Halloween | 2025
Lowe's Home Improvement | 1 Set
Concept Development | Set Design | Prop Design | Art Direction | Prop Fabrication | Prop Styling | Sourcing | Project Management
This was the second year of partnering with Lowe's to creative direct and design their Halloween Campaign. With the financial success of the previous year's campaign the brand requested video be added to the shoot this year's deliverables.
Shooting in early 2025 presented a lot of unexpected challenges brought on by the forever changing status of international tariffs. All of our product samples were idling out at sea while we continued building and waited for more information from the brand. This let to multiple revisions of schedules, shot lists, designs, and budgets but it eventually we got the green light.
The set itself was also more ambitious in scale than previous sets, standing at almost 15' high and surrounded by a wall of duvetyn and a layer of trees and foliage beyond the windows. Every surface from the conservatory framing, to the plexi, to the pillars, brick, and tile floor needed attention from the scenic team.
The Design
When approaching any design for a brand I first establish the needs of the project. Can the product be shown outside? What is the scale of the assortment we're shooting? What sort of timeline and budget are we trying to work within? From there that informs where I take the project with concept and design. Unfortunately for this project those needs kept changing.
The set for this shoot like most of my other shoots with Lowe's had to be multi-purpose. We are given strict product assortments for each shot that we have to work into a single set while making each shots in the space feel distinct.
Initially I presented building an old english town set with a series of connecting sets interior and "exterior" sets to show their various products. Due to the product line being cut in half and on account of the increasing cost of tariffs the brand decided on shoot everything on one large set.
The Shipwreck
The Scenic
With 2,800+ sqft of surfaces to scenic, a fabricated gnarled tree, and a stone face relief that lead you into our conservatory there was no shortage of work that needed to be completed.
This team focused on the scenic painting and fabrication of props while a second styling team handled the addition of all the plants, moss, dead vines, sod, product, and narrative props.
The main inspiration for the style of this set came from Sacro Bosco or locally known as “Monster in Parco dei Mostri” by Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola in Lazio, Italy. The style of this face that would eventually turn into the main entrance for the conservatory felt like ancient folklore. It had a dark whimsy while mixing with more traditional elements. I also took deep inspiration for this set from movies like Guillermo Del Toro's, Pan's Labyrinth (2006).
This the first year I partnered with Lowe's to creative direct and design their 2024 Halloween Campaign. This shoot consisted of 3 different sets: a dilapidated house, a cemetery, and the interior of a shipwreck, all of which were built in studio. The shoot also had a portion that was shot on location.
I developed comprehensive creative decks for each of these scenes as well as the designing and fabricating custom props.
Our Art Department of 15 worked together over the course of around a month to create these spaces.
A year later Lowe's came to collaborate on their 2025 Halloween Campaign.
+More on the 2025 campaign here
The Propping
In order to sell that this once was a conservatory we would need thousands of plants. The space needed to feel like it was being reclaimed by nature from the outside in. The plants that once were intentionally grown inside were long dead and now vines, branches, and dirt broke through the glass window panes and nature had begun reclaiming the space.
The plan was to be intentional about our plant placement wile keeping in mind where they would naturally die if they were abandoned. Areas closest to the broken glass of would have access to outside water while the area closest to the brick wall and the grassy area in the middle wouldn't and thus would be dead.
However, the week before we were due to begin shooting we got a call that the shot was being put on pause again. We had already driven these plants over 100 miles and were over halfway through installing the plants in the set. From that point we took a pause, came up with a plan, took a video recording of where all the plans need be placed when we returned. From that point we found someone to care for the thousands of plants and kept our fingers crossed as we waited on word from the brand on how they wanted to proceed.
The Shoot
Weeks later after sitting through endless meetings with no concrete plan or updates we finally got the green light from the brand to resume work. After regrouping with all the various teams, we drafted a schedule and picked up where we had left off.
