complete decadence.

Client: Doritos
Title: ‘The Red’
Length: :30
Director: Chris Yi
Writers: Chris Yi and Jesse Epstein
Producer: Jenny Ahn
Cinematographer: Matt Bass
Crew: Britt Brzoza, Emi Grannis, Kassie Funcell, and Noel Diaz de Rivera

‘Sir Snob’: Art Oden
‘Lady Snob’: Rhoda Baldwin-Bishop
‘Server Snob’: Doug Hammond

Doritos ‘First Date’ +commercial

5 Comments read Made by Jaemin

In 2008, Doritos held a nationwide Superbowl commercial competition so I created three commercial entries of all different styles. Check out the other two spots, The Red and The Breakroom and read more about the making of here.

After a not-so-successful night, Doris tries to let her date down gently…not-so-successfully.

Client: Doritos
Title: ‘First Date’
Length: :30
Director: Chris Yi
Writers: Chris Yi and Jesse Epstein
Producer: Jenny Ahn
Cinematographer: Matt Bass
Crew: Britt Brzoza, Casey Levantal, Kassie Funcell, and Noel Diaz de Rivera.

“Doris”: Jennie Taber

Doritos ‘The Breakroom’ +commercial

5 Comments read Made by Jaemin

In 2008, Doritos held a nationwide Superbowl commercial competition so I created three commercial entries of all different styles. Check out the other two spots, The Red and First Date and read more about the making of here.

Three co-workers decide that Pete really needs to know.

Client: Doritos
Title: ‘The Breakroom’
Length: :30
Director: Chris Yi
Writers: Chris Yi and Jesse Epstein
Producer: Jenny Ahn
Cinematographer: Matt Bass
Crew: Britt Brzoza, Casey Levantal, Kassie Funcell, and Noel Diaz de Rivera

“Earl”: Earl Skakler
“David”: David Choi
“Chris”: Chris Mathieu
“Pete”: Ian Pfister

Director Spotlight: the beautifully unsettling work of Christian Simmons

5 Comments read Filmmaking

I first came across Christian Simmons work when I was checking out some of the competition for the Doritos Superbowl contest. There were over 1,700 entries submitted and believe it or not, me and my creative partner saw nearly every single one.

Most of them were flat-out horrible (just trust me on this) but out of the 30 or so that were contenders, there was one commercial that really stood out to me: Christian Simmons’ “Birds of a Feather”

doritos-birds-of-a-feather
Birds of a Feather, just don’t call him boring.

The rest of the competition seemed like stereotypical, in-your-face Superbowl fare. But “Birds of a Feather” felt different, it had a strange style to it that seemed slightly “off”…in a good way. Continue reading →

How EA Sports turned a glitch into a grace (by walking on water)

2 Comments read Advertising


Tiger gets ready to make a miracle happen.

A few weeks ago I discussed the whole Bike Hero controversy that left a lot of the Youtube crowd with a bad taste in their mouths. A lot of people felt that they were being manipulated by the ad agency, not respected. So I got to thinking, on the flip side, what brand’s have been able to speak to the online community and successfully gain their respect?

The first example that came to my mind was EA Sports with their video game Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08. Continue reading →

7 Tips on Becoming a Commercial Director, by Adam Witten

4 Comments read Filmmaking

This is a guest post from Adam Witten, a talented commercial director represented by The Insanity Corp. based out in NYC.  After seeing my post on 6 Mistakes to Avoid When Directing a Spec Commercial, he wanted to add on with his own tips on making it in this industry.


from Scion: BOXHEAD, directed by Adam Witten

1. Don’t write your own spots.

Even if you think you are the best copywriter in the world, at best you get a good spot but at worse you write a bad spot and no one is there to tell you as much, not to mention you lost an opportunity to meet and work with real agency folk.

Copywriters have whole drawers of dead scripts that the client killed. Many are great and just not want the client wanted that very moment. The creatives want to see this stuff made as much as you and if you are offering to pay for it most of the time they are happy as a pig in shit. Continue reading →