We're on-set today, shooting another Federal Government ad. In the past few months, we've shot in locations such as government offices, an aviation school, and a steel mill. But this one is different. We're actually creating a world from scratch.
Welcome to the coolest market in the Eastern Mediterranean region. Don't look for it in Lonely Planet, because it's actually on a sound stage by the chilly banks of the mighty St. Lawrence River. But just for one day, we're transporting a bunch of actors to Sicily. Or maybe it's Cyprus. Or Greece? Turkey? Lebanon?
The point is not to be too specific. The scenario is a Canadian tourist abroad, drinking in the local culture. The market has a region, but not a nation. It should remind viewers of the coolest travel experiences they've ever had... anywhere in the world.
It's our own little exotic Sesame Street, complete with all the people in the neighbourhood... even chickens. We're in Mel's, a group of hangar-like buildings used for Quebec and Hollywood films alike. The posters on the walls of the corridors boast of some of the movies filmed here: 300, Catch Me if You Can, The Aviator, and others.
At Acart, we've long benefited from a tight relationship with the Montreal film industry. Just two hours from our agency's front door, we have access to world-class production resources and people driven by the passion of knowing they are at the epicentre of their own culture's creative expression. This is the real Hollywood North, even if they often drop the "H".
Our production house on this shoot is Traffik, with Director Dominique Laurence. I won't reveal the client, or give any plot spoilers right now. Stay tuned for a full look behind-the-scenes when the ad is done and approved in a few weeks. It's gonna be way cool.
I'm sitting here this morning putting together a puzzle. No, it's not a scene from Star Wars (I wish!). It's just a normal part of my job.
You see, yesterday we received a request to re-script a commercial that has already been shot and edited. For those of you who have not been involved in TV production, this is kind of a big deal. Weeks of planning and hard work, and hundreds of thousands of dollars, go into producing a 30-second spot based on an approved script. It's usually step one. (Luckily, there's nobody speaking on camera!)
So here I am, figuring out two options: re-edit existing footage to match the new script, or edit the supplied script to existing footage. Both require a fair bit of resourcefulness.
Resourcefulness is not always given due credit in creative circles. We thrive on inspiration, resourcefulness' celebrity older sister. But as exciting as inspiration is (what could be more scary thrilling than a blank page?), resourcefulness deserves its due.
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. - Ecclesiastes 1:9
We have a joke among Copywriters, "I need a new word for 'new'". The desire for novelty is what keeps us fresh. At the same time, once you've been doing this for a few years, "Seen it!" becomes a more and more frequent reaction. That shouldn't mean we give up trying, but realizing that inspiration is just recombining — or building on — many other people's ideas is actually liberating. Knowing that inspiration is not magic, but rather natural evolution of ideas, removes the fear of that blank page. You just let the ideas happen. And if they don't, you start looking around for inspiration.
Understanding that you never really have a blank page also gives an insight into the nature of inspiration. It's really just unconscious resourcefulness.
On the other hand, when faced with challenges like today's puzzle, the unconscious just isn't enough. Instead of inspiring myself, I'm problem-solving.
We've all been there. The super-awesome, brilliant, earth-shattering idea that you had at the brainstorming pub lunch five Fridays ago has now been reviewed, approved with changes, focus tested, and generally altered. Some Creatives give up and bemoan the loss of their prodigal daughter. Professionals get resourceful.
Resourcefulness is about taking what you have, evaluating the situation calmly, and using every skill, tool and talent at your disposal to come up with the best possible solution for the situation.
It may not always be art. But resourcefulness is what let humans take over the world.
Last Friday, I posted our latest TV campaign for the Public Health Agency of Canada.
For those of you who aren't in the advertising or production world, it would be quite an eye-opener to see what actually goes into making those 30 seconds.
This ad was shot over three separate days in two cities — Ottawa and Montreal. The main reason for this is that Dr. David Butler-Jones, Canada's Chief Public Health Officer, is himself extremely busy managing Canada's response to H1N1. So we had to shoot him in his Ottawa office on Saturday morning, just as he was about to catch yet another flight.
A funny 6 degrees of separation thing happened to me at the shoot. The night before, I was talking to my Mom on the phone and mentioned we were shooting Dr. David Butler-Jones. She said, "there can't be two of them — ask him if he ever lived in Kingston." So I did, and it turned out he was a friend of the family when I was just a kid, attending my parents' church and even visiting us at our cottage. Small world.
The balance of the commercial was cast, shot, and produced in Montreal, where the production house SOMA is located. We do a lot of shooting in Montreal because it's handier to Ottawa than Toronto, and its homegrown movie industry means that it's brimming with talent and resources.
Shoot day two was the following Monday, in a house in the north end of Montreal, for the scene between the man and his pregnant wife. This was an important human touch for the ad, since all the other scenes were in a more clinical context. It was also the one where the interplay between the actors was most crucial.
This is why it might be kind of surprising that the husband-wife scene is the only one in which there is a different actor in the French and English versions.
Most of our government ads are silent shoots, since the verbal information is dubbed in voiceover. But this one had actors speaking on camera. Usually, that would require double casting of each speaking role. But Montreal is different. All of our roles but one were filled by fluently bilingual actors. The sole exception was the husband.
See if you can see a difference in the way the actors play the scene together:
Day three was the "clinic" scenes of a doctor's office, and a public immunization clinic, both shot in a vacant office building in downtown Montreal. I wasn't present for this day of shooting, but it looks like the team was getting pretty tired by that point.
Following the actual shoot, the offline edit was done on Wednesday. This is the point at which the commercial actually comes together in recognizable (if rough) form. Acart people are both on-site at the studio, and watching cuts remotely, to approve the edit for client consumption.
Following the offline, new edits had to be made before the commercial went to final colour correction and online (broadcast-ready) approval. We also had to brief a composer for original music, and get every aspect of production approved.
It's great to have this ad on the air in time for the Christmas season, which is a particular concern for public health officials during a pandemic.
