The Story behind "Happy Grain Belt Day."

Kurt walked into my office on a late Friday afternoon back in July.
"Remember that Grain Belt commercial contest I signed us up for?"
"Yeah," I replied looking up from my computer.
"The deadline is in a couple of weeks."
With that he sat down and we brainstormed a concept for our commercial.
"Grain Belt Man!" he pitched.
"Grain Belt Day!" I counter-pitched.
It was, to quote a famous movie, like Chinese food and chocolate pudding.
Perfect.

Twenty minutes later I emailed Kurt the script.

Andy was then drafted to be Grain Belt Man. Only he could give that character the necessary gravitas.
With Grain Belt Man secured we tried recruiting all our friends to participate in the shoot. That's when we discovered even the promise of free beer cannot always convince people to give up a Saturday in July to hang out in an office all day in dress shirts and ties and uncomfortable shoes. Luckily though enough people showed up and we were able to shoot the commercial relatively close to our original vision. I don't think Kurt planned on appearing in the spot as the "grump" however. At that point in the shoot though we were down to just him or me to fill in as an actor and my hand had already appeared in the crucial coffee-cup-gets-swapped-for-can-of-beer shot, so I was out.

After getting all the footage in the can Luke and I got busy editing the thing. We cut it to a great song by a friend of mine, Andy Flynn. Check out his myspace page "las botas lunares" The track we used was "The Golden Rule."

Of course we came right down to the wire in turning our entry into Copycats on deadline day. Actually, I believe there were two hours to spare, so it's not really "down-to-the-wire" is it? We'll say nearly down-to-the-wire.
Leaving our commercial to co-mingle in the box with all the other entries we walked away. It was like dropping our child off for the first day of college, hoping he'll succeed while crossing our fingers he won't get arrested or drop out of school to become a poet. I imagine anyway that's what parents of college-aged children worry about.

Then we waited.

Finally on the 12th of September those of us who could gathered at the Ritz Theater in Northeast Minneapolis to find what had become of our little Grain Belt project. The screening commenced. There were many, many great commercials submitted. (One of my favorites – the guy who makes a robot out of Grain Belt Boxes and then pummels him to death when the robot runs out of beer)
There was no way we were going to win. We were just there to enjoy the moment, get a chance to appreciate the creativity of the Twin Cities filmmaking community and maybe have a couple of beers.
And then we won.
Very cool.

Now there's a bunch of beer stacked behind a couch in the front of our office. And more beer is to come - about 50-weeks worth I believe.
Very cool indeed.

Happy Grain Belt Day.