PAINTING LIFE’S TRANSITIONS

THRESHOLD MOMENTS

Montgomery Place Assisted Living wanted to show potential residents the transition to senior living isn’t about giving up your life, but rather starting a new chapter — like going to college, without the homework. One of the more individualized programs offered is called Life Care at Home, a service that helps folks adjust to having support before they need full-time, on-site care. The challenge we met was in trying to straddle the line between “life is good at home” AND “life is good at Montgomery Place.”

A RICHER PALETTE

To bring Montgomery Place’s story to life, we developed an arc based on colors. Rather than starting in a dim home and transitioning to a bright new apartment (which would assign negativity to the original home), we wanted to emphasize that both environments have unique color and beauty.

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**_{Balancing Self and Community.}**_{The opening solo shots of our character allow us to learn about her passions before we expand her life by introducing more characters into her story. As a nod to her forward momentum in life, we first placed her and her easel facing camera-left, then open her up to the camera as she meets her community, and end in her new home now facing camera-right, forward toward her future.}

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To convey this metaphor of life gaining new color in a new space, our team conceived a story about painting. The goal was to communicate how someone's passions can continue through the transition to assisted living. Life doesn’t go gray, it continues to add color.

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**_{Brush Stroke of Genius.}**_{To jump through time on set, Creative Director Brian Shutters painted multiple in-process versions and one final canvas as our hero-prop. On-screen painting is a mix of brush strokes by the hands of the hero actress as well as Shutters.}

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INFLUENCE FROM REAL RESIDENTS

Along the way, we were influenced by the lives of real Montgomery Place residents. We wanted to show residents in their actual space alongside our actors. The residents gifted us with their stories and provided an up-close and personal view of their lives at Montgomery Place.

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**Brushing Up on Branding.** The colors of our hero’s painting were chosen to match the bright, primary colors in the Montgomery Place logo. In our final scene, you can spot an interpretation of that logo, made out of paint.

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One resident, Patricia, was particularly excited to be part of the process. Patricia proudly shared that she was the second youngest resident and in charge of watering the property’s plants. When she learned about our story concept, she promptly invited us to see her apartment for reference. Little did we know, her apartment was decorated from floor to ceiling with paintings she had collected over her lifetime: a mix of landscapes, portraits, and abstract nudes, many of which were oddly draped in bath towels. “Most people assume the towels are for sun damage,” Patricia shared unprompted, “but it's really for the bird sh*t.” It wasn’t until then that we realized her room also sheltered loose birds. At that moment, Voltaire, Percival, and Beowulf (yes, those are three of the said birds) swooped over our heads, as if to prove a point. While we didn’t feature birds or protectant-towels in our narrative, hearing Patricia’s connection to art throughout her life impacted the way we told our story. Patricia even allowed us to borrow a few pieces from her personal collection to fill our hero character’s home.

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MOVEMENT WITH PURPOSE

In addition to incorporating the real life texture of residents, we saw an opportunity to build the flow of our narrative through purposeful camera movement. We wanted to parallel the growth in our hero character’s life by increasing the size and speed of the images along her journey. Starting as small as possible with macro images of brush tips on canvas and extreme close ups of paint covered hands and focused eyes to introduce us to our character and how she felt about her work. When we pulled out, we kept the camera on a tripod. The first time the camera moves from a locked-off position is as our hero carries her last box out of the frame starting her transition to her new home. Then once we reached Montgomery, we shot wider angles and increased the speed of camera movement on a mobile dolly—mirroring the momentum and expansion of her life.

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**_{Drawn to Narrative.}**_{The first project brief for this project was to showcase Montgomery Place’s facilities and services. We expanded the client’s brief from a focus on spaces to a focus on an individual. As stories offer human connection, we wrote a narrative around a hero character to draw in prospective residents and their families and place them right inside the story.}

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By blending technical details with the humanity of Montgomery Place residents, we created an authentic story to celebrate life’s many phases.

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