Industry Films director Vadim Perelman has helmed some complicated shoots in his career, but none so challenging as his latest effort – a 30-second number for GMC Sierra.

The spot depicts a beat-up, seafaring tugboat moving toward the shore. As a chain creaks taut, a white Sierra begins dragging the ship out of the water while the narrator extols the virtues of the gmc truck. With the ship grounded, two ‘typical truck guys’ step out of the vehicle and survey the rusting boat. ‘It’s a bit of a fixer-upper,’ one says. The narrator closes and the ‘365 days a year’ gmc tagline appears on screen.

With two days in Hamilton, Ont. and one at Toronto’s Scarborough Bluffs, the shoot caused all kinds of headaches for Perelman and the production team. Chiefly, figuring out how to actually get a ship out of the water. Turns out, there’s not a hope in Hamilton that any truck – no matter how ‘heavy-duty’ – could ever drag a ship out of the water.

After debating several options, including salvaging a real shipwreck (abandoned because of the huge scope of any salvage operation) and employing cgi (abandoned due to a lack of available post time), Perelman turned to his ‘huge art department’ to make things right.

‘We got a brand new boat and we ended up completely scenic painting it rusty. The inside and outside. We filmed it on a giant, football field-sized dry dock. That was the only way to get the ship and the truck into the same place, because the ship could never come out of the water,’ Perelman explains. A model of the ship’s hull was also employed to complete the effect.

Perelman believes the decision to abandon cgi was a key to the spot’s success. ‘It’s completely live. That’s my approach. That’s what got the guys excited and that’s what got me excited about it. I wanted to do it very organic and very live.’

The other day of shooting in Hamilton took the crew off the dry dock and on to the difficult task of capturing the moving vessel with ‘boat-to-boat’ shooting. Perelman explains: ‘Our camera boat and our picture boat – we drove them at the same speed, keeping the chain tight between them. It was insanely hard. Can you imagine trying to match exactly the same speed with something rigid linking both ships? It was a total nightmare.’

The day in Scarborough also kept the art department extremely busy; they had to transform the bluffs’ sandy yellow beach into the rocky beach demanded by the spot.

Especially in Hamilton, the gmc shoot attracted no shortage of attention. ‘We had people lining the shores and watching. It was like their holiday thing. It was insane. We called it the ‘Perelman Armada,’ ‘ the director says of his virtual navy of support ships.

The Hamilton days also included underwater photography, and required Perelman to have ‘divers all over the place.’ However, the energetic director stopped short of going under to direct the shots.

‘I did a surfing spot once where I tried going into those waves and I almost got killed,’ Perelman laughs. ‘[In this case,] I just set [the divers] loose. You just kind of hire guys you can trust.’

At agency MacLaren McCann, writer Michael Mayes and art director John McDougall came up with the creative, under the watchful eyes of creative directors Dave Kelso and Marta Cutler. Jan Riley produced for the agency. Perelman’s team consisted of Industry producer Glenn Wong and dop Glen Keenan. Andy Ames edited at Panic & Bob while Joel Saunders did special effects at Axyz. Music was completed by Ted Rosnick at Rosnick MacKinnon.

Despite Perelman’s love of the live and organic, seven days of sky replacements were undertaken to give the spot its ‘stormy, moody look’.

With the commercial currently airing across Canada, Perelman is in l.a. working on spots for Pontiac and Miller beer through his u.s. representative, Cylo. *

-www.industryfilms.com