An often overlooked element when it comes to commercial filmmaking is problem solving. This can range anywhere from schedule conflicts, bad weather, stretching the budget to accomplish the vision, or the logistics of creating an impossible shot. This is why it is important to have an experienced video production team that can overcome any challenge that occurs during production.

Having been in the video production space over 10+ years now, the SKO Films team has overcome a ton of common and obscure production problems, and wanted to share some of our processes.

1. Dealing with Bad Weather

In an ideal world, all productions would have the perfect weather for any shoot. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case so we have to make do with what we can. Recently, we took on a project for a lawn treatment commercial for an exterior home services business – the caveat – they needed to launch the commercial at the beginning of spring, even though it was the middle of winter.

In order to solve this, we planned out the production to take place in the warmest place the budget and client constraints would allow – Atlanta, but even then it was still winter season. In order to get the right summer vibe, it took careful planning to secure the right location, as well as expert level color grading and visual effects to get the right look. In the example below, you’ll see we color graded the yellow grass into a green and lush lawn. In the final commercial, we also did techniques like replacing dead trees with live spring trees, sky replacements, and even removing cold breaths from the actors.

2. Scheduling Conflicts

Commercial productions often require a large team of people in order to produce. Since not everyone we work with is internal and everyone has different schedules, it can often be difficult be to find a timeframe that works for everyone. Ideally, we can schedule shoots far enough in advance to accommodate everyone involved, but that’s not always the case.

In a recent example, we needed to shoot a scene of actors and the client crew together in the same shot, but it wasn’t possible to have everyone there the same day. We managed to make the scene possible with careful planning and intentionality while shooting. We filmed 2 separate shots -1 with the actors, and 1 with the client crew – and then stitched the 2 shots together seamlessly so it seamed like everyone was together. You can view the final result in this Pest Control Commercial.

3. Creating Impossible Shots

Sometimes in the storyboarding process, we come up with ideas that seem impossible to film in real life. This could be a complicated product shot, like creating a whirlpool around a cologne bottle, like we did for the product commercial for Michael Malul – Ocean Noir. This involved creating a custom rig out of plexiglass to get the water to move the way we wanted.

In the recent pest control commercial, we needed to showcase a hornets nest and hornets. Obviously, it wasn’t possible to film that for real for safety considerations. To solve this, we built a realistic hornets nest prop out of a hard plastic shell and melted garbage bags, that we then painted. Having a real prop on set let the actor react to it, and it gave the technician something to treat on camera. Using CGI, we added the hornets in post to complete the scenes.

Conclusion

Those are just some of the problem solving situations we’ve encountered in the commercial filmmaking journey. Every commercial has it’s own unique challenges, so having an experienced team is key to creating a successful video. If you have any questions on how we might be able to achieve a unique vision for your brand, feel free to reach out to us to discuss further.