So, I was staring at my desk the other day, feeling a bit stuck, you know? And my eyes landed on this old pen. Nothing fancy, just a simple clicky pen, the kind you get a dozen of. And a thought popped into my head – could I actually make an advertisement for this thing? Just for kicks, really. A little challenge to get the brain cells firing.
I figured, why not? It’s not like I had a Hollywood budget. In fact, my budget was exactly zero. My main tool? My trusty old smartphone. I thought, “Okay, what’s the angle here?” It’s a pen. It writes. Groundbreaking stuff, I know. But I wanted to see if I could make it look… well, at least a tiny bit interesting.
Getting Started – The Grand Vision (Sort Of)
My first step was just to mess around. I grabbed the pen and started thinking about what makes a pen, well, a pen. It’s about ideas, right? Jotting things down, sketching, that sort of thing. So, I tried to capture that. I didn’t have any fancy storyboards or anything. It was more like, “Let’s try this. Nope, that looks dumb. How about this?”
I decided to go for a short video. My equipment list was pretty straightforward:
- The pen itself, obviously.
- My phone for shooting video.
- A desk lamp for some dramatic lighting (or so I hoped).
- A few sheets of plain paper.
I tried a few different shots. Close-ups of the tip. The satisfying click. Someone actually writing with it – turns out, my handwriting isn’t as cinematic as I thought. That was a bit of a laugh. I remember thinking back to some big projects I’d been on ages ago, with proper camera crews and lighting guys. And here I was, balancing my phone on a stack of books trying to get a steady shot of a pen. It was quite the comedown, but in a good way!
The Nitty-Gritty of Making a Pen Look Cool
The actual filming was a bit of trial and error. Mostly error, if I’m being honest. Getting the lighting right with just a desk lamp was a pain. Shadows everywhere! And trying to make a simple plastic pen look sleek and desirable? Man, that was tougher than I expected. I spent a good hour just trying to get a decent shot of the pen rolling across the paper without it looking like I just dropped it by accident.
Then came the editing. I used some free app on my phone. Slapped a few clips together. Tried to find some royalty-free music that didn’t sound like elevator tunes. That was a whole adventure in itself. I wanted something that felt a bit thoughtful, maybe a little inspiring, but most of what I found was either super cheesy or way too dramatic for a pen ad.
I remember one version I made where I tried to do a voiceover. Sounded like I was selling a used car. Scrapped that idea pretty quick. It’s funny, you see all these slick ads on TV, and they make it look so easy. But even for something as simple as this, there’s a lot of fiddling and tweaking involved. You try one thing, it doesn’t work, you try another. It’s a process.
The Final Cut (Well, My Version of It)
After a few hours of messing about, I ended up with a short clip, maybe 15 seconds long. It wasn’t going to win any awards, that’s for sure. It was just a simple sequence: the pen clicking, a hand starting to write a word (I chose “idea”), and then a final shot of the pen lying next to the paper. Simple. Maybe too simple.
But you know what? I actually had a bit of fun doing it. It was a good reminder that sometimes you don’t need a massive budget or a big team to try something creative. Sometimes, all you need is an old pen, a bit of time, and the willingness to just play around and see what happens. My little pen ad wasn’t going to change the world, or even sell any pens, probably. But it got me out of that rut, and that was the whole point, really. Sometimes the process is more important than the polished end product, especially when you’re just doing it for yourself.
