“Nature Is Home”: How Drew Lightfoot’s Latest Ad Is Helping Canadians Take Action Against Wildfires

Wildfires naturally feel apocalyptic. Whether it be the flames roaring higher than the human eye can track, or the orange-died skies filled with smoke, it’s sometimes hard to connect the tragedies with places we know and call home. But, as a recent spot for the BC Wildfire Service makes clear, the places damaged by wildfires are our home. 

Yet what’s remarkable about this particular ad, from Someplace Nice director Drew Lightfoot, is that it doesn’t lean into the (justifiably) terrifying and haunting imagery which defines much of the media coverage of wildfires. Instead, the ad feels grounded - and, as a result, ties effectively back to the concept of home which makes the threat of wildfires feel that much more tangible. 

It’s a neat filmmaking and narrative trick, made all the more authentic by a cast of real people - including real firefighters - that we see on-screen. 

To find out more about the ad and how it was made, LBB’s Adam Bennett sat down with Drew… 

LBB> Drew, congrats on the ad. What were the key goals you were looking to achieve heading into the project? 

Drew> Thank you, it’s an important one. The script was presented in the simplest form of an animatic that consisted of one wide shot of people coming together (wildfire experts and a BC family) and gathering in a surreal setting - an open-air home in the forest. I loved the concept of a home amongst the trees, but I wanted to add an element of revelation and a journey.

LBB> The spot does a great job of tying the danger of wildfires to the concept of home. How did you manage to evoke that feeling? 

Drew> Val Nathan and the Trapeze team wrote a smart script, and trusted in me to bring it to life. The home in the forest was a beautiful metaphor - a clever way to reinforce that BC is a home that we all must work together to protect and care for. I grew up in the woods and have always enjoyed the great outdoors, like I think we all do. I feel most people go outside to reconnect with nature, to find some kind of peace, but we don’t necessarily think of it as home. We should. 

LBB> Where did you go to get that awesome opening shot? 

Drew> There were specific logistics involved in setting this film up, utilising real firefighters and forestry consultants from the private and public sector. We had to find folks in a centralised region, so staying close to Vancouver helped for production and travel. 

We netted out in Squamish, a breathtaking spot surrounded by forest and mountains, offering incredible views in every direction. My producer Kyle Hollett was the drone pilot - one of the many hats he wore. 

The location is on a mountain road I found on one of my solo scouting drives. We were looking for a balance of stunning forest, iconic BC mountains, but also a human presence - to show structures amongst the trees.

LBB> And how about the rest of the ad - what was the process for location scouting? 

Drew> I was in Europe at the time the spot was awarded, so I did a lot of scouting virtually, from memory of places I’ve visited and through mapping and street view imagery. Once on the ground, we looked for an older growth forest stand with topographical variation, not too much moss, and some clearings so it didn’t all look repetitive and the same. I’m a big runner so I ran the trails of a few of our locations to rapidly scout large swathes, taking photos as I went. 

LBB> A lot of PSAs around the wildfire crisis use striking and often horrifying imagery taken from the fires themselves, but this ad lands its message without doing that. Was that a conscious decision taken by the team and, if so, why? 

Drew> Using fear felt overplayed. We all have seen the clips or watched the news – and as a result there’s a desensitisation. It’s horrifying and it’s timely. Here the message was about British Columbians as a family, coming together and working together. 

The main point of the film is to open up dialogue and create awareness. On the client side, Adrienne Watt and her team were hyper-sensitive to veering into fear-mongering or saccharine territory.

LBB> In terms of timescale, how long did it take to film, edit and release the campaign? 

Drew> It was a reasonably protracted timeline compared to most. I wanted as much time to scout the right spots. Casting real folks is not a traditional process, so that required some extra buffer as well. It was a month from award to delivery. The edit came together quickly with Don Macdonell from PostPro Media at the dials. We’ve been collaborating a lot recently, so we have a shorthand and he’s an insanely efficient and proficient editor.

LBB> What was the biggest challenge you encountered while putting the ad together, and how did you overcome it? 

Drew> The biggest question mark was working with real talent. I spoke to each of the participants beforehand on video, but we met on set for the first time. Non-actors can be challenging as they don’t come with an understanding of set etiquette and are not used to repeating the actions over and over while the camera / lighting teams lock everything in. The real firefighters were wonderfully professional and courteous to work with. I kept the spirit light on set, as I find it permeates the entire production.  

Our main home set in the forest took some time to set up, but the creative and production team had a clear vision of how it would look from the start - a stylized home without any walls. We also knew we would want to shoot at last light so the practical lights in the home would read, making it feel cosy. 

The main challenge was having so many different locations within a vast forest. I ended up making a detailed map so the crew could know exactly which cast member had to play in each location on the schedule. 

LBB> Is there anything that you’d do differently if you had your time again? 

Drew> It’s always good to have more time on set, but I like to move quickly so there weren’t setups that were missed from the schedule. I tend to push for a more kinetic edit, packing more story into the timeline, but here we went for a slower cadence of storytelling.  

LBB> Finally, we’re in the midst of a summer which is set to be defined by wildfires across swathes of Canada and beyond. Did you learn anything yourself over the course of making this ad about how we can lessen the risks - or manage the effects - of wildfires? 

Drew> Reading the news and seeing the smoke is disheartening. The most impactful insight I came away with was from my conversations with the Indigenous firefighters - they’ve been dealing with our forest home for centuries and it’s wonderful that bridges of communication are being built to harness some of their profound and historical knowledge.