Anatomy of an Award-Winning Commercial:
Toyota’s “Present from the Past”
by Chris Evans
All photos courtesy of Toyota except as noted
“With these narrative commercials,
the landscape is an additional character,
so getting it right is so important.”
–DIRECTOR LISA GUNNING
The turnaround was quick, expectations from the client (Toyota), creative agency (Saatchi & Saatchi) and production company (Imperial Woodpecker) needed to be met, and a variety of striking locations had to be found to fit the story. But SLM Mark Freid/LMGI and LM Paul Riordan/LMGI were up to the task for the LMGI award-winning Toyota “Present from the Past ” commercial.
Directed by Lisa Gunning for Imperial Woodpecker, the commercial tells the story of a young woman who receives a Christmas gift from her grandmother containing a vintage camera and a collection of photos from when she was the granddaughter’s age. Inspired by the camera and with the help of her 2024 Toyota Tacoma, the granddaughter recreates the old photos by going to all the same places, taking in bustling cities, desert canyons, heartland pastures, tranquil forests, secluded coastlines, small- town attractions and more.
“It was quite an undertaking. We had to capture many little moments across multiple locations in the United States but actually shoot them in one state over just a few days,” explains Gunning, who competed with other directors in the bidding process to get the job. “Fortunately, this is where Mark comes into his element with his incredible location scouting knowledge and experience.”
During the bidding process, Freid was consulted by Amanda Clarkin, staff bidder/producer at Imperial Woodpecker to come up with some location options, based on a few visuals. “When I got the call, I started getting waves of excitement and anxiety at the same time. I broke down what and where they could film and how much it would cost with a steer toward Washington State,” he explains.
Fortunately, Gunning, Freid and Washington State were given the green light. But they still had to find the right places and meticulously plan the shooting schedule.
“Once I received the original creative storyboard/animatic, Lisa and I had a chat and tossed around different ideas. She had been to Seattle and knew the area, so she had some good suggestions,” says Freid.
Proper Prep
Prep time on this kind of shoot can “sometimes be like ‘super scouting,’” adds Freid. “I don’t eat, I don’t pee, I just get in my car, drive 300 miles, take 40 pictures, get back in the car, drive another few hundred miles, and take more pics. Then get on my computer in the car, upload pics to Lisa so she can approve them and get the permits started, also while in the car,” says Freid. “It’s thrilling but really nail-biting, white-knuckle stuff.”
Fortunately, Mark and Lisa soon developed a shorthand “after the first few weeks of prep because we were working so closely together on specific shots,” enthuses Freid.
But inevitably, not everything goes to plan, especially when you’ve got clients and agents putting in requests.
One of the hardest locations was the grandma’s house. “I took pictures of about 20 different houses for the exterior shot before we settled on a bitchin’ house in the Queen Anne neighbourhood of Seattle,” says Freid. “But then things were complicated when the agency wanted us to shoot the interior of the college girl’s apartment there too, and they scheduled it for the same day. We had originally planned to use two separate houses.”
Creating a winter wonderland.
Photo by Paul Riordan/LMGI
The challenge was dealing with the homeowners who’d been told it would be exterior only. “It was a difficult negotiation, requiring us to throw a few extra dollars in, because we now had to empty their entire living room and kitchen and replace it with our furniture, swap out lights, move china cabinets and more. We had to handle them and everything with kid gloves,” adds Freid.
Ferry Fun
Another challenging location was on the ferry crossing. The scene is brief of the young woman looking back at the harbour and a shot from above of the ferry moving. But the logistics of getting 150 crew onboard [to transport home] and have a small unit film within the short ride from Mukilteo to Clinton without things going wrong took a lot of prep.
Photo by Mark Freid/LMGI
Fortunately, on the advice of Mark, Paul met with Lisa on the director’s scout at the Whatcom Chief ferry to get some drone footage where “Lisa gave me notes of exactly what she was thinking and a brief rundown of the story. She had a compelling vision that outlined a future direction and enthusiasm that helped shape the direction of what Mark and I were looking to execute on,” says Riordan.
