4 shoots in 48 hours, no Swedish meatballs?
This production was a masterclass (read: logistical dance) in building four individual shoot “days” into 48 hours. With a full 360º approach, The Heist and Thinkingbox worked with our friends at Geomagical from concept to creation building out a suite of content highlighting their Kreativ by IKEA home design app.
With three 15s social-forward assets, a library of photography for their website and a 6-part testimonial series on the shot list, we headed to Palo Alto to make it happen.
One room, two social assets, endless design solutions.
First up, social videos! While 3x :15s social videos doesn’t sound like a huge undertaking, shooting 3 different rooms in a house that only has 4 to start with definitely does. Shooting in one room, resetting in another, while building furniture in the backyard and grips rigging luggage on the porch was the (Allen) key to success. Lunch (because food is life) was provided by the delicious Joodooboo around the corner from our set. Well worth a stop if you’re in the area.
2AM in IKEA has never looked so good.
Immediately after wrapping, our internal team met up with our stills production team (including our CCO Michael Kern , EP Matheson Murray , CD Ryan Booth , MD Christine Clark ) and jumped into the first of two overnight shoots at a local IKEA store. Fuelled on hotdogs and soft serve (the restaurant was closed RIP), they worked through the night with photographer Evaan Kheraj in the store’s pre-built rooms. Straight to Denny's after wrap for much-needed dinner/breakfast and everyone was off to bed.
The next day (technically hours later) the video team was back on set, now at a studio location to film customer testimonials.
I love to work with real people. They’re an especially fun nut to crack and as the social asset Director on this campaign, I really value authentic storytelling, which is always the priority when filming with folks who aren’t actors. ~Bronwyn
The shoot went as smooth as smör and we even filmed a bonus person who arrived unexpectedly on set. Adaptability!
After an afternoon nap and obligatory In-N-Out stop, our stills crew was back at IKEA to shoot the rest of our photography. At this point, everything was going so well that our creative director and producer got to figure out if two grown men can fit in kids bunk-bed (they can).
All in all it’s safe to say that you can pull off four shoots in 48 hours simply by eating hotdogs at 10pm, Dennys at 7am and Fruit Snacks always. It was a huge success and we look forward to you seeing the assets live on the IKEA app globally.
