Is it possible to actually film a Truman Show?

We tried to shot The Truman Show, but with a slight twist - the characters in this show knew they were actors, while the audience believed they were ordinary people.

The backstory is simple - a large children's retail brand approached us. Their goal was to increase brand recognition through influencer marketing. During brainstorming , we proposed to the client to create a YouTube channel featuring a fun-loving dad talking about his everyday fatherhood experiences with his two kids. What's interesting is that we didn't want to position this channel as a brand channel. The idea was for viewers to perceive the channel as a real dad's channel about his family.

I can already hear your comments, "Where's the brand in all of this?" Brand integration was planned at a certain stage of the channel's development - very naturally and consistently.

What do you think was the main challenge of such a show?

The script? Not really, for the first year, we already knew what to shoot and how to develop the characters - fatherhood is rich in events, gags, and plot twists.

Promotion? Partially, yes, at the beginning, the project didn't grow organically. But after cross-videos with vloggers, the show's audience started growing rapidly.

Contracts? Bingo. This was the most challenging process in all of my advertising projects. We signed actors for 10 years ahead without the possibility of participating in similar projects, sharing their real family stories on their social media, and various other restrictions that could spoil the show's legend.

Oh, those contracts, I never liked working with them - but after that show, I've hidden my dislike far away and now constantly push lawyers to track all project contracts.

You won't believe it. One of the contracts got lost during the shooting of the pilot episode. We had to renegotiate the contract with the actor on less favorable terms. It wasn't about increasing the fee - it was more about allowing him to appear in other commercials. This mistake cost us a rewritten character's bible for that actor. The new character's bible had the actor as a professional actor, justifying his appearances in other ads.

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