But it was still a challenge on the day. “The journey was 18 minutes. We were like, are you kidding me?” exclaims Riordan. “But we had to film on that ferry for logistical reasons because it was where we were heading to shoot most of our locations. It took a lot of prep with the AD and transport department.”
“It was a proper shoot with a load of hardware, not just handheld filming,” adds Freid. “Lisa had a stand and slider rig so she could move back-and-forth. We had to take over a whole side and level of the boat, as well as specific parking slots for each crew, for ease of access. I had a whole map planned out. Then there were other passengers to deal with, and the ferry company.”
Riordan adds: “That ferry shoot was a good instance of a company move at a particular time, basically golden hour, that had to hit a specific brief while making sure the crew are in the right place and doing their jobs quickly and efficiently. Plus, working with the AD department to make sure we’re doing things the right way, and getting the best shots. It’s a symphony of all these things coming together to make it work.
“It was a logistical mastermind, putting the elements of the puzzle together and working closely with the production team, the AD, production designer, producers, etc.”
Plus, they had to manage the drone shot from above, while the ferry was moving, and they were shooting onboard. “The drone team were like, are you crazy? But we somehow made it work,” says Riordan.
“It took a lot of effort for things to run smoothly,” admits Freid. “But I didn’t want Lisa to know that. She should just be able to show up and do her filming. She doesn’t need to know I had to call up Paul in the middle of the night and tell him to drive 2½ hours up to a rural county because they didn’t have a digitized permit application.”
Photo by Mark Freid/LMGI
Commercial Collaboration
Grant County was also used a lot for the filming, including a farmstead in the middle of cornfields, “where we threw them a ton of money and used a load of their staff,” says Freid. “We also did a drone shot through the fields, and lots of shooting in The Feathers. All within a short distance of each other for efficiency.”
The Feathers at Frenchman Coulee near Vantage, Washington, is a hugely popular filming spot for car commercials with its distinct and rugged rock landscape created by Ice Age floods.
“We (Paul, Mark and Lisa) had worked together on a Ford commercial a few years back in The Feathers and thought it would be perfect for this commercial. It’s a gem of a location where you can show off the car in motion in a striking off-road setting,” enthuses Riordan. “Nearby, there was also an historic floodplain, like a mini–Grand Canyon, which features in the opening shot and worked perfectly.”
Their experience working together on the Ford commercial really helped build an understanding of how each other works and what locations to choose.
Photo by Mark Freid/LMGI
“We had done so many long scouts together on that Ford job all over the Pacific Northwest and Seattle, so we’d built an understanding of the right looks and it was my first go-to location for the Toyota commercial, all the different textures and atmospheres in one workable place,” says Gunning.
Riordan adds: “Getting [back] into Lisa’s head was not difficult and, as a matter of fact, I rewatched the Ford commercial, along with a couple of other pieces on her website, to get into her style of directing again.”
Overall, the team managed five different moves over four days. “We were racing around, filming on the beach at Ebey’s Landing National Historic Reserve on Whidbey Island, which looks directly into the Olympic Mountains and is one of the most epic locations on planet Earth. Although we didn’t shoot its epicness, but rather the scene where she plays with the dog on the beach, because it was adjacent to the other locations on Whidbey Island where we were filming. We also shot at the Kenmore Lanes bowling alley, through forests with leaves blowing, and then in the ‘fake’ snow at the post office in Langley. It was crazy,” laughs Freid.
The post office scene proved particularly challenging. Not just because of the special effects required to create the snow, but also choosing the right look. “The agency was like, ‘we need a post office and it should look like this.’ So, I showed them five we could shoot at. But then they came back and said: ‘Actually, we think it should look like this instead.’ This carried on, while we were trying to figure everything out on the move,” recalls Freid. “They were changing their direction, while we were trying to find it closer to another location to fit it into the day.”
