Toyota Tacoma
Can You Play
Directors Cut
Toyota Tacoma | Can You Play?
The Enthusiast Network approached Jodie to executive produce a series of snackable short form films for the Toyota Tacoma Play Now campaign covering BMX, Motocross, and Snowboarding. Saatchi & Saatchi’s primary objective was to build awareness for the all new Toyota Tacoma, increase opinion and purchase consideration, while creating opportunities to drive engagement with the Tacoma target audience. Our goal was to show the Tacoma as a force multiplier for fun proving that with a Tacoma the possibilities for fun are limitless. Jodie was entrusted by the world’s largest action/ outdoor media platform TEN and Toyota’s agency Saatchi & Saatchi to produce authentic content with world class professional adventure sports athletes who often play even harder when they find time away from their normal grind. In our meetings with the Creative Director from Saatchi, the directive given was to create energetic, fun, youthful experiences. It's pretty rare that a Creative Director tells you to “go have fun and do your thing”. As you can imagine, this was one of the coolest, most exciting creative briefs Jodie has had the pleasure of taking on. They wanted people watching the films wishing they were there, sitting in the truck themselves, experiencing the adventure. Jodie’s access, connections, relationships, and knowledge of and with key directors, DP’s, camera operators, talent, and locations made her the perfect candidate to put the right team together to execute this production in a very quick six week turn around.
We were looking for consistency throughout all three pieces in terms of the energy, play, and excitement, but we also wanted each piece to be different and unique. The diversity in terrain helped make each piece stand out. The shoot covered very diverse locations including sand dunes, mountains, creeks, spectacular camp sites- with dirt, dust, snow and debris flying everywhere with beautiful backgrounds.
Shooting in these locations with such cool, motivated and excited athletes performing at the top of their game was incredible. BMX rider Drew Bezanson, motocross rider Weston Peick, and snowboarder Louie Vito jumped on board and each brought along two great friends. Essentially we were asking the guys to get out and play with their best friends while we orchestrated all kinds of activities for them to do. What we ended up with was a lot of laughter, jokes and an authentic, wild natured feeling from each shoot. There’s nothing like keeping it real and having a blast outside.
All three films were shot over the course of 3 weeks and it certainly was not your average type of commercial shoot. To capture what was needed for the series and keep things fun, spontaneous and real, some important production decisions had to be made. It was strategically decided upon to use a small crew in an effort to stay mobile, and be able to quickly move around in order to fit in all the locations, and allow things to unfold on the fly. Throughout the shoot we dealt with so many different types of environments, we would spend a whole day filming in the snow where the high was 17 degrees F and the next day be in the hot desert having dirt whipped into our faces and the cameras. The crew did an amazing job at constantly adapting to the ever changing conditions, environments, variety of sports and really captured it all so well. All those decisions and the hard work really shows in the final edits for this project. The team captured something that was really fun, energetic and inspiring.