Thirty Years in Three Days: Behind the Scenes of a Multi-Decade Story
When our client Mekanic Brands came to us with a unique project – a series of medical ads that told the story of how medicine played a part in a family’s life over the course of multiple decades – we knew we had our work cut out for us. The story told in the ads would be simple enough: we’d follow a family throughout their medical journey and see how doctors assisted them through some of the ups (pregnancies, health turnarounds) and downs (broken arms, health scares) of life. The challenge came with having to realistically depict a time span of thirty years within just a few days on set. To nail this, we had to assemble an art team that could mimic convincing aging via makeup, source a wardrobe spanning the last three decades, and set the scene, literally, through painstakingly detailed props and set dressings.
Makeup: The Art of Aging on Camera
When it came to hair and makeup, it was essential to make our lead actress’s age transformations look as natural as possible, but still be obvious on camera. Between under eye prosthetics, gray hair paint, and products that help manipulate the skin into wrinkling, our actress was in the makeup chair for an extended period of time every shoot day. This meant that in order to simulate a full 30 years on screen, we had to shoot backwards. “The biggest challenge in these types of transformations is typically the shooting order,” our lead makeup artist, Brooke Lee Smith (@brookeleesmith), said of the process. Brooke shared that because it’s easier and faster to remove these aging techniques than it is to apply them, we had to film scenes in reverse age order, starting with when the actor appears oldest (“present day” per image below) and ending with the least amount of aging makeup (“1989” per image below).
Wardrobe: Sourcing and Styling Across Eras
Wardrobe was also vital for nailing each era depicted in the commercials. With scenes portraying the 1980s through the present day, our head of wardrobe, Jessica Hammer Harrell, had her work cut out for her when it came to sourcing vintage finds, reproductions, and modern pieces within our budget and time restraints.
Jess pulled inspiration from both celebrities of the time periods and her own memories to keep outfits accurate. “We looked at Y2K images from the red carpet and musicians like Avril Lavigne for our teenager years,” she said, referring to the wardrobe of the daughter in the ads. “I also had a lot of memories from growing up and what my mom and aunts wore in the 90s.” Out of all the wardrobe pieces, the vintage Laura Ashley floral dress from the 90s seemed to be a favorite of everyone on set.
Art Department: Recreating the Past
While the talent was being aged and/or adorned in retro fashion, our art department was busy setting the scene. Recreating the past through both authentic set dressing and original pieces created just for the shoot was a unique challenge that the head of our art department, Alyssa Sadler, was ready to take on.
“I did a lot of shopping at thrift stores, eBay, and Etsy to find some really fun vintage pieces,” she explained. One fun (but hard to track down) prop was a 2000s iPod. When our director, Jen Barrie, suggested our teenaged daughter character be injured due to distraction, we had to rack our brains for what distracted teens before smart phones. The iPod seemed like the most era-accurate replacement, and Alyssa made it happen.
Another very specific ask for this project was a 1989 calendar, which was called out in the script as a way to open the first ad and introduce the audience to the era. “There weren’t a lot of options, and none that were really usable for the shoot. I ended up having to make one myself and had it printed.” And, moving into the 90s, Alyssa found herself getting crafty again when it came to the daughter character’s broken arm. “There was definitely some trial and error,” Alyssa said of creating the pink arm cast prop. “Eventually I ended up making it on my own arm, then cutting it off after it was hardened!”
The final ads materialized as four deliverables – a full-length piece conveying the story of our family from start to finish and three 30-second spots with the same content, divided into three acts. While the considerable planning, dedication to authenticity, and substantial man-hours that went into what was essentially under two minutes of finished content is hard to conceive for those outside of the industry, we had an amazing time working with our team to make every piece of this 30-year puzzle come together in three days on set. Thanks to Mekanic for bringing us onto another exciting project – we hope we can get out on set together again soon!
