The Australian Banking Association (ABA) is an association of 22 member banks in Australia. The commercial we wrote and directed for the ABA came at a time when Banks were in the middle of a Royal Commission. The research told us that “everyone hates banks”.
The banks gave us a shortlist of 10 bank employees we could use. Gracie stood out from the rest, honest, sincere and believable. She had been working at Westpac for over 30 years.
Once the makeup came onto set, followed by the tracks and lights, we lost Gracie like a deer in headlights. I sat with her and said let’s rehearse each scene before shooting. One scene, one line at a time. After an hour I called wrap. We shot every rehearsal. Invariably they're some of the best takes on any shoot.
