MSE’s Tim Thornton-Allan talks remote on-set cutting for latest United Way spot

New York agency StrawberryFrog were briefed by United Way & Truist in partnership to help reposition the United Way brand for a new generation.

Led by StrawberryFrog’s ECD Tyler DeAngelo, this new spot United We Stand, directed by Fredrik Bond at MJZ, features First National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman with her original poem inspired by United Way about all that can be achieved when people unite for their communities.

Marshall Street Editor Tim Thornton-Allan talks us through the bespoke editing workflow used for the project during the Covid lockdown: “It was a privilege to work on this commercial for StrawberryFrog, United Way & Truist. The agency was in New York, the director in LA, the client in Atlanta, the film crew on location and myself at home we all communicated remotely on Zoom. I took a live feed from the on-set Alexa camera, converted it and recorded it straight into Avid.

Meanwhile, my assistant was processing the raw Alexa footage and downloading it to my Avid as I was cutting. This gave me the ability to edit live on set while simultaneously sharing the output with Fredrik. Once we were happy with it, he shared the cut with the agency.

I then went on to cut remotely with the live edit feed with Tyler and his team. It was a fabulous spot to work on and lot of fun. It’s harder to think of a more efficient and agile way of working in these (or any other) times”.