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Progressive - We Go Where You Go

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This photographic production was for 4 stunning ads for Progressive’s ‘We go where you go’ campaign. The reflections concept was developed and produced by Taylor James. The team at Arnold approached Taylor James to help solve the logistics of a new campaign for their latest Motorbike insurance campaign. The creative idea focused around Flo being present with the rider at all times, but you only get a glimpse of her in various reflections. Our challenge was to pull together four locations in 2-day shoot, then integrate Flo’s reflection into the environments in post production back in the studio, making sure everything looked utterly seamless and realistic.

Concept

Pre-visualisation

Photography

Post-Production

Concept

The Progressive Team at Arnold approached Taylor James to help solve the logistics of a new campaign for their latest Motorbike Insurance campaign. The creative idea focused around Flo being present with the rider at all times, but you only got a glimpse of her in a reflection.

The challenge for TJ was to put forward a production solution for 4 print ads that combined remote locations with downtown city shoots. They needed to be shot close to LA as we only had access to Flo for 1 day and therefore needed to shoot her in the studio. As with all productions we had to also make the numbers work.

Our role was to work with the agency creative’s to seek ways to better explore the ‘Reflections’ ideas that satisfied the client concerns. TJ pitched the ‘Cobble street’ and ‘Airstream’ additions, which helped add character and a premium feel to each shoot.

TJ’s role was to lead the whole production from concept to final delivery of four print ads.

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Pre-Production

Our creatives and concept artists firstly work closely with the ad agency and client to evolve the concept through the pre-production stages, looking to maximise the overall creative message. As always, planning was key to achieving this stunning photorealistic effect.

Whilst developing the concept, we build in efficiencies to maximise production value. We combined CGI with photography, shot at our in-house photography studio. 

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Shoot Production and On Set Supervision

TJ flew out an excited team to the sunny Los Angeles to be part of the production. The production was lead by NY founder of TJ and Creative Director, Glen Taylor. Working with our partner photographer Jim Smithson, we went location hunting around L.A. to find our beautiful locations. The biggest challenge was trying to find a stream in LA, while going through its worst drought in many years. We also found out that there are only two cobble streets in the whole of L.A. The street were only a mere … meters long, which was all we needed to make the shoot a success.

As always, TJ had one of our skilled retouch artists on set, to pull together instant comps of shoot material. With so many moving parts to these images and no Flo on location, they made sure everything was technically working for final comps. This process also helped the agency, clients and crew visualize the end result as we were pushing forward through the shoot. Progressive star ‘Flo’ came to the studio on the last day in West Hollywood and just being her awesome self, she nailed the four shots in no time. Once we had all the material captured in the studio and on locations, we flew our artists back to New York where we worked on the ads in our studio.

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Post-Production

All the elements and backgrounds were shot in stages for us to have complete flexibility in post. We built up the landscapes, backplates and integrated the reflection of Flo and motorbike over a 3 weeks post schedule.

The four ads all had their challenges. For the airstream we started off with working out the most powerful composition for the mountains that would work for a single page crop. We made a few options until settling on one of them.

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For the water puddle on the cobblestone street a lot of work went into the integration of the water puddle and the cobblestones plus also deciding on the level of transparency of the water.

We then worked on the overall colour and worked on achieving panning motion blur in post to add some life and movement to two of the shots.

Colour Grading

We often play with a few different colour styles before settling down on the final colour grade. We went over the top and created over 20 options that were sent over to the agency. Take a look at a few colour grades that were done for the Progressive campaign! This is only a small selection.

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Results

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Testimonial

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“From the bid to the shoot to post you guys each brought a level of professionalism, a willingness to collaborate, and an attention to detail that are unfortunately hard to come by today. Working with your team was among the more productive, stress-free, and creatively rewarding professional experiences I’ve had. It was a real pleasure and I’m proud of what we made together.

Art Director, Nate Donabed

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“Thank you for all your awesome work on Reflections. It was a blast to shoot with you all & the work has come out really, really great.  It’s beautiful work, and wouldn’t have been done without all the insight & creative collaboration from everyone. Really appreciate all of your hard work on this & working with us throughout the process.”

Marketing Producer, Kelley Stenberg