“Power Your Next” Campaign with AMD

Our laptops are our lifelines. They power our creative process here at Revelator, especially after spending the past year working remotely. Our latest video and photo campaign for AMD’s new Ryzen 5000 series mobile processors made us acutely aware of how instrumental that technology is to powering our workflow, our fun, and our next creative inspiration.

AMD makes the world’s most powerful mobile processors, but they know the real power of what they do happens in the minds of the people who use those processors. They wanted to illustrate that idea in the new AMD Ryzen™ campaign. Our goal was to show the future of what users were planning to create with the new mobile processors.

That’s why we were so excited to work on a fun and original set of scripts from the Austin-based agency, Drumroll. We loved the exciting and quirky energy in each spot, and we were up to the challenge of bringing out the uniqueness of each persona. 

The goal of this video and photo campaign was to highlight imaginative and dedicated people, doing what they do best, faster and more seamlessly with the help of AMD powering their every move. Three dynamic and distinct personas came to life in this campaign: a design grad student, a gamer, and a content-creator.

We felt the precision of the storytelling and sense of fun in each of Drumroll’s scripts gave us a tremendous starting point for our approach to each of the Ryzen 5000 scenarios. For us, the key to telling these quick stories was executing them with a dynamic visual energy and a fine-tuned editing style. We wanted to find an empathetic and charming cast of characters to ensure our audience would truly see themselves in these empowered, funny moments. At the end of each of our engaging vignettes, the audience will know that AMD can power their every move.

The dynamic style and empathetic cast in our spots would need to be set up for the comedic visual payoff found in each situation. We knew our settings and cast should be heightened and fun. That meant casting a wide net for location scouting to find for just the right look for each video and photo in the campaign. The modern design of our locations would also need to fit the fun and casual feeling of our main characters. The universal message would need to help our audience instantly recognize their own world. Our message is clever and energetic, so the look of each scenario should have the stylized and expressive movement of a light and aspirational world.

Casting was one of the biggest tools we could use to capture the humor and storytelling found in the AMD project. The excitement and empowerment in their performance will help us land the balance of humor in each ad. That means our cast’s comedic interpretation was key. Their ability to convey the sense of fun, empowerment, and delight in each situation helps convey our efficient message in a matter of seconds.

Due to the pandemic, we bypassed the traditional in-person casting session and instead relied on self submission tapes and then a round of Zoom callback auditions to make our casting selections. We love to have our actors show us a range of energy and expressiveness in auditions. Although our style will be upbeat and dramatic, our cast should feel grounded and natural.

Once our cast and locations were locked, we started fine-tuning our production plan through storyboarding. Storyboards helped us convey how we’ll provide tight and organized visuals supported by a powerful sound design to tell each succinct story. We created storyboards based on our practical location photos to show lenses and frame options so everyone, from agency, to client, to crew members could reference the very specific goals for each production set-up. This let us discuss how the camera moves, how the actors react, and sound effects will all serve the final timing of our edit. You can see a couple of examples pulled from the storyboard process below.

We knew the visual style and technical approach of our production would only be half of the storytelling tools available to us when building our campaign. Based on the fine-tuned scripts for each of these scenarios, the edit and sound design would play a tremendous role in nailing the excitement and humor for each persona.

The quick-cut mini montages – built using fast cuts, quick camera moves, and exaggerated sound design for objects in the scene – enhanced the drama of each scene, bringing the benefits powered by the AMD Ryzen 5000 series into recognizable, but memorable scenarios. 

It was a blast partnering with Drumroll to visualize AMD’s processing power. We had a ton of fun with this campaign, from planning dynamic cinematography to make every insert shot pop, to crafting an edit with quick, lively cuts, and vibrant sound effects. But don’t take our word for it, take a look at these fun :15s spots and power your next bit of fun.