Providing students with the opportunity to witness and learn about film productions, Allebach Communications teamed up with the high school to film Cheez Doodles commercials at various locations on campus.
Souderton hosted an Allebach Communications production crew from December 5-7 to film commercials for Wise Snacks’ Cheez Doodles. Along with the use of the Aux Gym, Auditorium and Student Center, the high school also granted permission for students to take part in the production.
Production manager Ashlyn Bergey believes it is important to incorporate students with local businesses.
“We thought this could be a great way to give students the opportunity to be involved in a commercial production and make connections with professionals in the field,” Bergey said.
Over the three days Allebach Communications was in the building, eight commercials were filmed.
Each commercial focused around “The Cheez Doods,” the Cheez Doodles mascots, whose goal is to spread the love of Cheez Doodles throughout the community.
Students were given the opportunity to act alongside professional, hired actors and witness exactly what it’s like.
Student volunteers were required to fill out a permission form before being partaking in the shoot.
Over 100 students volunteered over the course of the three filming days.
The volunteers were used as extras, lead actors or even singers for the music in the commercial.
Senior Anna Stratton said the women’s a capella group, Chordination, was asked to sing three jingles for the commercial. “They gave us a rough draft of the jingles but let us make up any harmonies or change little things which was great,” Stratton said.
According to senior Zach Gross, being behind the scenes of the production was an “engaging experience” and being an extra was “a lot of fun.”
Gross was both behind the scenes filming for RedAlert and in front of the camera as an extra. “Seeing the professional production, it’s comforting to say it is not too far off from what we have at Souderton on RedAlert,” Gross said. “I definitely learned how thorough professional productions are.”
The creative director for Allebach Communications, Nathan Allebach, and his production crew were expecting the shoot to be more complicated and difficult due to the large crowd of kids.
“This group of students was remarkably easy to work with, it was much smoother than we thought it would be, we didn’t have to yell at anybody, which I was fully expecting to do,” Allebach said.
According to the production crew the students were well-behaved and curious. In between takes they asked questions and talked to the cast and crew.
“We loved working with the students, it was great to see the different aspects of production that piqued the interest of students,” Bergey said, “a lot of the students involved were eager to ask questions and connect with someone on our team.”
Senior Lily Hassett said she was surprised by what went into making just a 30-second commercial.
The production took two months to plan, schedule and write before being able to come into the building and begin filming.
“We started with the point of location, like we have a gym, a library and auditorium, then we worked from there on how to use students and any other extras you find at a school to kind of bring the Cheez Doods to life,” Allebach said.
The commercials will be uploaded incrementally over the next few months on various social media platforms and on the official “Cheez Doodles” YouTube account.
They are set to start releasing in March.