Alright, so the whale in this Canada Tourism spot isn’t wild and free in the ocean. She’s a member of MarineLand’s roster, and a pregnant one at that. And yes, her magnificent splash was created by a four-ton piece of sewage pipe dropped from a crane. But put it all together with the magic of Henry and (forgive me for my burbling patriotism) you get goose bumps.

Fade up on the splendor of Vancouver’s Tofino Island, pretty much as far west as Canada extends. It’s that time of evening diehard fishermen love. Just before sunset, the water is calm and there’s an orange glow over the misty wooded mountains. A small boat is rowing into frame and the v/o comes in rich and warm and utterly content: ‘Fresh air.’

Our man, the fine Canadian, looks leisurely. His oar is dipping into liquid gold that almost looks warm. The v/o again: ‘Fresh water.’

The music, which could only be described as a chorus of angels, builds and our man rises up in his boat. As he’s standing in the path of light from a sun just about to set, the v/o builds the anticipation: ‘And something to make your heart sing like a nightingale on a warm summer’s eve.’

There’s a look of wonder in our man’s eye as we hear the call of a whale. Then, as his little boat floats in the last of the day’s light and the music peaks to a crescendo, the killer whale leaps like a geyser, arching over him. He raises his arms in joy as the whale, water streaming from her body, eclipses the sun for a moment before creating a splash that g’es on forever. If it sounds cheesy, then you have no heart. Or else you’ve never seen Free Willy.

And then the tag, the unifying thread through the pool of three commercials, all directed by Radke Film’s Peter Goldschmidt. A reddening maple leaf sits on a coil of rope and the v/o tells us: ‘The world needs more Canada.’

Henry artist Marjorie Knight, under the supervision of Spin Productions’ Norm Stangl, pieced together three plates to make the effect possible. The man and his boat, shot in the dwindling light at Tofino, make up the first plate.

The second plate, a little more complicated to capture, involved setting up a huge blue screen behind the orca tank at Niagara Falls’ MarineLand. In order to control the light, the jumps were shot at night. Eliminating the ‘extra bits’ around the tank, such as the windows, called on Henry’s rotoscoping capabilities in the online session.

The third plate, again shot in Tofino, involved shooting the splash, generated by dropping a four-ton steel pipe from a 75-foot crane. ‘The splash element was an intriguing and critical part of the production,’ says Stangl. ‘It also made our talent really wet.’

Parts of the artificial splash were integrated with the original to create the monumental splash in the spot, and the whale was then added to the mix. The final result is a seamless combination of pieces shot thousands of kilometers apart. Which is fitting, seeing as we’re talking about the wonder of Canada and all.

The dop was Paul Cameron. At Radke, Greg Ferguson produced and Tina Petridis was the executive producer. At Vickers & Benson, Toronto, the writer was Terry Bell, the producer was Bev Cornish and the art director was Larry Gordon. Richard Unruh of Third Floor handled the editing.