Dream Big

It’s always harder than it looks.

That is the beauty of commercials. They are limited. They tell a story, perfect and polished – and you only have 30 seconds – counted out in frames – 24 per second. Unless you like things to have a slightly dreamier look, and then you shoot 30 frames per second – my favorite; but then I am Southern, and we like our time to move a little slower.

And if you really want to test your skill and story telling acumen, then you are welcome to attempt the one perfect 30-second shot. The Georgia Lottery hired me to shoot four spots – all were beautiful fantasy spots – all would be set to the lovely song – ‘Our Day will Come’ (composed by Bob Hilliard and Mort Garson, a #1 hit in 1963 for Ruby & the Romantics) and each spot would be one perfect shot.

4 Concepts: each one had to be shot in the state of Georgia, since they were for the Georgia Lottery. Concept #1 – Straight overhead, we look down into blue water; a yacht comes into frame, a beautiful couple lounge on the deck, a little dingy trails behind. Concept #2 – The camera pushes through a beautiful room, a table is set for two, we arrive on a balcony over looking a lake view with a beautiful couple, as the sun sets. Concept #3 – We tilt up a gorgeous tropical waterfall, following a woman’s gloriously long hair, until we reach her, where she relaxes in a shallow pool as the water flows over her body. Concept #4 – We are with a couple in a hot-tub as they laugh together; we boom up to reveal that they are actually in a hot tub that is in the back of a limo traveling down a tree-lined road. Amazing concepts. Difficulty rating: let’s just say high. I think my Producer, Lisa Bilek, spent most of the job finding and tracking the limo, traveling cross country from California with two professional drivers, driving in shifts, 24 hours a day. It arrived on location an hour before we needed to shoot it – tracking with a camera car, and an underwater housing so we could start the shot underwater, focused on the woman’s diamond ring before booming up to the couple- laughing together - and pulling past them to tilt up into the pecan trees somewhere in middle Georgia. Breathe, Lisa, breathe.

And then there was the ‘room’ with the perfect view. Tony Kuppersmith – brilliant man that he is – built a set for us – on a dam. I had learned from a very talented Director I had worked for as Art Director, that sometimes it is easier to find the perfect location, and then build a set on location. We had started by hiring the photographer Craig Tanner to be our location scout. He had amazing scenic photography of work he had done here in Georgia - and he found all of our gorgeous locations; one was a dam in the mountains of North Georgia – with a view directly west. So Tony built our ‘room’ with a view. It was basically a platform, cantilevered off the front and the back of the dam. The front, facing west, had a balcony railing, painted white. The ‘room’ itself had some black and white tile, white sheers, and a chandelier hung above to make it seem like there was a ceiling up there. And the back of the platform, hung off the back of the dam, with just enough room for camera and dolly to start their 30-second push in.

We had shot the waterfall spot that morning below the dam, and the afternoon was spent setting up for the one chance at our perfect sunset. Rehearsal, rehearsal until the time was right. We literally rolled every 2 minutes to capture the exact moment the sun flare caught the lens as the table was pulled out of frame to camera left (Hollywood-style), the curtains bellowed in the ‘wind’, the sun set over the water, and the couple exited camera right, as the script person counted down the time out loud for all to hear.

But my favorite (and you always have a favorite) was the yacht. Where do you get a yacht in Georgia? And more importantly, where do you get blue water? And how, by the way, do you get an overhead shot in the middle of the blue water?

From my first experience directing, I discovered the absolute magic that happens in the process of Color Correction. It is amazing to me that every Director doesn’t fight - absolutely insist above all else, to be involved in that process. It makes all the difference in the world in how something looks – and believe me, there are artists that carry the title, ‘Colorist’.

Lake Lanier was the only body of water big enough for anything that even vaguely resembled a yacht. When we turned the green water of Lake Lanier from green to blue in Color Correct, it also changed the awful green awning on the ‘party’ boat to blue. We brought in an Akelela Crane from California – the only crane long enough to extend off of a bridge far enough and look straight down into the water. We spent the morning trying to figure out how to solve the problem of getting the ‘boat’ directly under the camera, so that it would be perfectly in frame – since there were no reference points we could give them in the water. You did not know if they would be in frame, or out of frame, until they passed by beneath us – and then it took another 30 minutes to circle back around again. Tom Monroe, my AD, stood beside me, radioing back and forth with the ship’s Captain and the PA on board, trying to figure out a way to adjust their path – and keep it consistent, as the afternoon sped by.

Looking down at my feet, I noticed 2” holes in the concrete of the bridge, which must have been for water run off. What if we dropped a rope, directly down to the water below, from where we were, at the base of the crane, and it became their

frame reference? It was one of my happiest problem solving moments. By then, the sun was sinking lower in the sky, glinting off the waves in the water, the ‘Captain’ of the boat had partied a little too much, his 10 year old son had taken over piloting the boat, and he was able to hit the mark perfectly. The woman on the ‘yacht’ turned to her friend on Tom’s perfect cue, and the dingy, trailing along in the back, fish tailed left and right as if all was right with the world. And it was.

Dream Big.