Grad’s commercial makes Heinz’s top 15

In just over a week, Keith Parish will find out if a $20 hamburger and a little bit of talent… In just over a week, Keith Parish will find out if a $20 hamburger and a little bit of talent will win him $57,000 and his 15 minutes of fame.

Parish is a recent Pitt graduate and an aspiring film director. He entered the Heinz Top This TV Challenge, which asked contestants to produce a 30-second commercial for their ketchup.

After discovering an advertisement for the contest on the back of a ketchup bottle, Parish’s mother was convinced her son was up for the task.

Turns out, he was.

Parish’s commercial is now one of the 15 finalists of 8,000 entries. The commercial is posted on topthistv.com, awaiting votes.

Four runners-up will win $5,700 and their commercials will be aired on the Today Show. The grand prize winner, in addition to $57,000, will see their commercial aired during the Emmy Awards Sept. 16.

“It’d be really cool to win that,” said Parish. “My partner and I would split the winnings and then put them toward making another movie that we could maybe take to film festivals.”

Parish enlisted the help of his friend Tyler Rudolph, who was more experienced in script writing. Rudolph helped him by both writing and starring in the commercial.

The basic premise of the commercial is that a young couple is on a date at a diner, and the guy is so concerned with dressing his hamburger with Heinz ketchup that he continually misconstrues his girlfriend’s attempt to break up with him.

“Originally, we had the girl yelling, ‘I’m in love with another man,’ and it was kind of funny to watch the people around us,” Parish said. He filmed the commercial at a diner in his hometown.

After some extensive editing, Parish showed his commercial to family and friends before airing it on Youtube.com.

“My little brother and my parents both thought it was hilarious,” he said. “So I thought it would strike a chord with different age groups.”

The response was also positive from online viewers. And now all he can do is wait.

Parish has a few favorites from the competition – after his own, of course – but hopes that his low-budget commercial can beat out others with higher production costs.

“Mine cost $20 for the hamburger,” he said. “So if we ended up beating those [costly ones], I’d be really happy about it.”