Summer is our
Territory
He already broke his own hibernation for Team Canada. This time, he belongs and just showed up.
What struck me first reading this script is what it's not doing. While every other ad leans on slow push-ins on tired faces and voice-over about sacrifice and grit, this one goes the other way — bright, loud, warm and funny. That's the thing I'd protect above everything else.
And the way I see it, the fun doesn't get in the way of the dedication — it just proves it.
Summer McIntosh takes a wave from a cannonballing grizzly and comes out faster than she went in. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is as dedicated to his fit as he is to his game. Ethan Katzberg spins a throw hard enough that the bear goes down dizzy just from watching. Kyle Tremblay puts an arrow through a smoothie without missing his mark. Even a bear is no match for Andre De Grasse's dedication. Nobody stops to make a moment of it — a grin, a shake of the head, an “oh well” — and they're back to it.
That restraint is the note I'd want holding throughout the film: we don't take ourselves too seriously, but we mean business when it's time to. Which is about the most Canadian thing a spot can say.
That's my read of it — and there's plenty in here I'd like to pull apart with you.
I'm genuinely collaborative — more than thirty years in this industry, a good chunk of it directing non-actors on documentary and stunt shoots, have taught me that nothing is my way. It needs to become the way, and we get there together: creatives, client, and me. On my productions I act as Director & Executive Creative Producer, which means the creatives drive the money, not the other way around. I follow every project from pre-production through delivery — I'm in every phase, directing every aspect of the process, so nothing gets lost in translation. Whatever we agree matters and actually follows through.
Same irreverence, traded blizzard hush for sunstruck confidence.
Our hero doesn't exist. That one fact should drive every other decision in the film. A CG bear will only ever feel as real as the world we build around him, so we take every chance to anchor a scene in something physical — real locations, real light, real bodies, water that moves the way water actually moves. Heat you can feel, chlorine you can smell.
Which is why the register stays straight-faced rather than cartoonish. Nobody plays it for laughs, nobody winks at camera. The athletes stay composed, the bear stays fully committed to his own logic, and the film treats a grizzly at the Games as though a documentary film crew simply happened to be rolling when it happened.
The film moves fast until the bear does something, and then it doesn't. High energy through the athletes' world — quick, bright, alive — and then the frame settles, the shot holds, and the comedy is allowed to land without anyone rushing it. None of which is scrappy: the image stays beautiful throughout. Documentary is how the film behaves, not how it looks.
A song everyone already knows
The music is the heartbeat of the film, creating a web for the story to develop on. Summery, happy, energetic are all taken care of by the music so the visuals can concentrate in making the scenes relatable and grounded in reality: even with a bear in the middle of it. The diegetic start of the music through the radio gives us the best excuse to use a known song.
A really famous track is a double-edged sword. Recognition is instant and the film becomes memorable by association. But that same familiarity is the risk: the expected song in the expected place.
The way through is to take a song everyone knows and cover it in a way nobody heard before. Familiar enough to land in two bars, re-arranged far enough that it never feels like a karaoke cue — recognition and surprise from the same track.
Both of our candidates here are bear songs. A track the audience already connects to a bear gives us permission to build a film around one — the same permission No Time to Hibernate established, and that this spot gets to inherit.
Two Directions
The Bare Necessities
Terry Gilkyson · The Jungle Book, 1967Re-cut as summery acoustic jazz. Reference ↗
Upright bass and acoustic guitars with real forward momentum. And the whole point of the song is that you don’t need much — let go of the worry, keep it simple, the rest follows. Dropping that philosophy into the most hyper-competitive fortnight on earth is the joke, and it’s the same joke the film is telling.
(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear
Kal Mann & Bernie Lowe · Elvis Presley, 1957Re-cut as 60’s bossa nova. Reference ↗
A warm, sophisticated 1960s Bossa-pop arrangement — breezy female vocals, syncopated piano, gentle Brazilian rhythms, lush understated orchestration. Where Bare Necessities gives us laid-back irony against all that high performance, this one gives warmth: loyal, uncomplicated, always in your corner. A teddy bear song, played straight, about wanting someone who’s simply always there — which is exactly the part our bear ends up playing for these athletes.
Canadian Alternatives
Takin’ Care of Business
Randy Bachman · Bachman‑Turner Overdrive, 1973Re-cut as 60’s psychedelic surf rock.
The song casts the bear as a working man, clocking in for the summer while everyone around him trains. Surf rock trades the swagger of the original for something sunnier and a little stranger, which is closer to the film we’re making.
The Other Day I Met a Bear
Traditional · Barenaked Ladies, 2007Re-cut straight, as a ballad or earnest pop.
A camp singalong most Canadians learned before they could read. Played completely seriously, with real production behind it, the comedy takes care of itself. It’s also a traditional song, so the publishing sits far below anything above.
English only. Options A, B and C are all known in Quebec and carry the same emotional anchor for French-speaking Canada. This one would require a French equivalent to be licensed.
A sound everyone
can feel
Foley carries half the comedy here. Cannonball splash, arrow thwip, hammer whoosh, bear dropping — so every CG-finished action has real world weight behind it.
I want every scene grounded in a real physical performance, not a CG placeholder — so the timing, the chemistry with each athlete, and the sheer confidence of the bear all read as something that actually happened on set.
The Bear
He has to carry the comedy in every beat opposite five non-actors, without a single line of dialogue. So we cast a professional mascot / physical-comedy performer and dress him in a built costume — a real scene partner who understands comedic timing and the physicality of it. Our finished CG bear inherits all that he does on set.
