Garlic and Games: Our Gilroy Gardens Commercials
Gilroy, the southernmost town still considered part of the San Francisco Bay Area, is home to 60,000 people and 100 million pounds of garlic. This isn't an exaggeration, and the wonderful people of Gilroy are proud of providing over half of America's garlic crop, with garlic-themed stands and festivals all over the place.
The most well-known garlic attraction is Gilroy Gardens, a theme park, botanical garden, wedding venue mashup that attracts visitors from across the globe daily. This year, Gilroy Gardens entrusted us with shooting three broadcast commercials: Water Oasis, Lakeside Splash, and the 25th Anniversary celebration.
With a small team, we are blown away by how excellent both of these projects turned out. In this blog, we will go over some of our favorite moments from these three shoots and the new technology we used to make it possible.
About Tucker/Hess Productions: We are a production company based out of Los Angeles and the Bay Area, offering independent and commercial film production. Trusted by big names such as Google, Oracle, and Vans, our work is acclaimed and loved worldwide. Your Hollywood director may see you as a client, but we see you as a partner, and we are excited to work with you every step of the way.
Tucker/Hess Productions offers:
Full-service production services
Copyrighting
Video Branding
4k cinematography, 8k cinematography
Drone videography
Post production services
Animation
And more!
A Quick History of Gilroy Gardens
Gilroy Gardens traces its origins to the vision of Michael Bonfante, a local businessman who owned Nob Hill Foods, a chain of grocery stores in Northern California. Bonfante was passionate about trees, nature, and horticulture, leading him to create a garden-themed amusement park.
Bonfante sold Nob Hill Foods in 1998 to finance the development of the park. He transformed his vision into reality, opening "Bonfante Gardens" in 2001. The park was designed with an emphasis on botanical beauty, offering a serene environment with rides that harmonized with the natural landscape.
After some financial trouble, the Bonfante family formed a partnership with the City of Gilroy to save the park from closure. The city took over operations, and in 2003, the park was rebranded as "Gilroy Gardens Family Theme Park."
Today, Gilroy Gardens operates as a non-profit while still adding more attractions, beautiful pieces of artwork, and tropical plants. In fact, they are so committed to maintaining that undisturbed natural feeling that no vehicles are allowed in the park. This means that we all walked double-digit miles each day moving camera gear back and forth.
The Water Oasis & Lakeside Splash Shoot
Our first shoot, which took place this spring, was to announce the opening of the new Lakeside Splash section of the Water Oasis Park. During the summer, Gilroy can clock temperatures over 100 degrees for weeks at a time, so Gilroy Gardens expanding their water parks was a welcome decision for many.
The Water Oasis Park already had lots of fun attractions, especially for families with little ones, as they could engage with the splash-friendly play structures and more. The Lakeside Splash section built upon this while adding more advanced slides and a water maze. For this shoot, Gilroy Gardens wanted to highlight the refreshment that each attraction brings, meaning we had to be fully involved in the action. And without stating the obvious, cameras and water are typically not a great duo.
We had to get creative with rigging, to grab scenes where kids were going down slides or spinning around on a ride. We even attached a camera to a plate of chicken fingers as it was being delivered to a hungry family relaxing in a cabana.
In the Water Oasis, no one is safe from the splash. This includes a film crew, which meant we had to bag up all our gear in waterproof bags and protect our very sensitive cameras from the elements. However, this was a risk we were willing to take as the final result came out stunning. There were almost too many great action shots to fit into one commercial, but one of our favorites is this half-submerged shot of a girl going down one of the new slides. All in all, this project was a challenge but one we were incredibly happy to be able to take on, and we think the results speak for themselves.
The 25th Anniversary Shoot
A few months later, we were back at Gilroy Gardens for another shoot. This time, we were staying dry, but filming a slightly different style of commercial for the Gilroy Gardens 25th Anniversary celebration. Instead of staying around the water park, we had scenes scheduled all across the park, covering almost every ride in the area.
This shoot also gave us a little more creative freedom and we got to put together some very unique shots. We started the first day off with a killer set and cast: the small redwood train complete with a fog machine, and an awesome actor and little boy.
Our drone, the DJI Inspire 3, got to see some action on this set as well. Albeit tricky, being able to fly this mini-helicopter through the indoor high-rise greenhouses gave us an incredible moving shot of the tram. The tram filled the frame, then moved out to reveal the large leaves of the tropical flora and a mother-daughter duo.
This piece was to be a hint nostalgic, meaning we were looking for soft warm lighting and rounded bokeh for a lot of the shots. Fortunately, with the help of our new Sony Zeiss Nano Primes, we got every little finishing touch we needed. The below scene of the mother and daughter on the bench just oozes nostalgia and we love the emotion this section of the commercial produced.
Rigging was also a tricky point during these two days, as we ran a bit behind schedule trying to get a complex rig set up on one of the rollercoasters. However, we were able to pull the shot off and although it's just a few seconds in the final cut, it really makes the action pop.
The most underappreciated shot of the commercial would have to be the first and last shots, which featured a family driving into and park and packing out. For these, we had to wait for the sun to get just right, and we were racing the clock trying to get in as many shots before the sun finally set. For the moving shots of the family inside the car, we again had to live on the edge a little with our rigging setup. Although we can't explicitly explain this setup for safety reasons, just know it required a lot more duct tape than one would want on a camera.
And, That's a Wrap!
All in all, we made it out of both shoots smiling and satisfied, and all of our talent did their roles perfectly. After a lot of work in post, the commercials came out even better than expected and is currently being broadcast throughout Northern California.
Tucker/Hess Productions has offices in Monterey California, and Los Angeles California, yet we travel across the world to film top-tier works for aviation, business, and creative industries. We are always looking to expand our client base and offer drone videography, video editing, and other postproduction tasks to allow you to focus on being your most creative self. Don't hesitate to reach out for a quote and browse our page to see for yourselves why we are the most trusted filmmakers on California's Central Coast and beyond.
Thanks, and with love always,
Tucker/Hess Productions
