“Our creative direction for the new 2010 Lagoon campaign was developed out of a need to keep production costs low, since our production budget was shrinking along with the economy. But everyone at Lagoon was quick to add that the campaign still needed to be just as cool and memorable as the previous year’s campaign,” Hodgson said. “A tall order to be sure, but it was a challenge we couldn’t wait to tackle.”

The solution? An ultra hip stop-motion campaign shot almost entirely with SLRs, with exclamation point moments shot on high-speed 35mm film. “We really wanted our 2010 campaign to reflect the energy of the Lagoon experience,” Hodgson said. “The vibe had to be fun, action-packed and real.”

According to Hodgson, veteran DP Matthew Williams was excited about the creative from the beginning. “He absolutely lit up the first time we talked about the idea,” Hodgson said, “Matt has a brilliant eye when it comes to composing emotionally powerful images, and he was the perfect choice for a campaign that married thousands of stills with high-speed 35mm footage.”

Williams shot the campaign using the Full Frame Canon 1Ds MKII and the High Speed CANON 1D MKII for the still portion of the shoot, and an Ari 435 for the 35mm high-speed film portion.

“We knew that this campaign had to be created from actual stills,” Williams said. “Just pulling frames out of video or film sequences doesn’t have the same organic feeling to it. This needed to have that classic stop-motion energy, so shooting stills was really the only solution.”

The duo shot with a scaled down crew for most of the 14 shoot days and nights, adding crew for larger 35mm hero moments. “Because we were shooting stills we could move a lot faster,” Williams said, “which allowed us to do a lot more setups in the time we had.”

Besides capturing iconic stop-motion sequences of Lagoon during the day Hodgson and Williams spent a lot of time shooting the park at night. “There is a totally different energy at Lagoon at night,” Hodgson said, “so we spent a lot of time capturing imagery that is absolutely stunning.”

All this shooting resulted in 96 set-ups which generated over 11,000 stills that the duo, with the expert help of editor TJ Nelson, have been culling through to create their masterpiece of frenetic fun. Now with only a few weeks before Lagoon unveils its new 2010 campaign, the threesome are busily adding the finishing touches to what they believe is a campaign, unlike any campaign ever launched in Utah.

“We’re so excited about this direction,” Hodgson added. “The imagery is stunning, the music is unforgettable, and the message is 100 percent Lagoon fun.”

Credits for the 2010 Lagoon Campaign include: Lance Eastman, Dick Andrew and Terry Capener (Executive Producers), Matt Hodgson (Director, Writer, Creative Director), Matthew Williams (Director of Photography), TJ Nelson (Editor), Cameron Gardner (Art Director), Brent Feulner (Producer) Chuck Myers (Sound/Final Mix), BitterSweet (Music), Jeff Tillotson (Colorist).

Talent Pictured and photographed by Matthew Williams: with slate, Nikola Clark; children, Isaac Hodgson, Lilly McCleery and Brooklyn Eastman