Working with director Henry Lu, I shot this commercial for Old Camp Whiskey with a guest appearance from the Florida Georgia Line. I don’t really listen to country music, so I wasn’t aware of there huge following before working on this project.
The essence of the commercial was for the camera to be the POV of a wolf who is following its scent through the woods, until it finds the band members. It was a simple enough idea, but meant shooting in the woods, travelling great distance and seeing deep into landscapes at times, all at night. We elected to shoot day for night, and expose for the shadows, while holding the highlights in order to retain as much shadow detail as possible or the switch from day to night. Eric Whipp was our colorist and was extremely useful with his experiences with day for night footage from Mad Max.
For camera movement, we wanted to find a balance where it would be slightly smooth, but yet still realistic to the reactiveness of a real wolf. After doing some tests, we end up using a arri mini striped down to the basics, and mounted on the end of a monopod. Then we just physically ran with the camera, panning and tilting through manipulating the camera with the monopod. The dead weight of the camera at the end of the pole allowed for some stability to be created, while still allowing us to make sudden movements, to replicate the neck movement of the wolf.
Thanks to all the great team in Nashville that helped to create this!
And here are couple photos of the supremely dedicated producer, Stan Sawicki, puppeting the water in a very compromising position. Thank you Stan for all your hard work and effort.

Key Crew was as follows:
- Operator – Sam Willey
- 1st AC – Kip MacDonald
- Gaffer – Doug Rice
- Key Grip – Bob Hill
- DIT – Armand Holmes
Technical:
- Camera – Arri Mini
- Lenses – Kowa Anamorphic Lenses
- Movement – Monopod – running as fast as possible