They Buy You

Jamahl Kersey and I collaborated on this minute-long short film last year, this one being the third in a trilogy. The goal was to market The Law Office of Jamahl C. Kersey, Esq. but we didn't approach like we were creating advertising. We knew from the get-go that people don't buy your product; they buy you. 

We'd kicked around a couple of ideas and were about to move forward with an ad but one day, while hearing Jamahl speaking so passionately and sincerely about why he does what he does, it hit me that that's where the focus should be. Not information about the law or explaining the services but Jamahl's own extremely eloquent prose. So I sat down with J and interviewed him the way I'd interview any guest on Burner Podcast or #CrappyAwesome. And from that recording, I isolated quotables from Jamahl's own words and constructed three scripts which he then fine-tuned.

Each of the three videos focuses on the characteristics of Jamahl's professional journey that we felt, when combined, gave the most complete story we wanted to be tell. The first is focused on his connection to the Spanish speaking community and was shot around Barrio Logan, the second is about the black experience and the third (this one) is specifically about his practice.

The music you're hearing is by the amazing Danny Green, whom I actually went to high school with. Jamahl and I are in total agreement about utilizing our own pool of talent so I just started digging through Danny's catalogue looking for a good tune. While multi-tasking, this song started to play in the background and my ears peaked. This was the tune! I minimize the window I'm working in and when I see the title of the song, any doubt that synchronicity was in full effect evaporated. The name of the song is "Second Chance."* Different sections of this same song is used in each of the videos.

We had Chris Reyes come in to record and master the audio. Having the freedom to bring in experts to do what they do better than we ever could was quite a liberating feeling as an artist and really elevated the quality of the project.

The videos were all shot on my old Canon Rebel T3i with the kit lens that came with it and edited on Adobe Premiere. We are so excited about sharing the other two chapters with you soon.

*The album, Altered Narratives, is available at dannygreen.net.