Michael Grecco | Case studies
Pizza Hut – Case Study #1

Pizza Hut – Case Study #1   |   BILLY ON THE STREET

Delivering for Pizza Hut.

Cinemagraphs are essentially a combination of a still photo with a video. But since the production is done in pieces, it’s important to pre-visualize the end result or you’ll end up with something resembling Frankenstein’s monster.
For this advertising video for the truTV comedy show “Billy On The Street,” we wanted to show a couple frozen in the foreground with a classic time-lapse behind them. That meant two shoots; One of the couple separately and a time-lapse plate for the background.

The production was in Times Square at magic hour…which in Manhattan, happens to be rush hour. This also made the whole thing a logistical nightmare on par with herding cats. But we pushed through by barricading off the area, getting 300+ images of the couple and then executing the time-lapse.
The best images, of course, were at dusk. But because the comedy show takes place during the day, we selected a master shot, retouched it, then matched everything in Adobe After Effects.

  • Billy on the Street.jpg

In the end, we had a labor of love that became the first-ever Cinemagraph used as a broadcast TV spot. I won an American Photo Motion Arts Award for the effort.