#marden's

My first month back in Maine and I’ve already gotten to work with one of the state’s most recognizable brands! Marden’s has made an impact on everybody around here with their deals and their signature commercials and radio ads. 

When approached with an idea about telling the story of a salvage deal, I decided to take a more produced approach, with wide angle lenses and heavy use of wide shots and depth of field. The whole shoot took about a day and began in the early hours of the morning. Who knew a sunrise over commercial building could be so pretty? 

We had initially wanted to utilize the time-lapse footage more, but ran into issues with memory, battery life, and CCTV systems. Chalk that up to another handful of lessons, especially the time-lapse factor, which is something I had been wanting to utilize for awhile.

The Marden’s team was nice and thoughtful about the whole process, which was great. I know a lot of people don’t appreciate cameras in their faces while they are trying to get hard work done. 

If you are wondering about the music, it’s original and made specifically for this spot. I strive to create music for new projects as much as possible. 

Where did you get them? I love the pink laces

Last week, a spokesman for Gov. LePage said that the governor's storm closure policy would mirror the Marden's salvage store.

"If Marden's is open, Maine is open," Dan Demeritt told the Kennebec Journal.

Today, The Maine State Employees Association released a statement challenging the policy.

Here it is

"Statement by the Maine State Employees Association, SEIU Local 1989, on the Governor’s Storm Day Policy

We respect the Governor’s right and responsibility to determine a storm day policy for state workers. Many of our members remain unclear as to what the determining criteria is. Based on the way the Governor’s spokesman described the storm day policy, the administration appears to have already violated it.

The Governor’s spokesman, Dan Demeritt, has described the storm day policy this way: “The rule of thumb is: If Marden’s is open, Maine is open.”

Yet on January 12, 2011, when the Governor sent state workers home at 3 PM except for those in Aroostook County, Marden’s began closing some of its stores at noon because of the same storm.

According to the company’s website, “Some Marden’s stores will be closing early today due to weather.” It states that on January 12, the Marden’s stores in Scarborough, Lewiston, Biddeford and Sanford all closed at noon, the Calais store closed at 2 PM, and the Ellsworth store closed at 4 PM.

It’s one thing to characterize a storm day policy with a sound-bite quip. It’s another thing to actually develop, post and distribute a process or policy that protects the health and safety of all Maine people."