When Lance Acord set out to shoot a five-spot branding campaign for Microsoft, his intent was to commit various slices of life from an array of cultures to film. In turn, he discovered that shooting everywhere from Mumbai, St. Petersburg and Istanbul to Toyko, Berlin, New York and LA would deliver a host of unexpected idiosyncrasies - like how equipment handlers are de rigueur in India and how the Japanese home is sacrosanct.

Shooting mostly from the hip, Acord completed the five spots for McCann Erickson, San Francisco - "Universal Morning", "The Boss", "First Day", "No Luggage", and "Russia" - over the course of the month of January. "It was pretty much non-stop. All very much back-to-back and quite the whirlwind tour."

Although four of the spots have a more traditional narrative, only "Universal Morning", which shows ordinary people around the world setting off to work, was shot in every location. With just a few key crew, including producer Nic Hippisley-Coxe, and some San Francisco-based McCann execs, Acord took a documentary-style approach to much of the production.

As such, they traveled with only the necessary cameras, picking up additional gear, batteries, tripods and lenses as needed, a method that was logical and simple, until India. "In Mumbai, the gear is not insured; instead they send a handler along to make sure nothing goes wrong," says Acord. Depending on the preciousness of the equipment, more handlers were dispatched to the set, sometimes one for each lens. "In India, we planned on being small but you'd set up a shot, turn around and there would be 50 people behind you. It's how things work there," he adds, noting that labor is cheaper than insurance on the sub-continent. In hindsight, Acord says that he would have brought all the camera gear to Russia and India. "A few extra pieces and we could have been self-sufficient."

In every location, the production hooked up with local line producers or prodcos, on average spending four days prepping for every two days of shooting. Acord says "keeping things small enough to be loose and flexible" helped them defeat the usual obstacles. "If the weather was bad, we'd swap the shoot."

Locations also proved difficult in Japan, though not because of the weather. "In Japan, people don't let you shoot in their houses. Even when you live there, you seldom get invited into someone's house." So whereas the slices of life shown from other locations were more or less real, Japan's universal morning was cheated a bit more than the rest. "They have houses that are kept empty and rented out as film sets. They are stripped down and you have to come in and dress them."

The production's flexibility reaped other benefits. "At casting in St. Petersburg, there were all these really good Russian actors - all stage trained." Which is not always what you are looking for - especially on camera. "We ended up casting the casting director and she was better."

Acord, who has substantial travel experience, fell in love with St. Petersburg both personally and professionally. "Russia is like the Wild West. [Producer] Nic [Hippisley-Coxe] was smart; we didn't go the Moscow-based commercial production route. He knows people who do docs and features and we just set up our own production using them." Acord says some costs were avoided by working under the radar.

Elsewhere, the production was not as lucky in this regard. "In India it's all about who you know and who needs to be paid, but then there is also multi-layered bureaucracy," says Acord, noting that corruption and red tape are usually mutually exclusive.

Given that a cultural comfort zone is a luxury when shooting across the globe, Acord says proper planning is only essential to a point. "It's always good to have a clear and concise idea about what you want to shoot but you have to be willing to redirect and take advantage of what it has to offer," he says. "It may even end up better."

GOOD TO KNOW

Driving: It can take up to four maddening hours just to drive crosstown in Mumbai.

Visas: Visas are required in India and

Russia. Get them early.

Administration: Changing permits proved difficult in bureaucratic Japan and Germany. In India permits are more broad and can allow for changes. Permits were required in Turkey and Russia.

check a calendar: "We started prepping just before Christmas, but people only came back online after January 1. Japan's holiday is over New Year's, and in Russia they celebrate Christmas around January 7. Turkey had a national holiday in mid-January and India had their winter break at a slightly different time. All this was against an airdate of March 17." - Producer Nic Hippisley-Coxe

Park Pictures>http://www.parkpictures.com
McCann Erickson>http://www.mccannsf.com
Microsoft>http://www.microsoft.com