Riordan adds: “With the property shots, Mark was knocking on a lot of doors. These are not out of a file or someone else’s library. These are all 100% brand new. Even in that scene in Langley, the post office was a brand-new location. It takes a lot of effort.”
The final choice was ideal because it was cute and quaint, so “fitted what the agency was looking for and what Lisa was trying to get at it in the story,” says Freid.
Equally, Freid shot five bowling alleys before all parties settled on Kenmore Lanes, and he spent three days shooting roadside attractions, including a giant painted chicken, and a big cowboy hat and boots, before Bob’s Java Jive coffee shop, shaped like a coffee cup, and the Frisko Freeze restaurant in Tacoma were chosen.
“On these kinds of narrative-led commercials, it’s a matter of providing loads of options for everything, choosing locations that are ideally convenient but also suit the story and schedule and then carefully putting it all together like a puzzle,” says Freid.
Gunning adds: “With these narrative commercials, the landscape is an additional character, so getting it right is so important. This is why I wanted Seattle and the Pacific Northwest because of their different landscapes, textures and atmospheres. I try to really get across the emotional journey of the story in the characters and settings.”
This is a different approach to the standard pickup truck/car commercials where it’s about showing off the vehicle’s features in tricky terrains. “We’ve done a load of those ‘sheet metal’ ads where it’s all about the car. This Toyota commercial is more about the story and the car is effectively an accessory to it,” says Riordan.
Interestingly, with these car commercials, there are multiple assets being shot all at one time. “The client might want stills for marketing purposes, such as a billboard ad, or short 15-second video clips for YouTube, which needs to be factored in. So, we’re working on the main commercial, but also have to consider side quests and ensuring the backdrop is right,” adds Riordan.
Permits
Getting permits to shoot all these locations varied considerably. “Some places you need them, others you don’t. We needed sheriffs to close some roads and do traffic control for certain road sequences because we were doing arm car-to-car work,” explains Freid.
For the ferry sequence, the team had to get permits from the Washington Department of Transportation and the ferry company, “but it wasn’t too expensive (about $350),” says Freid, “and the drone shot approval from the Federal Aviation Administration was easy to allow us to fly.”
But working to such tight schedules can cause some dramas with permitting. “The time span makes it difficult. Sometimes we don’t know if the permits are going to come through quick enough, but we work hard to build relationships and think outside the box to get things done, often being good diplomats between clients, authorities, production teams and crew,” says Riordan.
Freid adds: “We had to face restrictions at most of our locations, but we (Lisa and I) were able to chat about them and come up with a working plan to accomplish her ideas.”
Award Winner
All this work was rightly rewarded with the 2024 LMGI Award for Outstanding Locations in a Commercial at the 11th annual ceremony on Saturday 24 August. “I looked over at Mark and was like, ‘What?’ I didn’t think we were going to win, so I didn’t even prepare a speech,” laughs Riordan. “But it was nice to be appreciated for all our efforts, and to network with other production and location figures and swap war stories.”
Commercials vs Films
Paul, Mark and Lisa share their stories of how it differs working on a commercial production compared with a film or TV series.
L-R: Mark Freid/LMGI and
Paul Riordan/LMGI.
Photo by Greg Doherty
PREP AND SCOUT TIME
Mark Freid: The most marked difference between commercials and films/TV series is prep time. For the former, it’s often a tight turnaround. I don’t pee, don’t eat, just drive hundreds of miles in my car, taking pictures of locations, upload them and get the permit process started. It’s nail-biting, white-knuckle work.
By comparison, working on films [doing 2nd unit work] is almost like being on vacation. I can actually breathe, take my kids to school and make dinner.
Lisa Gunning: With TV series, you get a much bigger lead time, as long as you get your scripts early [although that doesn’t always happen, especially toward the end of a show]. You then do a lot of scouting over a couple of months and get a sense of what the world of the show is gradually over a much longer period of time. Whereas in commercials, like Mark says, it’s a sort of scramble to search for and find all the locations in a shorter space of time, often considering several options at the same time.
