H+C x Schwan’s Home Delivery: Deliver Goodness

the edit 1.0

Hi there,
I’m excited to share the incredible opportunity to work with Schwan’s Home Delivery that I had this year and how we brought it to life around the table. The job consisted of creating one 60-second spot, five 15-second sports and a library of still images.  I had three days to do it, a super tight budget, and I needed to keep my crew and talent safe as we worked through what we thought would be the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, we were shooting in Minnesota, in January.  

My process started by putting together a treatment. I explained my creative vision for the brand and described how I would execute it. I knew that I wanted the footage to feel easy, intimate and organic. I wanted to bring their brand story to life.  At the same time, it was critical to me that feelings of excitement and connection around shared meals were as much a part of the story as the product’s convenience.

 Once awarded the job, I worked with my producer to curate the perfect team. COVID-19 regulations made this challenging. We had to be strategic--we had to assemble a talented and nimble crew to reduce risk. We used Zoom for casting and selected a multi-generational family that was already in quarantine together. Because they were not professional actors, we developed a set of fun prompts and questions to bring out their personalities and to see how they took direction. 

The client was absolutely thrilled. They showered the agency with emails saying how happy they were with the story we told. We made it look easy, but there were unexpected challenges along the way, like finding the right family and location. 

After we found our family, we needed to lock down our location. We wanted to keep our in-person contact to a minimum, so we scouted by reviewing photographs of potential places for the production.

After finding the perfect house, we thought we were ready to go. My producer organized an in-person visit just days before the shoot was set to begin. She wanted to make sure the location was absolutely right. Although the house itself was just as perfect as the gallery-pulls suggested, we found construction equipment, barriers, and piles of rubble surrounding it, so we quickly pivoted to our back-up option only to discover that the homeowners had constructed a giant hockey rink in the backyard. We planned to start shooting in two days, and the ice rink was a massive eyesore! It couldn’t be taken down in time for the production. Once again, my super-savvy team saved the day. My stylist called nearby tree farms and collected leftover Christmas trees. She disguised the rink with a magical evergreen forest that truly brought it more to life. 

After loads of planning, it was time to start filming. To keep communication flowing and to create channels for immediate feedback, I patched in both the agency and the client. Live camera feeds showed them what we were filming in real time. A Zoom conference room served as our video village. Roaming iPads, placed around the set, gave the client and the agency behind-the-scenes access to the entire production as we worked through an ambitious shot list. We had direct links to discuss each scene and every detail of the production.

I discovered that this way of working is much more demanding on me, the director, than pre-pandemic productions. I needed to make sure I was communicating everything all the time, not just to my crew and the talent but also to those on the Zoom call. When the client and agency have in-person representation on set, they can pick up a lot by observing the action and hearing my conversations. Working within the “new normal” required much more explanation, dialogue, and meticulous planning. But I also learned that I was up to the task, and I was great at it.

In my work I draw from a wide range of experiences along with a deep knowledge of photography, production and editing. My background allows me to know how much time I need to shoot stills and motion or whether I’ve nailed a scene so that I can move on to the next one with confidence. I’ve also learned that authentic interactions often happen during the in-between moments. I know how to create the time and space for these magical moments to arise and how to capture them in compelling ways. To me, these are some of the keys to creating an engaging brand narrative.