x
play reel

Nightmares

arrow down
Scroll

Nightmares

Portland Trust Co.

When we first met with Portland Trust Company one thing became immediately apparent: the company wasn’t at all interested in the tired old financial institution approach to commercial advertising. Company president Jim McLeod spoke passionately about wanting to take a chance and stand out from the crowd — no slow-mo aerials of the Maine coastline with voiceover equating the strength of granite to PTC’s financial planning approach.

This was exactly what we wanted to hear.

Jim and his partner, Amelia, pushed us to develop a concept that would resonate with their target demographic while also acknowledging a simple truth: there are a lot of financial planners out there who care more about their own bottom line than they do yours. We decided to center our story around family — an all-encompassing source for pride, dreams and, of course, worries. We wrote a handful of scripts to get at the heart of the matter. When Jim and Amelia ultimate chose “Nightmares” we were thrilled (it was our favorite of the bunch!)

The pre-production phase of the project was pretty intense but we loved every minute of it. Everything had to be just right so we flexed every nerdy video production muscle in our bodies: camera testing, VFX R&D, casting session after casting session. But nothing was more fun than the set design. Local artist John Sundling drew up the plans and absolutely killed the build-out at High Output.

The PTC team gave us amazing creative freedom on set, and our super-talented cast gave us more coverage than we ever could’ve hoped for. The result was a series of spots that people remembered — directly resulting in multiple new business leads for PTC. It was memorable for us, too. So memorable, in fact, that we created a special BTS video (below) about the process!

  • Portland Trust Company

  • p3

  • CJ Lampman

  • Brian Chin

  • Morgan Myer

  • Chris Davis

  • John Sundling

  • Morgan Myer; Olivia Spinale

  • Brian Chin

  • Nathan Gilliss

  • Mike McInnis

view play