Behind the Scenes of a Lexus Commercial Shoot with Team One

Hello from sunny Los Angeles, California! I’m Michelle Saunders, Interactive Production intern for Saatchi & Saatchi’s Team One. Team One is a full service advertising agency and the seventh largest agency in Los Angeles. We have over 300 employees and work with clients including Lexus, the Ritz Carlton, Haagen Daz international, JW Marriot, American Express, and others. I work in the Idea Production department as part of the Interactive Production team, meaning I help create anything digital or web related, mostly on Lexus projects.

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to be able to go to a commercial shoot for the 2014 Lexus IS. The project was the #LEXUSINSTAFILM, the world’s first collaboratively created film using Instagram photos. Each participant took at least one photo of the Lexus IS and filtered it however they wanted. The individual images were hashtagged with their own unique shot number that we could pull from Instagram and stitch together to create a stop motion film.

Mine was frame 125, a really cool closeup shot of the new grill.

Since the frames were automatically pulled from Instagram, we were able to stitch together the rough cut of the frames by the end of the afternoon and see the completed animation. It was such an amazing experience to see a commercial being created!

Link to #LEXUSINSTAFILM Article and Video

The best part of being on set was the opportunity to follow around the Team One producers, creatives, and everyone else working behind the scenes on the project. I was able to ask questions about the production process and have lunch with the Executive Creative Director, Executive Producer, and the head copywriter of the project. Team One is such a great environment to work in because the leadership is so approachable and willing to help, even with an intern.