The means of production might have been different had shooting taken place during Toronto Mega-Storm ’99, but with dry conditions in early winter when the spots were put together, Toronto’s Spin Productions and Flashcut Editing turned to still photos and loads of layering to achieve some near-white-out vistas for a recent Petro Canada campaign.

The spots, ‘Room With a View,’ and ‘Last One Out,’ created out of Cossette, Toronto, couldn’t look simpler; they feature just barely discernible backgrounds – the Petro Canada building and a parking lot – obscured by a dense snowstorm.

Spin creative director Steven Lewis and Flashcut editor Norm Odell took still photographs of cars, a parking lot and the building. The photos were color corrected and snow elements were painted in. Lewis applied stock shots of heavy weather as foreground elements and also created snow in particle software in Inferno.

‘You needed a lot of obscurity to accomplish the joke in the spots,’ says Odell. ‘We felt it could be accomplished as a total post solution as opposed to going to the Arctic and shooting it from scratch.’

The key to achieving the look was intense layering. ‘If you took any shortcuts it would have looked fake,’ says Lewis. An added bonus: Lewis’ hobby-born expertise with painting winter scenes.

The gear: Spin’s Henry system was used for compositing and snow was partially created in Inferno.

The artists: The spots were created by writer Nancy Mauro and art director Todd Mackie at Cossette. Agency producer was Bev Cornish. Lewis composited and Odell edited and both created photo elements. Spin producer was Mike DeArruda.