The three famous words of showbiz! Some of the most fun we have is making new commercials! It gets the world excited, season in and season out! Commercials give us a chance to really showcase all that we have to offer and paint a vivid picture of how much fun you’ll have when you stop by Water Safari Resort!
Whether you see our commercial on TV, as you scroll through your social media feed, or right before your favorite YouTube video, know that it’s a culmination of lots of creative brainpower, logistics and technical execution!
A storm is coming…
Before the film crew shows up on set, before the talent gets in wardrobe, or the director yells “ACTION!” the creative concept MUST be imagined. As the great American photographer Duane Michals says, “Trust that little voice in your head that says, ‘Wouldn’t it be interesting if…’; and then do it.”. Starting with imagination and pure creativity is key in making a masterpiece.
This takes on many forms because ideas are everywhere and can hit us from any angle! We usually start with a STORM! A group of creative brains gather round and brainstorm. You’ll hear, “Ooo, that idea is butter!” “I thought of this in the shower!” “How crazy would it be if we did this?!” The ideas start flying and crashing into each other, mixing and mashing, and before you know it, a strong creative story is born! We develop the story further by writing scripts and coming up with a symphony of compelling camera angles to bring the story to life! Once the story is fully realized, the planning begins!
“I love it when a plan comes together.”
It takes a lot of planning to pull off a huge creative vision! We must pick a date to shoot and then break those days down into “when and where are we shooting what?” During pre-shoot sight surveys, we walk around the resort and finalize our camera shots to make sure the production runs smoothly. We ask ourselves, “What kind of film crew do we need?” Would one camera operator be enough, or do we need two? Do we need someone recording audio? Do we need someone looking over the actors and making sure they have everything they need?
We also need to pick our actors performing on camera! We call these movie stars our “talent.” Our talent is picked several ways. We reach out to talent agencies to find our ‘heroes’ who have the specific “look” we want to see on camera. Sometimes, we put out a casting call on social media and other times we hear through the grapevine that someone would be perfect for the part. It’s easier when we pick a whole family that can act together. The chemistry is noticeably better and there’s less coaching and director’s notes. But sometimes we can’t get a family, so we must put strangers together. It can be challenging for the director, but you can really get some gold if they’re seasoned actors.
LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION!
We will focus on our hotel, Water’s Edge Inn, for most of one day and our campground, Old Forge Camping Resort, on another and often a full day is dedicated to Water Safari and Calypso’s Cove. Check out our different properties here.
Once we have everything ready, the lights are turned on, the camera settings are adjusted, the actors get in the zone, everyone takes their place, and ACTION is yelled! This dream machine we’ve put together begins to move. All the parts start moving together to create something beautiful and a commercial is born! It’s a lot of hustling around all our properties to tell the story we envisioned.
It’s a fantastic feeling to have so many people working together to make a vision come to life. When the days of shooting are over, all the gold that we captured is edited and sound designs added to put together the amazing commercials you see!
