How This Tourism Ad Captures the Athlete Experience, on and off the Field
Valley Forge / Montgomery County, located in Pennsylvania, is one of the most respected sporting tourism hotspots in the States. With more than $65 million generated for the county in 2022, the area’s sporting facilities, hotels and parks attract thousands of visitors each year - whether they’re looking for some recreational fun in the sun, or competing in local tournaments at the highest level for taekwondo, football, volleyball and more.
To highlight Valley Forge / Montgomery County as a premier destination for all this athletic action, the Valley Forge Tourism and Convention Board partnered with Parody Studios, a creative content production and post-production house based out of Philadelphia, to develop a video that shows off the sports and leisure offerings.
Parody Studios teamed up with director David Godin to lead the creative direction and vision for the project, aiming to produce something authentic and driven by the inspiration athletes find on and off the field at Valley Forge. LBB’s Ben Conway caught up with David to discuss how the scenic 'Out There' film hit all its goals and went beyond “just pretty shots”.
LBB> What attracted you to this project? And what were some key ideas or visuals you had in mind when ideating in pre-production?
David> Initially, there were a few things that attracted me to this project. First, working with Parody Studios is always super high on my list. These guys are going places as a new company - and fast. I adore working with them. Two, I haven’t had the opportunity to direct much sports work, yet have always wanted to do so. Third, the fine folks at Valley Forge Tourism and Convention Board were wide open to us bringing all the creative concepts and direction to the table for this project. They fully trusted us and essentially said the door was wide open to make what we want. That’s incredibly rare in the commercial world - and it is a testament to their firm belief in their creative partners.
From the get-go, we always wanted to focus on our key teenage protagonist’s relationship to experiences in the outer world rubbing off on her athletic experience. I got excited about the idea of visual and creative ways to emphasise match cuts between some of these experiences that would highlight how these experiences could be infused into her soccer playing.
LBB> Valley Forge has a rich sporting and tourism history - were you familiar with the area already? How did you research the location, and what places or people helped inform the spot?
David> I grew up about an hour from Valley Forge - so it has been a place I have been familiar with for quite a long time. Initially, I had envisioned bringing in more parallels between the vital historical aspect of American history that took place in Valley Forge - but that would have eliminated some of the focus on other elements of tourism in the area.
We did a lot of pre-scouting through photos and driving around - and relied a lot on the client to help shape what was necessary in showcasing tourism in the film.
LBB> The film’s direction leverages the inspiration and optimism athletes find both on and off the field - how did you arrive at this direction, and what were some vital beats and sequences that you shot to explore this?
David> We learned a lot about the different sports tournaments and athletes that are in the area - and to be honest, I was blown away at the level of talent of these young athletes. There are a lot of pre-Olympic, tier-one youth athletes that participate in these spots. Witnessing the intensity of the competition, even at the youth level, was fascinating to me.
Creatively, I started wondering about how much of these athletes’ lives are focused on sports and training. These are kids - they need to experience more of the world. So I wondered how these experiences could add an extra dimension to their athletic performance and experience.
One particular sequence I really like is when our heroine arrives at a hotel with her mom and sees a restaurant worker stretch his wrists before cutting a lemon to add to her water. Then when we next see her training at the soccer pitch, she stretches her wrists in a similar way. To me, we are witnessing her subconsciously absorbing these ‘out of the stadium’ experiences and infusing them in goalkeeping training.
LBB> The spot centres around this goalkeeper and her training, as well as her exploration of the Valley Forge area - how was the casting process? And why take this slightly more narrative approach?
David> The casting process was pretty straightforward. We were looking for a young woman with some real acting chops and some athletic ability. Additionally, we knew we wanted to feature a lot of moments with the young woman’s mother - and it just so happens our lead young woman’s mother is also an actress - so we cast her to be her mom.
Tourism work, for me, often feels like just pretty shots. As a director, I am naturally just drawn to narrative - and I felt from day one we would have a more impactful spot if we told it in a more grounded, narrative way. Additionally, we have to keep the audience in mind - a lot of whom are sports tournament organisers, parents, and youth athletes. We want them to connect with our lead heroine in the film, and feel like Valley Forge and Montgomery County will be a great place to visit and explore more of themselves. It is a tourism spot after all. We want people to come!
LBB> How was production generally? What are some of your favourite shots and sequences in the final film? Tell us how you achieved them!
David> Production was a hell of a lot of fun for this shoot. We had a small, nimble crew, with our DP, Joe Grasso, operating and pulling his own focus - which nobody else does. Honestly, I’m so damn proud of him and the work he did on this spot.
Favourite shots? Hmmm. I love what we shot in Valley Forge Park - of mom and daughter walking around the old buildings - and our heroine in the wheat grain field. The light was so perfect. I love everything we shot on the soccer field early in the morning. I am a sucker for gorgeous natural light so that stands out.
LBB> The spot has a lot of beautiful shots with that ‘golden hour’ lighting. Why was this thematically or visually important for the film?
David> Who doesn’t love good golden hour shots? We wanted to show the passage of time and different scenarios, so filming at golden hour (morning and evening) and night, gave us the diversity of shots needed to show a variety of experiences to tell the story fully.
LBB> How much involvement did you have with the voice-over? Was it already written and available to use as inspiration for your shots?
David> I worked very closely with Parody Studios’ creative director, Joe Bianco, on the voiceover. We worked extremely hard on nailing the right tone. We wanted the voice to sound like it could be from the mom, or an aunt - someone close to a young woman athlete - encouraging her in a way that might not be expected.
LBB> The video features several different sports - taekwondo, volleyball, football, cycling, running… What was your plan and equipment set-up like to shoot these action-packed sports sequences at different times of day?
David> We shot over the course of three days with one main crew - no B team or anything. Capturing all the sporting events in that sense wasn’t challenging because we could focus on one at a time. One challenge however, especially with the actual event filming (Taekwondo, Soccer, and Volleyball), was that we didn’t really have any control - it was live. All the stuff with our lead actress we had complete control over - her playing soccer, etc. But with the other sports coverage, we did as much as we could within the boundaries we were given.
Because our crew was so nimble, we decided to go with the lightweight Blackmagic Pocket 6k camera with old Lomo Spherical Prime lenses, with a DJI-Ronin stabilisation device.
LBB> Did you work closely with the editor and music team? What direction did you give them?
David> I worked intimately with our wonderful freelance editor, Alex Ayabe - who is wonderfully gifted. For me, the edit always needed to be a balance between sports hype, and heart - and so we worked hard to strike the right balance. Music-wise, we worked with a music house to secure one single pre-recorded, yet customisable track.
LBB> What was the most fulfilling part of this project? And equally, what was the hardest challenge - and how did you overcome it?
David> The most fulfilling part of this project was getting to work with some really talented individuals that I had never worked with before, like DP Joe Grasso and editor Alex Ayabe. The same goes for our cast and our sound designer, Chris Stangroom - he killed it.
I started my directing career working on super small crew projects, and there’s something so freeing about being trusted to just go do the damn thing and not be tied down. We were only able to pull this off to this level because of the nimble crew we had. The biggest challenge was having limited control capturing the live sports events and making it feel cohesive in the edit, but we trusted in our creative team and we all are super proud of what we pulled off!
