When in 2012 the marketing team at Wells Fargo Financial Advisors considered producing funny social media videos to engage young adults, they turned to me to write some sample scripts. Always eager to create original comedy content. I said, “Let me at ‘em!”
I, in turn, turned to friend Rick Burchett, a long-time, Eisner-winning comics artist, to illustrate key storyboard frames for the script,
(That’s a lot of “turns,” but it turned out quite well.)
Rick did a great job visualising the characters and situations I concocted to promote Wells Fargo’s services to a target audience who hadn’t yet hired a financial advisor. The artist used a “just-enough” style with delicate but deliberately sketchy black-and-white-lines.
I wrote three scripts, each with an accompanying storyboard. In this post, you can see the complete storyboard for spot number one.
I wrote three scripts, and created storyboards for each on large foamcore boards. Here are details from the first, which you can read by scrolling through the frames. The action and dialogue for each little scene is directly under the art. Read as you go and picture this video coming to life!
FADE IN: A park bench on a sunny day. Eating a salad on her lunch break is Lisa, an attractive, professional woman. Funny, quirky -- and too friendly. She’ll talk to anybody about what’s on her mind. And vhat’s on her mind is her financial future. Unfortunately, she encounters some ill-advised advisors. When we pick up the conversation, Lisa is speaking to someone else on the bench, just off-camera
LISA: I know I need investment advice for retirement, I just don’t know where to get it.
Pull back. She’s sitting next to a funny little kid, like the boy in “Jerry McGuire.”
LISA: What about you, what’s your retirement strategy?
LITTLE KID: I haven’t given it much thought.
LISA: Well, you better start. (As in, “don’t wait, like I did”)
Cut to: same bench, now shared with Aging Hippy Chick.
AGING HIPPY CHICK: I would leave retirement to fate and Karma.
LISA: Gee, I don’t know...
AGING HIPPY CHICK (gesturing to salad hungrily): Are those sprouts?
Lisa passes over her salad so the hippie chick can have a sprout.
Cut to: same bench, now shared with a cab driver, on break.
CAB DRIVER: (with false modesty): What do I know? I’m just a cab driver.
LISA: Oh. Well...
CAB DRIVER: (changing quickly to confident selling): But I do have a intuition for investing. Here, I worked you up my standard plan. I’m fee-based.
He hands her a folder. She accepts it, delicately. Is she being charged for this?
Cut to: same bench, now shared with a Great Dane, barking advice to Lisa.
GREAT DANE: RRRRRUF!
LISA: I hear that!
Cut to: same bench, now shared with a long-bearded musician in sunglasses. Think Willie Nelson, or ZZ. Top. He’s strumming an out-of-tune, ordinary guitar.
MUSICIAN: Invest in Guitars. They really escalate in value.
Lisa good-naturedly scowls at the out-of-tune, ordinary guitar.
MUSICIAN (back peddling fast): Not this one, but good ones.
Cut to: same bench, now shared with the actor Dustin Hoffman (or a look-alike.) Lisa is smiling, starstruck, and anticipates what he’s going to say.
LISA: If you say “plastics,” I... will... freak!
Dustin Hoffman smiles.
Cut to: same bench, now shared with a much older, but very stylish woman. She is looking out ove er glasses a bit condescendingly.
OLDER WOMAN: You were never very good at planning ahead.
LISA (exasperated): MOM!
(Even her mother isn’t being a help!)
[Now a “metals” sequence, three one-word metals/elements in a row.]
Cut to: same bench, now shared with a female impersonator in a sparkly silver dress with lots of silver bling, proudly displayed.
IMPERSONATOR: Silver!
Cut to: same bench, now shared with a Men-in-Black superspy, earpiece mike in place, talking to her surreptitiously out of the side of his mouth as he stares ahead.
SUPER SPY: Uranium.
Cut to: same bench, now shared with the Tin Man from Wizard of Oz.
TIN MAN: Tin.
Lisa, disbelieving, takes a picture of him with her iPhone.
SFX (of phone): KA-CHAK!
Cut to: same bench, now shared with a “Walking Dead”-worthy Zombie.
ZOMBIE: Brains.
LISA: All brains?
ZOMBIE: Human.
LISA: Yeah. Makes sense.
ZOMBIE: It’s a long-term play.
Lisa nods as if she understands what a “long-term play” is.
Now the faces of all these non-advisors fill the screen in a “Brady Bunch” grid.
ANNCR: Getting investment advice that’s confusing, bemusing or just plain wrong? Maybe you’re asking the wrong people!
The Zombie image in the grid expands back to the scene with Lisa and the Zombie. The Zombie gets up and walks off, but (SFX) “CRAAAAAAAK” - it leaves an arm in the slats of the bench.
ANNCR: Or non-people.
Lisa hesitates a moment as she wonders whether to point out to the Zombie that his arm is still in the slats. She decides not to, deliberately turning to her salad. She plunges her fork into a piece of asparagus, and we...
Cut to: White screen. Pieces of the Wells Fargo logo move into position on the screen, forming a whole.
ANNCR: For real and real-word advice, see a Wells Fargo Financial Advisor. An investment professional from the third largest investment firm in the country. And benefit from a person you will truly...
Suddenly on screen, the Facebook “Like” symbol, with a sound effects POP!
ANNCR: …Like!
Under it, the URL: Facebook.com/WellsFargoAdvisors
The sound of a verbal “crunch” as Lisa finishes the final piece of her salad.
CUT TO BLACK
Writer: Walt Jaschek • Artist: Rick Burchett
Post-script: as of this writing, this video hasn’t been produced. But give us a call, Wells Fargo! It could still happen!
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