STATE FARM X JAKE FROM STATE FARM
Stills photography of Jake from State Farm created for pause ad placement across HBO and streaming services
THE BRIEF
CLIENT: State Farm
AGENCY: The Marketing Arm
ROLE: Photographer
State Farm needed stills of Jake from State Farm for pause ad creative across HBO and streaming services, the placement a viewer sees when a show is paused. The stills were captured on a commercial set already in production, working inside the video team's setup rather than a booked photography slot. A Disney crossover was shot the same day. The challenge was delivering a finished set of stills in the narrow window between video takes.
creative aPproacH
The stills needed to sit naturally alongside the commercial, so the lighting had to match the film. Instead of relighting, flash was placed in the exact positions of the video crew's continuous lights, matching their setup but shooting with strobe for sharper, cleaner frames.
IN MARKET
The stills ran as pause ad creative across HBO and streaming services. The Disney crossover ran as a GIF on the Jake from State Farm Instagram account.
behind the scenes
The shoot took place in Los Angeles across a full commercial production day, with all stills captured in a single one-hour window. The shot list was planned in advance and run with two assistants, and flash was pre-rigged to match the set lighting, so capture began the moment the video team stepped off.
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