CONSTRUCTING “BIG SHOT”

GOAL

Make a 30-second commercial that promotes Dakota Dunes Casino by creating characters and selling the experience.

CONCEPT

A self-proclaimed “Big Shot” walks into a casino only to meet his match.

CHALLENGES

A. How do we bring this story to life?
When this project came to us, Dakota Dunes Casino came to us with a nugget of an idea and we took that, added to it, and developed it into a script. It was an idea we were both excited about, and once it was approved the real work started. How do we tell this story, how do we create what's on the page from nothing. 
 

1. Creating Characters
Creating characters was what drew me to the project most. We wanted to create characters that would be fun on camera but also drew from real customers at Dakota Dunes. With this, we knew we wanted to show diversity in culture, gender, and age. 

Our first main character is JARROD, named after the man we casted. He's a young model with great confidence, and I wanted to portray him as that young know-it-all, that gets mesmerized when he encounters someone with far more experience than him.

Our second main character is DONNA. She's a retired woman filled with life who's been playing for years and killing it. We see her have fun, hold her own but also help Jarrod, in which they form a bond. 

What made these characters come to life was casting. We searched online, held auditions and lucked out on finding Jarrod Daniel & Brenda Unrau who bring the characters I envisioned to life. 

The final step to take these characters further, was hiring a talented HMW crew. Their make up was always camera-ready, their hair was always perfect and their wardrobe always spoke to who they were. With that, we had characters that I wanted to put on screen. 

2. Scouting
I always find location scouting to be a scary task because you never know if you're going to find something that fits what you see in your head. In this case, I was even more nervous because we had to work with the location we were selling. Luckily, Dakota Dunes was extremely flexible and allowed us to shoot anywhere we wanted as long as we scheduled it during non-busy hours. 

Our first scene we designed was the one we had the most options for. The slot machines scene. I wanted a location that looked stunning in all three of our shots, that told the story, but I wasn't able to actually move machines or anything for that matter. We pretty much did a round of going through all their machines and looked at how they stationed around each other and how our shots would be composed around them. I was looking for the right geometry and eventually we found the perfect spot. 

Our second scene was the roulette scene. This scene we had to shoot at the specific location their table was located as they only had one roulette table, and it wasn't transportable. It was then about finding the right angle to place our main cast that would still result in interesting backdrops. This is usually my least favourite situation, having no wiggle room to cheat our location, but in the end, we managed to get it looking just right.

Our third scene was the poker scene. This was another scene we were granted a fair amount of flexibility. Dakota Dunes lent us a brand new table that we could place anywhere near the other tables, in which we were able to station them in a place that would allow us to have VLT's all over the backdrop, which to me gave it that larger than life feel. 

Finally our last two scenes, the intro and outro, were locations that we would have more runway with, that would feel like our characters were just walking into the casino, and then through the casino. We needed room to walk our characters and camera through, while also room to add lights, etc. without completely getting in the patrons' way. 

3. Cinematography

The final stage was stepping up our cinematography game. It was really important that I designed a plan that aligned with our original location scout. I created a shot list that had consisted of shots that were absolutely necessary to tell the story. We pre-designed lighting setups that would give me the moodiness I feel a casino should have, while also staying vibrant and we staged scenes that our dolly would fit into, as I wanted a consistent sleek motion throughout. On set, all this came together working hand in hand with my co-cinematographer Matt Smith & my camera operator Simeon Taylor. We worked as a team to always look at each frame and figure out how we could make it more dynamic and I think it came out as our most visually striking production yet.

The final step to get the look and feel I wanted for the commercial was colour grading, in which I pulled into semi yellow/warm tones, and away from the natural purples coming from the machines. We did some heavy masking on Donna's orange jacket and turned it a poppy red so she would standout more, and we added some glow to the VLT's to add atmosphere. 

This all together gave me the dynamic look I was looking for. 

B. How do we create atmosphere?

For me, this commercial was all about letting the actors shine, while creating a "cool atmosphere" around them, and I wanted to figure out small ways that we could build on what was in the casino to make everything feel larger than life.

Our steps to create atmosphere was to expose our scenes first before we brought lights in. This allowed us to expose for all the bright casino lights, but also allowed us to have most of the unimportant details fall into the shadows. We then lit our talent and exposed for their skin tones. This helped them stand out in each image.

Another important piece to the atmosphere was having it feel like a living breathing place, and to do that we needed other interactions happening around our story. We then dedicated as much of our budget as we could towards hiring a large BG cast and that made it come to life. If you look closely you can see that we swapped certain actors into different shots so they could play multiple BG characters, which resulted in us having the ability to handpick and place everyone you see on screen.

IN RETROSPECT

As a filmmaker, I have pre-show anxiety on just about every project. There are so many unknowns and as much as things turn out every time, I always have a doubt that clouds over me. For this project in particular, I didn't know if I was up to the task to do something involving so many people as I've never directed something of this scale. To counteract my nervousness, my 1st Assistant Director, Brianne Janex, made it her goal to have this project more organized than any of our previous projects. We created a detailed binder that included scripts, directors notes, audio notes, shot list, schedule, call sheets, casting sheets, release forms and more. Despite being our most technically ambitious project yet, this was one of the first times I came on to set without having nerves. I felt in my element.

It was such a privilege to have the opportunity to bring this project to life and it's been what I've been working towards with Versa Films since its inception and we will keep working towards outdoing our latest project.

THE PRODUCT

BEHIND THE SCENES