Walmart | Summer Entertaining

The Challenge:

The team at Walmart Creative Studios brought me a brief for their summer outdoor furniture line, with the goal of creating something fresh that still felt simple and grounded. We were up against a few unique challenges: a stretch of forecasted rain during our outdoor shoot days and talent restrictions that meant we couldn’t show the faces of background extras. The creative goal was clear, and together we worked to find smart ways to bring texture and life into a classic summer spot.

The Solve & My Approach:

I knew that with a few standout shots we could make this spot feel unique despite the straightforward concept. Once we knew that we’d be battling the rain and avoiding our extras faces, I was confident we could design our coverage around the weather and extras without compromsing on what we wanted.

Standout Shots

Early in the treatment phase, I shared a reference image that helped shape the vibe we wanted to capture. The Walmart team immediately responded to it.

While our location didn’t have the overlook featured in that reference, my DP, Max Magerkurth, and I worked with the art and G&E teams to rig a set of window frames that created a similar effect. That kind of creative problem solving is always a highlight for me, and it gave us just the visual lift we were looking for.

I’m always amazed at the skill of a solid G&E crew to pull things off like this and was super happy with the results. This felt like the exact type of shot we needed to make things stand out.

Intentionally Designed Coverage

As a filmmaker, it’s really easy to get caught up in getting cool shots without actually advertising the product. I’ve always tried to prioritize doing both, but for this spot in particular, I didn’t want our product shots to feel too on the nose. I worked with my amazing storyboard artist Jordan Domont to design coverage that both captured Walmart’s product, but also caught the lifestyle and vibe of the event so that it all felt natural.

A few days prior to our shoot however, we got word that it was likely to rain almost all day. Again, we leaned on our G&E crew to rig truss over the patio we’d be shooting on.

It worked perfectly, but also introduced new limitations around how we could shoot without seeing the rig. Instead of scaling back, we leaned deeper into the naturalistic approach we’d already mapped out. My DP and I worked together to create visual layers and hide the truss when needed. This allowed us to vary our coverage so the spot didn’t feel stale, but was also crucial to covering certain parts of the truss. We blocked actors, placed plants, and framed around the constraints of our rain protection and talent restrictions.

And of course, I had to grab a little bit of Super 8 to further vary our coverage. Enjoy this flattering photo of me.

Enjoy the final spot!