archadeck outdoor living | “Moments Through the years”

“If you build it, they will come.”

Archadeck Outdoor Living is one of our longest running brand partners. They’ve been designing and building outdoor spaces since 1980.

Their credo, “better building by design,” works just as well for video production as it does when building a porch, patio or deck! And that was exactly our goal in this production.

Building on a previous commercial where we featured people in different scenarios enjoying their outdoor spaces, with this project we wanted to focus on one family throughout several decades.

Not only does it communicate the longevity of the product, but allows us to explore some fun family dynamics as we watch characters age over time.

This production has a little bit of everything. Visual effects that don’t call too much attention to themselves, serving to enhance and deepen the story. Killer set design to help support our shifts in time. And a hair & makeup team that helped our lead jump 15-20 years into the future.

Production Team

The Process

Location, LOCATION, LOCATION…

When it comes to finding a location for a new commercial, the most important deciding factor is finding the spot that is going to help us best tell the story we want to tell.

Often we work with location scouts to secure a place that fits our wants and needs and can accommodate the crew. When working with a partner like Archadeck Outdoor Living, we also needed a location with an outdoor space built by Archadeck! And luckily we had a lot of great locations to choose from.

We considered locations with second story decks, elaborate patios with built in fire pits, porches with a roof structure or pergola. Every single option could have made a great location, but we were also considering our story, and we needed to choose the spot that felt the most like it could stylistically live across decades. We found it in Lisle, IL.

The house exterior was a classic style and the outdoor space featured a beautiful patio and deck. With bonus points for backing up to a lake - which helped control any ambient noise during production.

production team

Any chance we get to film in the Chicago area is welcomed. We have a great established and growing roster of talent to pull from when it comes to hiring crew in the area.

With our core camera team coming from Charlotte, we were able to hire locally for grip and electric, hair & makeup, wardrobe and art direction. And we found a great talent agency partner with Lily’s Talent.

Challenges

This production was shot over the course of two days, with each day requiring dusk shots for the telescope scenes. Going for a naturalistic style, we started shooting late morning into sundown each day for our best light.

There was a moment in the story where our dad and daughter see a meteor shower while star gazing on their back porch. Luckily we didn’t have to time this out perfectly and wait for one to happen! This visual effect wizardry was planned for and added in post.

For this series of spots, we had the opportunity to compose an original musical score. This work was completed before production began so we had the track on set to play periodically to be sure we had the timing of our actions at just the right speed.

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