We then have to go to all these places, make sure they’re not too far apart, so we can fit them into the schedule, and do casting at the same time, while you’re driving. It’s like a Rubik’s cube, getting everything to fit together. Factoring in, how far is each location? How long do we have to shoot? How many of the locations can we have? How many hours do we need to shoot to squeeze in another location that day? You have to be really clever about it and can often get more locations in than you think if you’re in a very good company, as we were on the Toyota shoot.
Paul: On films and TV series, you get the prep time to discuss a plan of attack, where you’re going to shoot, and how you’re going to work. With a commercial, you don’t have the window to do that to the same extent.
There are some commercials where it’s like, ‘We only have five days for you from scouting to prep to the tech scout to the shooting days. It’s crazy. You have to work so hard. There are things happening all the time, problems to fix and you just grab people to help out. It’s like triaging. But in the current state of the industry, you’ll take the work when it comes.
For the Ford Bronco commercial we worked on, it was a series of vignettes that visually stitched together a compelling narrative and that really tugged on a completely different set of emotions from the Toyota commercial, but quite similar in terms of interlacing vignettes to tell a story. You never really know how each and every single shot you are prepping on the commercial will end up getting stitched together in the edit, but having good direction helps complete the vision especially when there is only a commercial treatment vs script pages when prepping the commercial.
The key is managing expectations and trying to get out front of problems. A lot of them that seem impossible can actually be solved. That’s also the case in the film industry. But anticipation is doubly important in the commercial world. It sounds goofy but sometimes I sit down for about half an hour and kind of meditate on all the variables and permutations that might happen when it comes to the process.
It’s not just about what the commercial is going to look like on camera, it’s about everything on the back end too. We have to be able to work side-by-side with other members of the production to solve all the problems. It’s about setting yourself up for success.
Filming at Ebey’s Landing National
Historic Reserve, Whidbey Island. Photo by Mark Freid/LMGI
COMMUNICATION/COLLABORATION
Mark: The car commercials are hardcore for about four weeks, but you become really intimate with everybody, chatting loads on the car journeys and at the tech scouts. Whereas on features, you go into a production office, you’re surrounded by all the departments busy doing their things. You’re committed to being part of that hive of activity, elbow to elbow with the production designer.
Paul: On a feature or TV series, we’ll work with producers, the director and production designer for the locations. For a commercial, you’re working a lot more closely with the director and the AD because there’s a lot of managing the process and movements and ensuring everything works quickly and efficiently.
The director makes the decisions, but the ad agency is often hands-on too and involved in the decision-making process. This is especially the case post-COVID, where I’ll be brought into a meeting with the ad agency, often at the initial stage of scouting, because they want to be involved in choosing the locations and molding the commercial. This is because, unlike in films or TV series, they often provide the script.
TEAM SIZE
Paul: On a feature or TV series, there’ll often be a big location team, the supervising location manager, location manager, key, assistants, etc. But on a commercial a lot of the time it’ll just be one location person doing everything. Mark brought me on for the Toyota commercial because he trusts me and wanted an extra pair of safe hands who understands the pace and gets things done.
BRANDING
Paul: Unlike in films, there’s also obviously the brand to consider and how it fits into the commercial. I actually have a bit of a marketing background, and have worked as an agency producer, so understand the importance of branding. I know a Toyota Tacoma commercial is going to be different to a GMC vehicle commercial, in terms of locations, feel, everything.
So one of the things that helps me when scouting is trying to understand the brand. I’ll actually go back and look at other TV commercials from that brand and get to grips with what they’re trying to achieve.
This extends to how we get the details of the car in frame—a medium shot, close-up or wide shot all tell different stories. And again, it depends on the type of car commercial—is it about showing off the vehicle or creating a narrative? For the former, the agency might just want us to show off some sheet metal in a sexy light, but for the latter, the car is part of a bigger story. It’s a different mindset and approach.
