Case Study: Making February Feel Like July

Client: Nectar Collective                                               

Agency: SRG                                                           

Production Company: La Storia Productions                       

Post: 11 Dollar Bill

The Challenge

When SRG and 11 Dollar Bill approached us with their vision for launching Nectar, a new alcoholic seltzer brand, we immediately fell for the concept which was a vibrant, fresh, photo & video campaign full of life in a sun-soaked meadow bursting with lemon trees, lavender, and honey (all flavor cues to ingredients in the product lineup). 

The catch? It was February. In Colorado. And outside it looked far closer to Narnia than Napa. 

We didn't have the time or resources to pivot to a warmer location, and honestly even if we did - the chance of rain in those locations and having to carve out budget for a "just in case" weather contingency didn't feel like we were being the best stewards of the clients budget. Surely we could figure out a better approach.

We knew we had to bring the outdoors... in.

The Solution

We considered a few different options, including renting a massive greenhouse and staging plants throughout to fake an outside meadow, but ultimately the amount of lighting needed to create "golden hour" and plant props and people throughout made this approach feel out of reach.

Ultimately, our team landed on the controlled setting of an indoor studio with two adjacent stages where we could dedicate one entirely to our video team and the other to our photography team. Being able to capture this campaign by both teams, on the same days, simultaneously was great for ensuring overall consistency for the brand and really helpful for the agency and client, who were able to have monitors for stills and video set up inside their video village in-studio.  This enabled them to oversee everything that was happening and be able to pop in to each set when needed to help answer questions or tweak creative when helpful. 

The Execution

Getting the production location was Step 1.

Step 2 was creating the actual meadow and this was a really fun challenge for our team. Art Director Kendra Kimball and Set Fabricator RC Walker led the charge, building a raised platform to support the weight of adult talent while giving DP Jon Boal optimal camera angles—no crawling on the ground required.

Our art team then transformed the set with rolling hills, faux wild grasses, and hundreds of fresh flowers and greenery that were placed by hand throughout the frame.

To compensate for the white cyc background, we brought in a blue screen that we rented from our friends at LSI.  We then were able to have our DIT, Tim Hardy, live-comp the SRG-approved background on-set, so everyone could see in real time exactly how the final scene would look, critical for 11 Dollar Bill's team who was on-set with us and would be overseeing the post and compositing on this project.

Over two days, we ran simultaneous photo and video productions in adjacent studios with a shared Art Department, shared on-camera talent and hand models, and shared Product!  To pull this off, our EP Molly Walker and 1st AD, Callahan Woodberry created master down-to-the-minute Production Schedules to coordinate the minutia of people and products and ensure no one needed to be cloned. This setup was tricky for our team and made pivoting on each production day a little less forgiving than we're used to but made it was truly efficiency at it's finest and made the shoot very seamless for clients and agency partners to bounce between both sets, with live feeds going straight to video village.

The Goods 

12x 30-second Videos (16x9 and 9x16)
12x 15-second Cutdown Videos (16x9 and 9x16)
75+ High-res lifestyle and eComm photography for print + digital
Behind-the-scenes content for all partners to use on social media
Integrated campaign assets for SRG' launch rollout.

Check out our Director's Cut below:

The Takeaways  

After every project, the La Storia team tries to sit down with our Department Heads and hit pause for a project retrospective. This forces us to make time to celebrate the project wrapping (something we're not always great at but are trying to make time for!) and creates a space for us to talk as a team about what worked, unpack where we can improve, share honest feedback across the board, and make sure each project sets the bar higher than the last. So here were some of the key takeaways for our team for this project:

• Despite this being a beverage product with more whole ingredients than prepared dishes, having our amazing Food Stylist, Kim Knotts of Hawkins & Co. was 100% the right call and we were really glad Art Dept. could focus solely on props and set builds. 
• Photo and Video being captured simultaneously is really nice for the client and agency, but adds some layers of trickiness for crew.  Video was a little more of a priority for the client than Photography was on this project (we asked up front!) and as such, the Photography team felt this at times. If we had this to do over, we would have asked for budget for an additional Art Director who could have stayed dedicated to the Photography team - so they didn't have to pop over and pull them from the video set.  
• Production budgets don't always give the luxury of having a DIT on-set, but it was something we pushed for on this one and was critical to the success of this project.  With AI infiltrating into production more and more and the use of green or blue screens coming more into play again, being able to double and triple check thanks live-comping on the day, especially when camera movement is involved, is imperative these days. 
• Having detailed Camera Reports to hand off to the Post Production Company along with organized project assets and footage really helped for a seamless transition from the Production phase -> Post & CG.