From Aladdin's magic carpet rides to The Neverending Story's floppy-eared luckdragon, Falkor, childhood fantasy is filled with sweeping, and often risky, adventures experienced atop a flying companion. Even Mary Poppins alighted from a flying umbrella to administer a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. US-based insurance company Travelers Insurance has taken a similar approach for its latest grown-up fable, by taking the notions of safety and benevolence and outfitting its own bowler-hatted helper with a massive umbrella and a mission to rescue the stranded from dire situations.

The :60 "Delivery", from Fallon, Minneapolis and produced through MJZ, Los Angeles is a metaphor for insurance protection wrapped in a fairytale. The Rupert Sanders-helmed tale depicts the main character, played by Brit actor Paul Freeman (Raiders of the Lost Ark), carting a 35-foot umbrella through a giant redwood forest, across a lake, over rolling hills and through a major downtown roadway. Needing a locale that would exude magic and whimsy, the team headed to pastoral Rotorua, New Zealand.

Dubbed the Sulphur City because of its abundant mud pools and hot thermal springs, the tourist-heavy town is situated two-and-half hours away from one of NZ's three main film centers, Auckland - the other two are Wellington and Queenstown.

"There's a lot of filming around Rotorua, but it doesn't actually have a film infrastructure," explains Katie Kempe-Smith, EP at Auckland-based Cherokee Films. She's serviced roughly seven or eight productions in Rotorua over the course of the year. "There's a film liaison [which we worked with]. Because the funding can be limited, some of the rural areas are starting up liaison groups."

The lack of an established film office in town doesn't mean that it isn't equipped to handle large-scale projects, if the rumors of an $80 million Jackie Chan production possibly shooting there are any indication. Rotorua proved more than capable of meeting the logistical challenges that "Delivery" presented.

The idyllic scenery was shot over three days. The process to secure permits to shoot in the town's privately-owned forestry was straightforward, but the planning required to navigate the umbrella through the environment was more complex.

"Each time we had to set up the umbrella it was a different set of circumstances," says MJZ producer Laurie Boccaccio, who praised the Auckland-based rigging department on their ability to execute each set-up, involving roughly five hours of pre-rigging the day before shooting. "In the forest, it was on a cable. In the rain [scene] we had it on cranes. But we had to make sure it was safe and could hang above the actor in a way that made it look like it was a natural umbrella to carry."

Hauling a large amount of props and equipment, all sourced locally, meant that it wasn't feasible for the production to completely relocate between locales.

"Mainly, we stayed in one place for most of the shooting day and a unit could break off as needed," explains Kempe-Smith. "But we didn't want to move the whole unit. We wanted to work it logistically so that we maximized the shooting time and minimized the relocation time."

"We had the redwood forest, the lakes and also the rolling hills in the general area," explains Boccaccio about how Rotorua's terrain was a major factor in solving the travel problem. "There was a concentration of the three different kinds of things we were looking for."

Weather, both real and fake, provided its own challenges. The production was shot in February, which is the warmest time to shoot with average highs of 73°F, but a few windy days leading up to the shoot were a real concern.

"We were basically carrying around a large sail," says Kempe-Smith, referring to the umbrella, whose panels were pieced together by a local sailmaker. "New Zealand is known for really good sailing conditions, but we were hoping that we wouldn't be experimenting with sailing on land!"

The team lucked out when the wind abated before shooting, but the more controlled weather exercise, creating the rain scene, required local crews to haul plastic irrigation tanks up a steep hill via truck, which saved the production the use of a helicopter to do the job.

The umbrella itself was the product of a collaboration between US-based production designer K.K. Barrett and New Zealand-based art director Guy Treadgold. All of the fabrication was done in Auckland, overseen by the country's largest modelmaking company, Gyro Constructivists under designer/modelmaker Andrew Turney. The entire process took about two weeks and several umbrellas were constructed for the shoot.

For the downtown scenes, the production spent two days shooting on a number of main streets in Auckland.

"We were able to contain all our shooting on the Sunday which is good for production - fewer headaches!" laughs Kempe-Smith. "Sunday is definitely the ideal day. We had clearance to shoot on the Saturday as backup depending on how the weather went in Rotorua. We started on a street that we could close for a certain section of time, and then moved to rooftops in the middle of the day. Toward the end of the day, from 4pm on, we started putting out road control and traffic signage, and by 5:30pm we were allowed to close down."

"I was surprised at how professional and amazing New Zealand was to shoot in," sums up Boccaccio. "It was by far the best international experience that I've had."

GOOD TO KNOW
Currency: 1 USD = 1.27 NZD (dollars)
Casting:
Although lead actor Paul Freeman was flown in from the UK, the rest of the spot's cast was assembled from both the North and South Island of New Zealand and from Australia. The result is a diverse group, including Caucasian, Asian and indigenous actors. "The entire talent pool there allowed for a unique casting opportunity," says Fallon EP Kate Talbott.

Fallon, Minneapolis http://www.fallon.com
MJZ http://www.mjz.com
Cherokee Films http://www.cherokeefilms.co.nz