GMC: Acadia — Commercial

As a producer based in the Midwest, I guess I was destined to work on automotive commercials. And at this point in my career, I've had the privilege to produce a lot of them. I travel frequently for work, and more often than not, the job is in another part of the country or even beyond our borders. But this one was located not far away in the city of Grand Rapids, MI. Our goal was to showcase the new GMC Acadia in two colors. Each vehicle would be shot in two settings; against a beautiful home in more of a static position, allowing us to focus more on the details, then secondly we were tasked with capturing running footage. The beautiful part about having a team around you is that we all help share the load. My producing partner Annie Varberg is my counterpart in every way and our production coordinator Katie Kranz is a rockstar who keeps all of our productions running at peak level.

Since we work together on all productions, we have a shorthand that allows for any one of us to step in for the other. That was needed on this production since I had a very special trip planned, taking my folks to Europe for their first time. It was an important time to make lifelong memories, so when this production landed on the same dates, Annie stepped in to lead produce on the ground.

The three of us spent the weeks leading up to the shoot securing the perfect home and permitting for our running footage day. My goal was to set us up for success so that our friends at Taproot wouldn’t even feel my absence. 

We were able to work with some of our favorite collaborators on this project; DP Jeff Sukes, his AC Tyler Hollman and Tim Borntrager at Midwest Camera Car. When you put expert artisans like them together, that’s when the real fun begins! And because I can’t help myself, even as I stood overlooking the Amalfi Coast, I texted my team to check in on how things were going….or maybe it was just to make them jealous.