Tennessee Aquarium “Look Deeper” TV Commercial

Feb 27

TV COMMERCIAL DIRECTED BY LEIF RAMSEY

The Ask
Find all the “little wows” along the way.

The Solve
A cinematic TV commercial with a dash of quirky.

Leif’s Director Statement

My goal was to create authentic moments that had a storybook finish. The brand wanted to feature the unexpected creatures and moments, and how educators come alongside visitors to enhance the wow moments.

I felt that the character reactions and filming from a unique camera perspective was key:

For lensing, we used a probe lens to get closer to small animals and make them feel more important — poison dart frogs, turtles, butterflies. The key character reverse that plunges us into the world, was shot fish-eye to exaggerate the scale of the visitors.
Character blocking and camera movement should always work to draw us in. For the opening scene with the aquarium’s educator, I borrowed the blocking from a scene in Dead Poets Society where the boys were all gathered around Robin Williams.
I wanted the visitors to feel as unique as the animals, part of that was casting the right faces, the other part was brought to life through the fantastic eye of our wardrobe lead, Haven Howell.