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OVERVIEW

Hawai’i often falls in the minds of the nationwide population somewhere between blue oceans and grass skirts. Just like Lexus’ image lives between class and luxury. But that’s where we want to push the envelope. Here we want to emphasize Lexus’ eye for design and craft - I think Lexus does a great job of this in the Artisans of Lexus Hawai’i series - but with an added focus on the vehicles’ performance. Lexus’ beauty lies in its strength.

Epic landscapes featured in wide shots and drone footage, a cool but rooted score, and the voice and performance of our local talent will all combine to give the film a sleek and aspirational but grounded feel. I think the special touch at the root of Lexus Hawai’i’s marketing
is a sense of home. That’s the essence I want to maintain in this spot too. While luxury remains at the core of the brand, this film highlights what luxury means specifically in Hawai’i nei, where the women of its history are goddesses, queens, dancers, surfers, and warriors. Where the island’s best luxury car carries on the grace and power of its ancestors.

TV Series Pitch

THE STORY

Those who wander are in fact lost. And broke. Until they find themselves in the world of fraudulent college applications where photoshop and a way with words pays more than the rent. This is where Mil - a devious and doubtful millennial - finds herself after a slew of sad jobs and an impulsive move to the west coast. Once in cahoots with an elite high school principal, Mil manipulates her way into the lives of a California suburb’s richest parents. After getting nearly all their kids into Ivy Leagues with fabricated applications, she lands herself on the radar of a local private investigator and quickly becomes the county’s most wanted con-woman. Inspired by the intrigue of the 2019 Varsity Blues scandal and the dark fun-poking of Search Party, this show is about identity and capitalization on the lack thereof. For a young person invested in fake futures, this turns out to be not great for Mil’s sense of purpose, or her criminal record.

Beauty

INTRO

Whether you spent your summers riverside at a family friend’s cabin, or poolside at the neighborhood rec center, you probably recall the unmistakable sweetness of SPF. When we open a bottle of sunscreen now, that familiar scent takes us back to specifics: melting soft serve under a candy-striped awning, a water balloon smashing on grass. Summer in these memories isn’t flashy or even necessarily bursting with joy like the fun in the sun we might associate with an August day at the beach. Rather, visions like these are reminders of the softer, gentler embrace of nostalgia.

That’s the essence of this campaign that hits home for me. It’s here - this instantaneous but hazy dream you enter when lathering up - where we want to take our viewer. But like you’ve said, it’s just as much about how our sun-kissed days look now as how they did before. Our skin, that of our kids and loved ones, needs just as much protection as it did before. So the key will be a smooth melding of both moods: the retro airiness of the good ole days intercut with the fresh, but still dreamy vibrations of our present summers.

Lifestyle

PRODUCTION DESIGN

The more lived-in of a space we can find, the better. Where product spots may typically clear off a counter top or remove fridge magnets, we want to leave our spaces’ quirks and charms intact. My goal is to put the product front and center in the overall production design. However, I want it to be suggestive, to avoid creating an overly dressed or propped look. Ideally, production design will enhance the already existent humanity in our sets. This is the same approach I brought to my previous projects, where it’s not necessarily high-end furniture or even a grand space that’s impressive. It’s the details, the knick-knacks and the subtle surprises, that turn a room into art. Let’s get up close to the toy left on the rug, and the funky lamp in the corner. The relatability is in the details. The aspiration is to make them stylish.

Fashion

WARDROBE

As for the clothing, the texture and movement of the fabrics will be just as important as the colors and patterns. I envision rich red, pastel yellow, lilac - colors that strongly contrast the greens and blues of the forest in which we’ll be shooting. Our models will for the most part be dressed in sleek, avant-garde pieces: long billowing gowns, bold- shouldered jackets. In some shots, models will stand stoic and alone in the frame. In others, they will bob and weave through each other; it’s in these shots that it’ll be important to feature fabrics that move with them. A diversity of textures will be key, too. In the end, the viewer may not be able to verbally describe our designer’s world, but they will understand the feeling of it - just as clearly as they can feel the silk rippling and the chiffon bouncing across the frame.

Lifestyle

CINEMATOGRAPHY

To create that balance between yesteryear’s summers and today’s, we’ll be floating back and forth between grainy scenes of sunny memories to crisper golden moments in the modern world. With our production design team, we’ll weave visual elements of the flashback scenes into the modern shots: a yellow umbrella on the shore, a billowing pastel sarong. In editing, this will create fluidity between the past and the present, even as cuts quicken pace in more playful moments or slow down in quieter ones. I’d like to shoot the throwback scenes on a Super 8 to give them a found footage feel, but we could also achieve this effect in post. The present day moments will be rich with warm light and soft lens flares, perhaps sprinkled with some POV iPhone shots to give them the same homemade, but modern touch as the flashbacks. The sophisticated but still DIY mood will reflect the brand’s overall aim: to be freshly appealing while also trusted and comforting.