R&I Patton Goldsmithing Hits YouTube with First Commercial

A one minute and forty-three second commercial is usually a high-priced and lengthy endeavor.

Not so, however, for Rudy and Irene Patton, owners of R&I Patton Goldmithing jewelry store in Mongoose Junction. The Pattons, who opened their store in 1978 and craft many of the beautiful pieces in their collection themselves, have enjoyed a loyal customer base for more than three decades.

In an effort to expand their clientele recently, Rudy Patton thought it would be a great idea to shoot a video of the shop. Not looking to break the bank, however, Patton turned top a popular website which only airs videos — YouTube.

Patton approached local filmmaker William Stelzer, who immediately saw the benefits of shooting a commercial for the video website.

“YouTube commercials are an interesting leverage because in terms of TV advertising, it’s pretty expensive and you only get the people who are watching TV,” Stelzer said. “Once you go YouTube, you can link it right to your own website and it goes through YouTube servers too. So everyone on YouTube can watch and its also a part of your own website.”

A still shot from the Patton’s YouTube commercial shows a beautiful R&I Patton-created ring, above.

 “It’s a way of making a video and distributing it, which wasn’t available a few years ago,” said Stelzer.

Instead of approaching an advertising agency and production company with an idea for a commercial and leaving it in their hands, shooting a YouTube piece  allows the business owner dictate the commercial, Stelzer added.

“When you make a commercial you usually go to an ad agency and then the production company just hands the finished product back to you,” said the filmmaker. “With YouTube though you can be completely involved and get exactly what you want because of the smaller scale of it.”

“The quality isn’t going to be as high as if you had a full crew, but you can get away with it to have something that looks pretty good for a relatively small amount of money that is exactly what you want,” said Stelzer.

In total, the R&I Patton YouTube commercial took Stelzer about a half day to shoot and another day and a half to edit, he explained.

While shooting and editing a commercial for YouTube is relatively easy, so too is downloading the piece to the website, explained Patton.

“We had great fun doing the video and it took just a few minutes to upload the finished video onto YouTube,” Patton said. “Then it took me about five minutes to embed it on our homepage, pattongold.com, using the easy tools that YouTube provides.”

Everyone involved with the shoot also had a great time, added Stelzer.

“What is kind of cool about it is that I tend to shoot documentary style and in post production make it look magical,” said Stelzer. “When we were shooting this I was really relaxed and it was really a fun situation. Being casual, it took the stress out, which helped everyone.”

Stelzer believes more and more YouTube commercials will be popping up on websites, he explained.

“It’s a great way to give someone an overall look at your business as if they were walking around inside the store,” said the filmmaker. “I expect to see more and more YouTube commercials. With the customability of it, it seems like a no-brainer for businesses.”

“Everybody should make one to introduce people to what they do,” said Patton, who planned to create another video showing employees crafting jewelry.

The R&I Patton commercial features a full local cast, so local in fact, that everyone in the shoot works in Mongoose Junction. The video features Marlene Tyson, Brenda Wallace, Ron Keele, Devin Trujillo, Tiffany Trujillo, Larry Probst and the Pattons themselves.

Even the employees who weren’t filmed in the video, had a part in its success, added Patton.

“All of our employees helped out by: helping create the super jewelry featured in the video; helping make the money to pay for the video by working hard at their jobs of goldsmithing and sales; and encouraging us to go for it,” said Patton.

Check out the R&I Patton commercial at their website pattongold.com, or stop by the store in Mongoose Junction.