Every athlete performance sits in the same place: unbothered, but never cold. Nobody ignores the bear — they notice him, they’re briefly amused, and then they carry on, because they’re prepared enough that a grizzly in the lane genuinely doesn’t disrupt anything. That balance is doing real work. Played stone-faced, the bear becomes a pest nobody wants around; a small grin or an “oh well” keeps him welcome, and makes the focus read as composure rather than indifference.
Athlete Cameos — Direction Notes
- CoverageSnappy and handheld between the gags — moving with the athletes, catching things a beat late, reframing on the fly, so the world around the bear feels real and unstaged. Then the moment he does something absurd, the camera settles and lets it play.
- StyleShot with a filmic sensibility despite the CG integration — practical light and practical camera moves, with CG added on top rather than built from scratch.
- PaletteSun-bleached daylight neutrals, with Petro-Canada red, pool blue, and sun-worn field green as the only saturated colours allowed in frame.
One principle I kept underneath it all: apart from the opening and the closing scenes, nothing should tell you exactly where we are. No landmarks, no skyline. Everywhere could be anywhere — as long as anywhere looks like Canada.
One drive, six stops, and a wall at the end of it.
What follows is a starting point, not a finished plan. The script will keep evolving and the line-up will likely change between now and the shoot, so I’ve written these as the way I currently see each scene playing rather than as anything locked. I’d much rather build them out with you than turn up with them already decided.
One principle underneath it all: apart from the opening, nothing should tell you exactly where we are. No landmarks, no skyline, no city that names itself. Everywhere could be anywhere — as long as anywhere looks like Canada. The only two places we commit to are the first frame and the last.
Cut, reverse on the bear: he lifts a bear hat off the shelf beside him and sends it down the closet — a clean basketball pass.
Cut: our player takes it one‑handed and puts it straight on.
Cut: tight on him. The delight is real.
The athlete starts to rotate — three turns, four, building — and the bear’s head tracks him around.
Cut to a wide. He releases. The hammer goes. Beat.
The bear falls flat on the floor, completely done in — dazed by all this spinning. Ethan gives a small shake of the head, with a grin.
Cut to tight on a big smoothie mug in the bear’s paw — the arrow whooshes through it like butter.
Cut to the target: the arrow hits the bullseye. A classic thunk.
Cut to a medium: the bear in a patio lounger, smoothie still in hand, trying to work out what just happened — the drink pouring out both sides of the cup.
Cut to Kyle’s reaction — a small nod, as if to say: not bad, eh?
Cut to a medium side shot: Andre De Grasse training through a meadow.
Cut to a wide, completely locked off. Andre exits frame left. The music stops.
Beat.
The bear enters from the right — completely out of breath — and stops dead in the middle of the frame.
Cut to a tight shot: Andre, still running, a small smirk — the bear catching his breath behind him.
Hold it. Then the camera pulls back fast and pans to find the bear at a wall nearby, spraying the EH over the A of an LA sign. Super: Summer is our territory.
Water, road, and the light in between.
Every beat is shot to survive on its own.
The edit moves us forward without ever being frantic. It lets the camera be an actor of the cast without rushing the viewer. The 60s is built from six distinct scenes interwoven with the drive scene — a driving thread that keeps the momentum moving forward and keeps us eager to see what this parallel story develops into. It also acts as a transition between scenes. This modular structure of short six-to-eight-second scenes is also perfect for cutting down into multiple versions.
60s Hero — Edit Structure
Two distinct pipelines, built for two different jobs.
Practical bear → CG finish
The bear is performed live on set by a professional physical-comedy performer in a built costume — a real, reactive scene partner who informs the CG bear's every move. SHED Mtl finishes him in CG.
- Aligns every stakeholder on blocking and timing before CG work starts — no two people imagining a different final shot.
- Gives the animation team real reference for how a human-scaled performer moves through human comedy beats, which the CG bear inherits.
- Real shadow, contact, and reflection data already interacting correctly with the plate — preserved and referenced so the finished bear reads as integrated, not composited on top.
- CG set extensions used only where a location genuinely needs augmenting — three planned at this stage.
AI-assisted pipeline
A separate workflow built for volume and speed. AI tools let us direct movement and model continuity across roughly ten pieces so they share one consistent look, without ten individual full productions.
- Real efficiency in time and cost at social scale — a production tool for volume, kept separate from the creative decisions on the hero spot.
- Continuity of style is the whole point: same bear, same light, same world as the hero film.
Two studios, two ways to finish the bear.
SHED Mtl
Classic CG animation pipeline · 60-day scheduleHigher cost, the standard approach. Approach ↗
A traditional CG pipeline. The bear is built and animated against the plates frame by frame, which takes more time and more budget than HANDMACHINE. This is the same technique used on No Time to Hibernate. SHED has a long and proven track record in character design and photorealistic animation, making them a partner of choice for this project.
AI-generated assets built from our bear model, two shots per concept. $15–20K per asset, ten-day lead time.
HANDMACHINE
AI-assisted CGI pipeline · 60-day scheduleA more realistic bear, and far fewer restrictions on set. Approach ↗
The bear reads as more realistic, and the integration is easier: we can shoot handheld and still get a bear that looks genuinely on camera with the cast, in every scene. AI tools and techniques have evolved, and they're ready to work to our advantage now. Their team comes from a long lineage of high-end classic CG animation and uses AI to sharpen both their productivity and their creativity.
AI-generated assets built from our bear model, two shots per concept. $10–13K per asset, five-day lead time.
Everything in here is a starting point. What I'd like most is to take it further with the creative team, because the best version of this film is the one we find together.
I should admit something. I've spent the week with this bear and I've become completely attached to him. I catch myself working out what he'd do in scenes that aren't even in the script.
I hope his hibernation this winter is a long and uninterrupted one, because we're going to work him hard in the spring.