The scope of the project was reduced and as a result the outdoor component to this shoot was axed meaning we had to add all of the 12' animatronic products to our conservatory set. Unfortunately these products were too large for the height of the 15' walls but we had to just make it work the best we could. Accurately seeing the scale of the products is a crucial part to the way we capture product for Lowe's so we weren't able to adjust or angles to compensate for the height of the wall. Instead we decided to use a wall of fog and a lightening effect to abstract the back wall.
In total we shot around the set capturing video and photo of around 25 products out of the original scope of 70. Ultimately I'm very proud of what my team and the other creative teams produced given the factors out of our control. This project really illustrates the vision of the creative and our capabilities to take on large scale projects.
Concept
Pitched other concepts for sets, on location and in studio but we decided to invest in a single large conservatory set.
Project
Management
Managed art department timelines, work schedule and project benchmarks.
Art Direction
Developed creative decks and directed art department, styling, scenic, photo and video team.
Budget
Maintained budgets for our various sets and the labor of the art department team.
Sourcing
Transported and procured specialty props with salvaged architectural elements.
Art Department
Organized multidisciplinary crew of stylists, fabricators, merch handlers, and scenics.
Design
Designed detail rich sets, along with color selection, scenic instruction and lighting direction.
Prop Fabrication
Partnering with a team of fabricators to scenic the set and fabricate our tree and stone face relief.
The Process
A project of this scale takes an immense amount of planning. Establishing clear expectations, strong direction and detailed briefs aligns all the various teams on the overall creative and logistic goals.
I collaborated very closely with the producers on studio's production team to ensure the proposed daily shot lists made sense for the various teams workflows and ensuring the movements of the lighting teams overlapped in a way that made sense with the movements of my styling team.
The Propping
The House
This the first year I partnered with Lowe's to creative direct and design their 2024 Halloween Campaign. This shoot consisted of 3 different sets: a dilapidated house, a cemetery, and the interior of a shipwreck, all of which were built in studio. The shoot also had a portion that was shot on location.
I developed comprehensive creative decks for each of these scenes as well as the designing and fabricating custom props.
Our Art Department of 15 worked together over the course of around a month to create these spaces.
A year later Lowe's came to collaborate on their 2025 Halloween Campaign.
+More on the 2025 campaign here
In order to sell that this once was a conservatory we would need thousands of plants. Overall the space needed to feel like it was being reclaimed by nature from the outside in. The plants that once were intentionally grown inside were long dead and now vines, branches, and dirt had broken through the glass window panes and started taking the space back.
The plan was to be intentional about our plant placement wile keeping in mind where plants would naturally die if they were abandoned. Areas closest to the broken glass of would have access to outside water while the area closest to the brick wall and the grassy area in the middle would be dead.
However, the week before we were due to begin shooting we got a call that the shot was being put on pause again. We had already driven these plants over 100 miles and were over halfway through installing the plants in the set. From that point we took a pause to come up with a plan, finished placing our plants, took a video record of where everything belonged, and then stuck everything. From that point we found someone to care for the thousands of plants while the brand settled on how they wanted to proceed.
The Propping
In order to sell that this once was a conservatory we would need thousands of plants. Overall the space needed to feel like it was being reclaimed by nature from the outside in. The plants that once were intentionally grown inside were long dead and now vines, branches, and dirt had broken through the glass window panes and started taking the space back.
The plan was to be intentional about our plant placement wile keeping in mind where plants would naturally die if they were abandoned. Areas closest to the broken glass of would have access to outside water while the area closest to the brick wall and the grassy area in the middle would be dead.
However, the week before we were due to begin shooting we got a call that the shot was being put on pause again. We had already driven these plants over 100 miles and were over halfway through installing the plants in the set. From that point we took a pause to come up with a plan, finished placing our plants, took a video record of where everything belonged, and then stuck everything. From that point we found someone to care for the thousands of plants while the brand settled on how they wanted to proceed.
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