Rodeo Show & Esteban Petersen Helm JAWS Spot for Minnesota Lottery

Rodeo Show & Esteban Petersen Helm JAWS Spot for Minnesota Lottery

Rodeo Show and director Esteban “Steve” Petersen recently produced a :30 TV spot as part of the Minnesota Lottery’s summer “JAWS”-themed scratch game campaign via agency Betty. The campaign is running regionally across OOH, radio, and broadcast, with several other OOH activations this summer across Minnesota.

According to Betty, because the campaign leverages iconic imagery from the legendary 1975 movie JAWS, it was important to convey to the audience that the campaign is for the new scratch game, not for the movie. As such, Betty made use of imagery and settings that are uniquely Minnesotan while keeping the Minnesota Lottery branding prominent throughout.

Petersen took Betty’s messaging strategy to heart in directing the :30 TV spot, dishing up a delightful celebration of the thriller genre and the idea of sharks in the Minnesota lakes. The spot opens with beachgoers enjoying a summer day, complete with the familiar JAWS theme music to hint that it’s time to run... to the convenience store to buy a new JAWS scratch game.

“We designed the shots and plotted the story more as a tongue-in-cheek homage to Spielberg and JAWS, rather than a frame-by-frame copy or parody,” remarks Petersen. “We kept the emphasis on playing into the tropes of thriller movies to sell the comedic twist at the end while taking every opportunity to make it feel very Minnesotan, where our beach is on a lake.”

According to Petersen, VFX played an integral role in bringing the concept to life, which hinged on an opening scene of a jam-packed beach. Using crowd duplication effects, he transformed a handful of extras into hundreds of beachgoers.

Shooting a summertime spot in the dead of winter in Minnesota was also no small feat. A massive blizzard and iced-over lakes derailed the initial shoot date; but once back on location, Petersen and the Rodeo Show crew made what was a chilly day look like it needed SPF 50. Their “winter-for-summer” production toolbox included paramedics on standby for the actors in bathing suits, an art department armed with ice shovels, and lighting rigs that pushed hard sun through a gray sky. Post-production kept things summery with color correction and sky replacements.

“Working with Betty on the JAWS commercial was a ‘fin-tastic’ experience,” says Petersen. “Especially with all of the challenges we had to work through in transforming our chilly Minnesota winter shoot into a hot summer day at the beach. Scott Dahl and Nicole Meyer were ‘jawsome’ partners to have on this adventure. Who knew shooting a JAWS-themed beach spot on a cold winter day could be such a whale of a time?”

“Helming a JAWS-inspired production of this magnitude required an all-hands-on-deck crew," concludes Rodeo Show Executive Producer Katie Walker. “The creative harmony between Steve, Betty, and our production team was a thing of beauty, as everyone was rowing in the same direction to ensure the spot felt big and cinematic to sell the gag.”


CREDITS 

Betty 

CCO: Mike Caguin 

Executive Creative Director: Heath Pochucha 

Group Creative Director/Writer: Scott Dahl 

Creative Director/Art Director: Nicole Meyer 

Senior Strategist: Tory Nagel 

Social Strategist: Mike Shirdan 

Senior Producer: Alvan Washington 

Group Account Director: Kayla Janachovsky 

Account Director: Allison Spear 

Associate Account Manager: Matthew Kim 

Project Manager Supervisor: Jack Lunt 

Project Manager: Christina Forbes 

Director of Creative Studio: Erik Jacobs 

Senior Premedia Production Artist: Christine Notermann 

Premedia Production Artist: Giovanni Moreno 

Premedia Color Analyst: Tanner Thompson 

Senior Business Affairs Manager: Christie Wenzel 

Production Partners 

Audio: Aaron Florence 

Production Company: Rodeo Show, Midwestern Filmworks 

Line Producer: Mike Tabor 

Director: Esteban “Steve” Petersen 

Editor: Esteban “Steve” Petersen  + Victor Otero 

Color: Carbon Post / Bree Bracket 

VFX team lead: Dennis Shen 

Confirm and Finish: Rodeo Show 

Rise (Media Partners) 

Group Media Director: Arron Elkins 

Integrated Media Planning Manager: Stephanie Murtos 

Media Planner: Tyler Reilly 

Supervisor, Digital: Katie Parr