times change. life changes.

How do you capture the transformation of a home throughout 20+ years, and through each distinguishable season, with only a handful of production days? The Format team accepted this challenge from our longtime agency friends at Red Tettemer O'Connell + Partners.

Filming on location for this project would be infeasible due to the aesthetic changes we would need to make to the home, problematic weather conditions, and the ultimate need to control the seasonal visuals of each scene. So, we contacted the folks at the Pine Box Studios to help us create a controlled environment in which practical elements could be applied over a virtual background and with less than a week until production, we got to work!

We tapped local Production Design duo Tim Stevens and Jamie Scott to execute the plan. The project’s design was spearheaded by RTO+P’s Ari Garber, who directed the spots. The set needed to be built so the talent could interact with the environment, which involved the home's interior and exterior yard. We built a 30’ facade with a fully shingled roof to give accurate texture. The studio ground was covered with natural grass and we built custom trees so we had control over foliage and growth for each notable time and season change.

On top of that, we infused practical rain and snow effects to add to the realism. To add depth and believability to the set, we needed accurate photo-real backgrounds that would change seasons and lighting to work with the script. To achieve this, the Format team designed 3D backgrounds and the Pine Box team installed a 50’ LED wall behind the set on a mobile track to display our changing sky and tree-lined backgrounds. Each scene for the LED wall was carefully designed to match precise times of day and their corresponding season. With a wrap on production, we then fully supported post-production ranging from VFX to color grading, mix, and versioning.