What better way to spend a morning or afternoon during the hot summer months in Tucson than with a fun jaunt with your best friend at the cool and shady garden paradise in the heart of the city?
This summer, we got to have a little bit of fun with Tucson Botanical Gardens‘ digital campaign for the ever-popular Dog Days of Summer.
Featured image: FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF, Alan Ruck, Mia Sara, Matthew Broderick, 1986, (c) Paramount/courtesy Everett Collection
Personally, we are big fans of campaigns that allow us the opportunity to pay homage to classics or pop-culture favorites. In this instance, we thought it would be fun to do an homage to the cult classic and a John Hughes favorite: “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”
Watch the minute-long digital spot below and be sure to visit the Tucson Botanical Gardens for Dog Days of Summer now until the end of September!
- Executive Producers: Michelle Conklin/Tucson Botanical gardens; Matt Adamson/Tucson Botanical Gardens; John de Dios/Davis de Dios Media
- Producer: Jonathan Olesen/Davis de Dios Media
- Director: Alan Scott Davis/Davis de Dios Media
- Director of Photography: Kristopher Yanez/Davis de Dios Media
- Assistant Director: Julian Ybarra/Davis de Dios Media
- Production Assistant: Joseph Wang (volunteer)
- Starring: Mercy (American Bully/Black Labrador mix), Duke Silver (Great Dane/Poodle mix), Jackie Daytona (Corgi)
Production day take aways:
Producing “Mercy’s Day Off” was both fun and challenging. We’d like to share tips that helped us produce this dog-centric commercial.
- Bring lots of dog treats.
This might sound basic but you are going to need a lot of treats. We would recommend bringing three bags of dog treats if you are looking to produce content similar in length to “Mercy’s Day Off”. Our shoot lasted four hours and we went through two bags of treats.
- You need one person per dog you are working with
We figured this out on the first shot of “Mercy’s Day Off”. Simply put, if one person has all of the treats the dogs are going to go to that person and not stay where you would like them to stay.
- Make sure that you have a camera/lens setup that has a good autofocus system.
Our on-screen talent behaved well but it is imperative to have a handy autofocus setup to maximize your time on set. We used the Canon R5 mirrorless setup with the Canon EF 16-35mm f2.8L II lens mounted on the Ronin RS2 Stabilizer.
**No animals were harmed during the filming of this digital campaign. No, Mercy does not know how to drive! 🙂
Davis de Dios Media 