The Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Fire campaign was a collaboration with Arnold to promote the Jack Daniel’s cinnamon flavored whiskey. Because of the organic nature of fire and burning coals, we decided the best images would come from a combination of photography and retouch. Our pre-planning process, Creative Previsualization, allowed us to prepare for in the shoot detail, including requirements of the studio and talent configuration for the bar scene. 

We shot over 4 days in a warehouse with 40’ ceiling voids to keep heat issues away from the camera. While this campaign had many complex challenges (including controlling varying intensities of fires and manipulating red-hot coals into varying shapes, our multi-skilled artists combined their expertise across disciplines to capture the elements needed to build the images in post. This campaign was built for print and layered to allow most flexibility for creating digital assets.

The production process was driven by a critical shoot pre-production stage. We partnered with best pyrotechnics experts and fabricators in NYC to help us bring the vision to life. The technical challenges dealing with live fire and hot burning coals in an indoor studio required some creative problem solving: we used a steel fabricator with a wet jet steel cutting machine to create steel containers to hold the burning coals, while expert woodworkers cut up a pre-fired whiskey barrel from the Jack Daniel’s distillery.

We used our CGI previs service, Creative Previsualizations to establish important information: like camera distances from burning subject, test heat exposure temperatures and orchestrate the shoot around these issues. 

In the bar scene, it was critical for us to know exact heights and scale of people to build the Jack Daniel’s Fire logo, cast the correct number of people, and establish the height requirements of the studio. Detailed planning of our studio size and space kept the team fluid and the 4 sets efficient. We wanted to capture every detail in camera and give our artists the chance to build and sculpt with full flexibility. This meant pushing obsessively pre-planning the production to solve challenges before they arose on set.

The production was led by our creative director and shot by the photographer, Harry Fellows. Together, they pulled together all aspects of the shoot. Our artists joined them on-set to instantly retouch elements together, so the client’s agency and client could see how the layered elements were coming together. 

The open process between retouch, client, and photographer allowed us to make critical adjustments to the complex job during the capture process, which was key to the success of the shoot. We shot over 4 days in an industrial studio, we captured 4 main scenes and countless elements to create the 10 final images in the campaign.

Each set-up required extensive planning for pyrotechnics and prop styling. Our resident fire-starters were afforded time to prepare the right level of burning coals and red-hot flames to be camera ready at every stage. The bar scene was a big favorite with the team, corralling 25 extras to share intimate personal space while expressing emotions and fun expressions to show a dynamic energy.