Hotel Tacoma

A fire-spewing totem lit up the clearing in the forest to the ear-busting howl of a ship’s airhorn on a starry night — the pylon sign for a functioning weekend hotel in the wilderness. 
The logical progression from the Tacoma “Play Now” launch campaign was to actually live the ethos. 

The art director in our team came up with the seed for this idea. Our CCO named it Hotel Tacoma. We did it twice — Hualapai, AZ, the first year, Cape Lookout, OR, the second. I scouted both locations with the producer.
 
I scratched the idea of a fire-spewing totem made from salvaged parts of broken-down ‘play vehicles’ on a piece of paper. It was an homage to the creativity of our audience — tinkerers and builders living out their passions every weekend. Our producer (one of the best I’ve ever worked with) found a band of creative metal workers in downtown LA, where they welded and tested everything for final assembly on location. 

For the second event, we briefed one of our influencers to Frankenstein two vehicles into one mutant machine everyone could ride.

I hired an illustrator to create visuals for the notebook we created as a nod to the hotel brochure. It had a passport page at the end, where participants received a stamp as proof of citizenship in this special place.

The great challenge in shooting the events was balancing guest/influencer needs with our own. It was less about directing and more about documenting, with the hope that enough spectacular action would be captured.
 
A special callout to my CD, who lived and breathed this lifestyle and who always kept us authentic.