I’m trying to get in a better habit of recapping projects with blog posts like this. So I’m going back to last year and doing this right… Behold below, the recap of Comic-Con Super Hero Farmers 2019…
For Comic-Con we had a really exciting opportunity with Corteva. We knew we had an audience that was into tech and science, but we had to find a way to connect why we’d be at an event like Comic-Con. So we decided to give homage to the unsung superheroes of our world, the farmers. And with that insight our extraordinary idea was born. With the help of Comic-Con fans and our host Leo Camacho, we hit the streets and created the world’s first super hero farm family. Then we partnered with the kick-ass comic book artist Dan Panosian to draw it up bring it all to life. To keep relevant to Corteva, we gave our farmers real science and technology as their superpowers on the farm.
To tease this campaign we whipped up a cheeky blockbuster-esque style trailer and used an epic VO. This set the tone for awesome things to come.
Now for the feature presentation! Our host Leo Camacho did an awesome job, I was constantly impressed at how well he could add energy in front of the camera. We had a very small crew: Carlos from ChromaHouse Productions was our camera guy, we had a sound guy (Phil), a producer (Hannah), a tall account guy occasionally holding a diffuser (Adam), and a couple folks from the Corteva team (Ashley and Jenna). Dan Panosian was our super talented artist and a pleasure to work with. He added a great sense of authenticity to the project. As the writer of the concept, I had the opportunity to direct the shoot and manage the final edit for this. It was a blast running around San Diego, seeing all the costumes and engaging with these people. I felt like my red balloon days were good training for getting the nerve to randomly spark conversations and find people to film. Ok enough words, check out the film!
Another final result was this sweet comic strip. Dan Pansioan really pulled out some magic in a short span of time that we gave him. We had our characters, but we were sort of left with a series of images that needed a story and comic dialogue. Plus he drew a birthday cake on a whim and it all needed to somehow make sense. Pulling from some of my favorite soundbites and ideas from our street audience I crafted the dialogue and story. As silly as it sounds, I am really proud to have written my first official comic strip. (It was also super interesting to work with a comic dialogue artist who arranged and designed the talk bubbles — truly an overlooked art.)
See the final strip below. Could there ever be an actual feature film or full-length comic book series based on Duper Family Farms? Sweet Harvest! There definitely should be!
During Comic-Con we shared behind the scenes content and asked social media fans for their ideas on how to create our superhero farming team. For playing along, we rewarded them with some awesome original comic art and super swag. Using the good ‘ol Boomerang feature on my iPhone I captured some fun footage to share. Oh and by the way, how rad are those super exclamatory GROW shirts our team designed? It’s extra soft too, makes for a great pajama tee.
Lastly, we needed an energetic piece of content to share on social and drive people down the rabbit hole to see our longer form content. This comic themed video post created some extra buzz and excitement.
And that’s a wrap!