I’m a hands-on Creative Director, Art Director, Illustrator and Maker with over twenty years of professional experience and a track record for creating thumb-stopping social creative and developing high-performing teams. So yes… I’ve been around the block a few times; and starting my career post-grad in a small town and exhausting all the creative roles there meant that I learned a lot—but the job titles I had never matched what I did. I led all Creative for Dippin’ Dots, Inc. for over five years—and helped develop “Minion Madness Cookie Dough” as a co-branded tie-in with Illumination Entertainment when the first “Despicable Me” came out—but my title there was only ever “Designer.” I’ve driven initiatives for scalable digital creative solutions in addition to leading custom social content and video productions that resulted in double-digit sales increases. My career began in print design and gave me a strong grounding in production specs and “doing work right the first time” to avoid costly reprints. I’ve championed the power of social and new media; leading the launch of Facebook for Dippin’ Dots, Inc. (2007) and TikTok for Arby’s (2018) and The Home Depot (2022). I empower and challenge my teams to think strategically—not just creatively—as we work to elevate the brands we touch and make content that resonates with our audiences. I enjoy passing along what I’ve learned and teach new shooting, editing and software techniques to my teams on a regular basis to help everyone develop new skills. I’ve worked freelance, long-term contract, in-house and agency-side as a single contributor on a larger Marketing team as well as a Creative team leader and mentor—hence the number of titles that don’t accurately reflect the job I was hired to do. I identify as a member of the LGBTQ+ community and proudly bring my whole self to every role. I’ve won awards for my work, including a Cannes Silver Lion and a Shorty Award for Art Direction; but the one that means the most to me is the HOW Design award for the wedding invitations I created for my husband and me in 2014.
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Movers 2022 - TikTok!

Trade School Custom Production for The Home Depot | November 2022

Also known as... the "last-minute add-on project."

We were well underway on all of our concepts for the planned Movers shoot... and then were thrown a curveball specifically targeting Renters and First-Time Homeowners using social-first Creative. I had come from all-social teams both at Publicis and Wunderman Thompson, so this was an ask well within my comfort zone... even at the eleventh hour.

We had our storylines pretty much set already for the main videos, so now we had to develop concepts that could be shot with the same talent and using the same props / SKUs.

We brought in a second director/DP—Daniel Oramas—just to shoot the TikTok videos; and Jasmine and Ben accompanied him the entire time since his feed wasn't being broadcast into video village.

The Details

These videos were targeted specifically at our Renters and First-Time Homeowners audiences, and we concepted and shot four for each.

To see the full project insights and details, visit the main Movers 2022 page. 

We wanted these videos to feel like they fit in on TikTok, so in the end we provided two versions of each to the clients for some A/B testing of the content. The "A" versions were all blank to allow the overlay text / supers to be added natively in-platform at activation; and the "B" versions had supers built-in using The Home Depot's core brand colors (but still feeling platform-endemic). Below are a mix of both the blank and built-in supers videos.

Another consideration we had was using The Home Depot's "Beat" (or equity track) against the same video with platform-provided, brand-safe music. Jasmine listened to HOURS of music to choose the alternate versions. 

The Execution

Renters

Our one Renter couple was only cast in two videos, so this was a really fun opportunity to allow them to have more screen time. The voiceover was provided by our Editor Kevin Fermini's girlfriend.

We knew shopping within TikTok was going to be a feature The Home Depot would want to test eventually, so concepted and shot this video with the intent of having either tagged products or a product carousel activated in-platform.

We knew we wanted to have at least one POV-style "finger point" video, and we thought the funniest version was via arranging furniture.

Everybody loves a listicle-style video! This allowed us the most room to highlight both individual Smart Home products and show some app features.

First-Time Homeowners

Somehow we got a doggy door approved as a first-time homeowner DIY project in the main shoot... and we wondered how adorable it would be to tell the story from the dog's POV.

These two had amazing chemistry and were all in on making these videos fun.

A little "do this with me" mixed with some stop motion. Kevin had the idea to add small lines of animation in some of the videos, and they work perfectly without being too much.

I REALLY, REALLY wanted a shot from inside the washer or dryer so we could do a spin transition. I'm still not sure how Daniel was able to get the opening shot without completely disassembling the washer, but he did it.

My Role

Both Ben and I had been on the team that concepted the original launch of The Home Depot's TikTok channel, so I was really glad to have him on this project because he knew the background of what the clients were trying to achieve using TikTok and other social channels. Plus, he's really funny and we were given free rein to have a lot more fun with these videos than we could have in the seventeen main videos being filmed.

For that reason, I FOUGHT to get Ben and Jasmine on-set for the days we were filming our Renters and First-Time Homeowner content. Even if they couldn't bill every hour to the project itself, it was valuable experience for both of them to get to be on set and influence the content they had worked so hard on.

In the end, it was a moot point, as they became essential as Daniel was doing his run-and-gun shooting behind the main crew. There is no way I could have been running the main shoot from video village and supervising the TikTok shoot.

So my biggest contribution after initial concepting and storyboarding was on the post-production side making sure every video was as tight as possible and met the delivery deadline.

The Team

Scott Hunt, Creative Director - Video

Jasmine Brandon, Art Director

Ben Goren, Copywriter

Daniel Oramas, Director/DP

Judith Hoffman, Executive Producer

Pooja Pasari, Senior Producer

Roger Okamoto, Post-Producer

Kevin Fermini, Editor

Kris Boban, Lead Motion Designer/VFX

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