Mark Freid
I moved out to California at 19, and got my first job on a film set working with my brother Gary Kesell, who happened to be a location manager. It was a movie of the week called Maximum Liability, and I did craft service.
Then I met a group of people through friendships that were doing little film and TV jobs, and we ended up working as PAs on these HBO specials for Tom and Roseanne, the famous Arnolds. We were there when the fights happened. This is what Hollywood was for me as a kid at the time.
While doing that, I got to know director Peter Segel, who was producing the HBO jobs. He brought us along to work at Lorimar Television on The Jackie Thomas Show. Then movies followed, including the Naked Gun films. So, I was hanging out with OJ Simpson, Anna Nicole Smith and Priscilla Presley. But also working my ass off.
Eventually, I kept working through a load of positions, including post-production coordinator on kids shows and a regular production coordinator on a bunch of projects.
Then I started making my own little movies and entering little film festivals and got into producing broadband content for a video on demand broadband service in San Francisco. That lasted about 2½ years before the company went bankrupt.
My brother then called me to work as an ALM on a show called First Monday and I loved it. This led to shows and films with other people as an ALM and KALM, including Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Bruce Almighty and Hollywood Homicide.
My first location manager role came on the feature Rampart, which was life changing, working with director Oren Overman in a super creative environment. It was neat having a job where I really got into a director’s head and understood the vibe. I brought my wife and newborn to the set to see Woody Harrelson’s character beat the crap out of someone.
I also got to work on The Details with Tobey Maguire and Elizabeth Banks. But then I moved more into corporate and commercial work and fewer episodics and movies.
I had a good run on The Sex Lives of College Girls while it filmed in Washington, but have primarily been doing commercials, especially car jobs, because that’s the most prolific work that comes through in Seattle.
Then Imperial Woodpecker came in with this Toyota job and Lisa referenced a Ford commercial we did, which was epic. I mean I’ve done big movies like Evan Almighty, but that commercial was huge. We had an entire company up on a ski resort. I love the work I do.
Paul Riordan
I kind of got into the film industry by accident. I got my degree in public relations, looking to go into marketing in an agency role. But the market was tough just after the recession and ended up working in sales. I did a lot of Microsoft and b2b stuff.
But going into an office every day wasn’t the most thrilling. Then a friend of mine asked if I’d like to try PA work in the TV world. And I was like, “Sure, why not?” So, I got some work on reality show Ax Men. I was getting paid to change tires, drive the production trucks and eat free food. I loved it.
But it’s hard breaking into the industry, especially in Seattle where it’s a lot smaller than Los Angeles or New York. So, I started bartending at the same time. And then slowly my reputation built, and people realised I was good on set, so I started climbing the production tree. I was doing some coordinating for smaller companies, and then they got me doing locations too from about 2015. But things really started taking off when Mark invited me on 50 Shades of Grey to be an ALM (Lisa also edited that movie). Mark showed me the ropes on everything and has been a mentor to me.
I now work all over the Pacific Northwest, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and in random places like North and South Dakota. I also do other production stuff, like line producing and agency producing. But locations are my bread and butter.
Lisa Gunning
I was living in the UK and working as an editor of Hollywood movies and commercials for about 20 years (including Seven Psychopaths, Nowhere Boy and Breaking and Entering). Then this director, Anthony Minghella, who I’d been working with, said I should be a director. He sadly died and, in his honour, I packed my bags, took my whippet dog and moved to the US because in England no one was really giving me a chance—they just saw me as an editor.
Fortunately, I got a few opportunities to direct in the United States. One of the first jobs on Add Stories for MINI was about the land, which had this sense of scale that I’m interested in as a filmmaker. So, I’ve been typecast as that, pitching for similar things about the landscapes being a character kind of vibe. I think that’s why the Toyota people were interested because I tell stories through the landscapes.
I now split my time between LA and the UK, doing mostly commercial stuff in the former and TV work in the latter, including the Netflix spy series Black Doves, starring Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw.