Client: Franklin Covey Co.
Agency/Creative: Kaleidoscope Pictures
Production: Mystery Box | Digital Cinema Co.
Role: Production Designer
Photo Credit: Jacob Schwarz
These photos are from a video series explaining the chapters of Get Better: 15 Proven Practices to Build Effective Relationships at Work, a book by Todd Davis. Each course had a unique art installation as a backdrop to convey the symbolism found within the text.
This project was a massive undertaking and I was especially excited to get back to my fine art roots to breathe life into these fifteen concepts.
UCCU Home Buying Experts
Client: UCCU
Agency: Molio & Flinch Creative
Role: Production Designer & Wardrobe Stylist
These various spots were such a delight to make. I was especially excited because I got to head up both the art and wardrobe departments. I wanted to do this so I could be incredibly deliberate in my color choices and how to convey the caricatured traits of each character, so I’m glad I could get everyone on board with this idea!
Purple 2.0
Client: Purple
Agency: Bellpond Films
Role: Costume Designer & Wardrobe Stylist
This commercial was a scientific combination of custom-dyed jumpsuits, bepatched lab coats, turtlenecks, a waterproof sweatsuit, and a dozen shades of violet. In addition to all of this contemporary science lab wear, I also designed and oversaw the construction of a tearaway Goldilocks dress modeled after one I wore as an infant in the 1980s.
Clients: Coca-Cola and Fanta
Agency: Fullscreen
Creative: ScottDW
Role: Production Designer
Client: Oreo
Agency: Fullscreen
Creative: ScottDW
Role: Production Designer
Cat paintings? ✔ Cat clothes? ✔ Cat decor? ✔ A celebrity cat puppet? ✔ And something like a dozen real life CATS? ✔✔✔
♥️🐱
This shoot was mayhem, sweet, sweet mayhem. Between designing and dressing the set, I also got to help assist puppeteer Mr. Jinx’s tail and wrangle cats (including a very naughty one named Kevin). Now back to dressing the set: as soon as I glanced over the pitch deck, I knew I had to throw my whole heart and soul into this thing being the lifelong cat lady that I am. In addition to tracking down anything and everything cat-related, I painted several custom paintings of my cat St. Timothy the Majestic (as seen in the photo of Glitch throwing milk in the air), and my old cat Lupita (as seen on the left in the living room with the b&w patterned rug). Costumer designer Emily Jacobson’s pièce de résistance starts the video, followed by the simplest canvas of all: four cartoonish cats on a pale blue field (painted exhaustedly around 4 AM).
Client: Budweiser: Up For Whatever campaign
Agency: Fullscreen
Creative: ScottDW
Role: Production Designer
This shoot was a blast, but darn-tootin’ was it a whole heck-of-a-lot of work. The location was a modern-day cowboy dance bar, with a gorgeous original 1920s wood floor and some great wooden architectural detailing, but also many neon signs, corrugated steel details, and an electronic bull to hide away. This wouldn’t have been too difficult as it was initially supposed to be a modified bar and stage, and yet it turned into a full 360° Wild West dance arena, equipped with a dozen fully dressed tables, chairs, custom herringbone wood panels to cover the steel, oil lamps, canteens, card games, poker chips, and more peanuts than Dumbo would know what to do with.
It’s always a treasure hunt to find everything needed for a shoot, but this took it a step further with making sure the burgundy velvet curtains, practical lighting, and musical instruments fit within the old-timey world we were creating, even if they weren’t historically accurate for the time. The massive collection of glass bottles had to be pared down to eliminate overly modern-looking beer bottles, including any bottle styles from Budweiser’s competitors. As a last minute touch, we tracked down several crystal chandeliers to add depth to the space, even if it meant hanging hundreds of yards of heavy fabric to create the illusion of walls in otherwise out-of-sight dark corners!
Phew.
Micron Ballistix Photoshoot
Client: Micron
Agency: Mark Andersen
Role: Costume Designer & Props Master
This shoot was all about bringing video-gaming tropes come to life. There were four characters featured: a race car driver, a warrior, a mage, and a mercenary. I was wholly in charge of the mysterious mage and the bloodthirsty warrior. For the mage, we wanted to convey her power over the dark arts, so we dressed her from head to toe in sleek, highly textured black fabrics, including a corset and a custom leather hood.
A professional body builder was cast as the warrior, so I built his design around showcasing his musculature. We pared down his wardrobe to only include a pauldron covered in furs and a dead raccoon, riveted leather arm guards, a layered leather kilt, and a helmet. At first, the helmet wasn’t quite fierce enough, so I added curled, broken horns to it, giving him a tougher silhouette. I designed a hammer of epic proportions, and after picking it up from my blacksmith, I was glad the actor cast was definitely strong enough to wield it!
Client: Freshpet
Agency: Shareability
Role: Production Designer
There’s very little I love more than being on set with animals, so this shoot was a real treat. I mean… dogs, cats, Christmas, and tinkering with tools and toys? There’s not much better.
Client: The Moth & The Flame
Role: Production Designer
This music video was a deviation into the deep, moody darkness for me. With a concept that revolved around the macabre, I had so much fun tracking down taxidermic animals to bring this shoot to life. In addition to the gorgeous location, there were real wolves on set (named Diego and Rugby) and despite their fearsome appearance, they were some of the sweetest professionals I’ve ever worked with.
There were also a number of practical effects I designed and executed, including a stunt with black liquid that wouldn’t stain and a shattering coffee table. I also earned the title of Butterfly Wrangler working with a fluttering Painted Lady.
Client: Young Living
YL Central Video
Role: Production Designer
The art department requirements for this video were more like party prep than my standard fare, so I had a great time thinking of healthy, delicious snacks that would look beautiful on camera.
Creative: Bellpond Films
Role: Production Designer & Costume Designer
This shoot is what happens when nerds have a little bit of money and whole lot of heart. A bunch of us were playing Clash of Clans back in 2012, when Supercell’s overnight success was at its peak, but before their marketing team knew exactly what to do to appeal to the massive audience. That’s the only way to explain what happened next: we reached out the them, saying we were going to make a fan film and were wondering if they wanted to be involved somehow and BOOM they were in. They sent over all sorts of assets and their blessing to use them however we wanted. With the help of our buddies at Arrowstorm, we made custom costumes and props based on the characters from the game: Archers, Barbarians, Goblins, Giants, Wizards, Village Maidens, Builders, the Archer Queen, the Barbarian King, an anonymous-looking Chief, and the previously unreleased Witch. We also built some structures, weapons, and a reimagined interior of the Town Hall. The release of this video just happened to coincide with the launch of the game in the Android Store, inadvertently tapping into an entire new audience of people starting the game.
And that’s how lightning struck.
The video is currently sitting at 55+ million views.
Client: Young Living
Role: Production Designer
These tutorials were a great exercise in contemporary, modern styling. Over the course of two days, we shot ten different main set ups and several additional insert shots for each video. One of my favorite challenges from this series was making a Hollywood-worthy bubblebath — it’s trickier than you might think!
Client: glasses.com
Role: Production Designer & Stylist
Collections Photos
These still life photos were so much fun to style. I dug through my own collection of odds and ends to find objects that complimented the shape or personality of the frames we were showcasing. It was integral to leave space for the text without the space feeling empty, and at the same time, not too cluttered.
Client: Primary Residential Mortgage, Inc.
Agency: Saint Cloud
Role: Production Designer
PRMI ClickApproval Commercials
These spots all had very simple looks, but many, many moving parts. As a production designer, I’m often tasked with housing the practical effects department, and oh boy, did these shoots have a heavy load. First off, we needed to build three circular platforms that could roll on cue, spin, and bear plenty of weight. There was tons of rigging required for our balloon drop, giant APPROVED banner, stunt rope, confetti cannons, and a 12’ long cabinet letter sign reading “ClickMortgage” (more on that in a minute). In addition to all those smaller rigging tasks, we also needed to lower a 600 lb desk from the ceiling. Oh, and throw a stunt dummy down without smacking the actress OR the actor who was poised to pop right up after the dummy drop. Timing on each of these things was EVERYTHING. It was quite a feat to have each of these simple things happen right when we needed.
If completing filming wasn’t enough, I found out later that the custom 12’ illuminated ClickMortgage cabinet letter sign we made had to be replaced in VFX because the name changed to ClickApproval.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Client: NuSkin
Role: Production Designer & Prop Master
This video was created to celebrate NuSkin’s 1,000,000 Facebook Fans. It was shot in ultra slow motion (30K+ frames/second, I think?) with the camera mounted to a truck driving about 35 MPH down the wrong side of Provo’s Center Street in order to achieve the dreamlike movements in the original video.
