We love working with TaxAct. You never know what will happen. Maybe you’ll be working with a bear. Perhaps you’ll be dropping an office out of the sky. Movie Prop Rentals overcomes nature and tight timelines, all while defying gravity in Tax Act’s 2020 TV spot, “The Castaway.”

About the Commercial

We worked with producer Asori, the Green Film Factory production company, and Director Luis Gerard for this ad shot from November 20th through December 10th. This commercial was one of five spots we worked on with the group. Here is the story:

  • “The Castaway” opens with a drone shot of a remote beach where the word “HELP” was spelled out in (fake) driftwood.
  • We meet a disheveled, shipwrecked “castaway,” our budget Tom Hanks, but he’s fantastic! He confesses he’s feeling “stuck” with his “pretty complicated tax situation.”
  • The TaxAct spokesman steps off a helicopter ladder in his business suit to assure the man, “Everybody gets stuck sometimes,” but Tax Act can help with CPAs who are on-call 7 days a week.
  • Next, a complete office with personnel drops down from the sky to help the man maximize his refunds.
  • “Do you think we should file jointly or…?” the castaway asks, as the camera pans over to his “wife,” made from coconut husks and weeds. The CPA smiles politely and uncomfortably answers, “Separately.”

The man taps a button on the computer, and their signature blowing money effect sends bills swirling up into his face. The office then disappears into the sky, and the castaway does his happy dance.

What We Did

All the props you see in the film were procured or custom fabricated by the Movie Prop Rentals team, notably:

  • The whole office set up– the desk, chair, tax professional, computer, filing cabinet, potted plant.
  • The truss that would hoist the office 40 feet into the air and “drop” it onto the beach with our crane.
  • The chunk of a shipwrecked boat you can see in the shot with the man’s “wife.”
  • The “wife” custom-fabricated out of believable beach materials.

Insider’s Perspective

Clients can count on Movie Prop Rentals to be resourceful. “Believe it or not, helicopter ladders are super hard to find!” Jerry Blohm recalls. “Thank God my buddy Paul had one but, then again, he has all things helicopter. That’s why people hire me. I’ve got helicopter guys.

The agency also wanted us to produce a giant ridable tortoise with a custom coconut husk saddle for another of the back-to-back shoots we were doing– in two days. We can make movie magic like this happen for you, too. The fake tortoise was a real hit on-set.

You never fully know how a shoot will turn out, but one thing we’ve learned working in this business for several decades is to always expect the unexpected. If you know us, you’re aware we are always up before the sun. We’re on-location tinkering around as early as humanly possible.

Now, as fate would have it, a boat that had lost motor function washed up on shore at the exact location where we were going to shoot. Thankfully, the rangers were there to pull him to the parking lot before everyone else arrived. In fact, our crane lifted the man’s boat onto his trailer. How lucky, yet unlucky at the same time. It’s all in a day’s work for us.

We Are Expert Problem Solvers

Nature is another curveball our crew is always prepared for. Of course, the wind had to be whipping that day, so we brought several extra guys just to hold the set steady as it was hoisted high up into the air and back down again. Then we ran up against the relentless determination of the tide to wash over anything and everything. For continuity’s sake, you can’t have the beach changing from every other shot. Rather than continually moving and re-leveling the beach, we got out shovels and dug a moat around the set!

Like good boy scouts, Movie Prop Rentals follows rule number one– always be prepared. “We had completed a whole mock shoot in the parking lot a week before the big day,” Graylan Franklin explains, “so we were fully aware of everything that could potentially go wrong. You don’t want to haul the set out to the beach only to find the cabinet drawers are falling out and smashing when dropped down.” In other words, we take care of all the logistics, so you can enjoy watching the creative vision come to life on-set.

Contact Movie Prop Rentals for Your Next Commercial Spot

Movie Prop Rentals makes magic happen with set design, prop rental, custom prop fabrication, special effects, crane rental, lighting, and whatever else you might need. Our agile team is based in Miami, FL, but will travel anywhere in the USA where our services are needed. We work with tight deadlines and tight budgets to make the impossible happen. Contact us for a free quote on your next commercial shoot.