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At Wray Ward, we’re inspired by brands that elevate the style and function of the home while enriching our experiences. That’s why we love working with VELUX, whose skylights make it easy to transform your home into a bright and healthy environment. Their partnership with the HGTV Smart Home 2015 provided a way to tell that story in a new and innovative fashion.
We jumped on the opportunity to shoot a TV spot highlighting VELUX’s “Fresh Air” skylights that would tie in with the HGTV Smart Home series that launched this week. “Fresh Air” skylights open to bring air as well as natural light into the home. VELUX doesn’t just sell skylights; it sells the emotion that fresh air and natural light can bring to your life. Fresh Air skylights change an entire environment by adding fresh air and light from above—transforming bonus rooms from windowless storage to calming playrooms and cramped kitchens from stuffy boxes to airy sanctuaries. They can have an amazing impact on the look of a room and the mood of the people inside it. We knew there was no better way to demonstrate the power of skylights than via a “before and after” approach.
The trick with this commercial was to capture the magic of great skylights: we had to be able to first capture commotion – a sort of orchestrated chaos – then show the change in light and emotion as the skylights opened and sunlight and fresh air poured into the room. We set the commercial in the kitchen because it’s often one of the most tumultuous places in the home. Think about your own kitchen. It’s probably your house’s hub – the place where you cook, make your kids’ lunches and help them with their homework, pay bills and surf the Web. It’s packed with volatile, organic compounds and invisible clouds of noise pollution.
This kind of mayhem is where the magic began. We filmed a family cooking breakfast together – and doing lots of other things, because human beings have lots of distractions – over a kitchen island. By shooting with a RED Epic Dragon (R3D) camera, we were able to take things from a normal speed to a super-slow speed, allowing our audience to appreciate the scene’s simple beauty as light transformed every part of the room. Carl Zeiss Cinema lenses also helped us shoot in extremely low light.
Our director of photography and camera operator worked as a team, carefully lighting each shot for different frame rates. We also took shots with two frame rates, transitioning mid-shot and changing light simultaneously. Harnessing the sun is no easy task, and it took a dance between the cameras, actors and lighting team to ensure that every shot happened at exactly the right moment.
After capturing the moving images, we worked closely with the team at Hot Sake to turn our kitchen into an orchestra. Using only a few simple sounds, we created an entire soundtrack with items commonly found in a kitchen. The music accompanying the finished spot sounds like a string orchestra, but listen closely, and you may hear cups and bowls with water and a cello string moving across them.
Skylights can completely transform a space, and sometimes, seeing really is believing. This TV spot is a prime example of why product demonstrations still work in advertising today. It’s about a great product, but it’s also about capturing a real moment created by that product. It’s about encouraging people to slow down and enjoy the world. It’s about not missing a single moment of life as it happens.
We were thrilled to be part of this project, and we can’t wait to see where things go from here.
Click here to see more VELUX skylights in the HGTV Smart Home 2015.