Gemstone Caverns

Sell gems to the finnicky Gem Buyer!

Chris was responsible for all areas of production.

We casted, wrote, storyboarded, set and costume-designed, filmed, animated, and edited.

This was a big one!

Role

Producer, Director, Animator, Editor

Client

Thinkfun

The Goal

We were approached by Thinkfun to create a :30 promotional and how to play video for the dice rolling, pattern matching game Gemstone Caverns.

We had FREE REIN to make something we thought was cool.

The Process

This was our first big full-service project with Thinkfun.

Alec (our Thinkfun client) gave us a budget and creative freedom to make whatever we thought was cool and would sell the product.

The creative process started with writing a smart script that took the content of the instructions and distilled them into understandable video sequences.

While storyboarding, we wanted to create a vibrant, jewel-encrusted, setting while channeling the fun of a dice-rolling game.

Of course, it made sense to have an odd gem buyer character—ala the merchant from Resident Evil 4.

We initially wanted a cardboard lifesize cutout of a mine cart that we could dress up to look 3D, but you wouldn’t believe how hard it is to locate something like this. We ended up doing something better.

A good friend of ours is a 3D-printing master, and we asked him to create an oversized version of one of the dice that comes with the game. He took the 3D files and created a big, beautiful red gemstone with resin.

This acted as a fun prop for the gem buyer to hold, and it also sits on a shelf in the background. It was definitely a little rough in person, so lighting and color grading helped to sell the effect.

For the shoot itself, we filmed in one home and two setups.

The first setup was in the basement. Here we shot the gem buyer scenes (played by Chris).

We flagged off all light sources and pulled in a red gel over a powerful LED to get the shining red gem effect.

The second setup was upstairs to create the “around the table” effect with the players seated together. This was actually more complicated than it seems.

We first flagged the windows with trash bags and gaff tape on the exterior to give an evening look. Then we closed the interior blinds and pumped a key and fill. Behind the couch, we used multiple smaller LEDs with red and blue gels to give fun color separation to the background.

Smaller room lights were kept on to give more tone to the image. Finally, we piled blankets under the table between the camera and an additional LED panel. This panel sat on the ground between two actors to give them extra tail lighting.

The talent was marvelous and we ended up with a really fun video with LOTS of fake/tacky jewelry from Amazon.

Finally, the edit came together and we are so proud of the final result.

This video would not have been possible without all of the great people involved + the trust of our client to provide them excellent service for their video marketing needs.

Huge shoutout to Alec Lawson for trusting us with this project.