THE Science of the Thrill
Scratchies are sold on winning. But the real product is anticipation.
Project NOTe
Organisation: Lotto NZ/ Instant Scratchies Role: Director + Editor
Contribution: Creative interpretation · performance · visual language · camera · production design collaboration · editing + post-production Evidence: Hero film completed in one shoot day using modular sets and digitally stitched sequences.
The concept and script already existed. My job was to make them come to life on-screen.
I directed and edited the hero TVC, developing the proposition through tone, performance, camera, art-direction, production and post.
It wasn’t about just to communicating it, but to giving it all enough humanity and creative force to land.
Different enough to be noticed. True enough to belong. Strong enough to move audiences.
Project PROFILE
That gap between scratching and revealing - the hesitation, the ritual, the little rush - that’s where the emotion lives.
The concept reframed Instant Kiwi around the behaviour of anticipation rather than the outcome of winning. With comedian Millen Baird at its centre, a fictional Scratchie Research Institute became an absurdly serious institution dedicated to studying the physical and emotional responses people have when they win.
The creative agency and client had approved a dense, information-heavy 30-second script. My job was to make all of it work - without making the TVC feel as busy as the script.
THE RITUAL
Everyone has a way of doing it.
THE HESITATION
That moment before the final scratch.
THE SUPERSTITION
Somehow, scratching harder feels like it’ll help.
I brought together a top-tier director of photography and art director, developing the Research Institute as a series of modular sets that could be shot and reconfigured within a single day. More than a dozen performers, precise camera choreography, lighting cues and tightly timed dialogue all had to work together across the shoot.
The solution was simplicity in the frame. Long takes kept the performance fluid, while off-set sections were shot against green screen and digitally stitched together in post. That meant dialogue, movement, camera timing and lighting had to be precisely choreographed on the day — so everything could ultimately fit together inside 30 seconds.
Wardrobe, makeup and set dressing built out the fictional world with enough absurdity to give it levity, while a simplified palette drawn from Instant Kiwi kept the whole thing grounded in the brand.
The result was a film that made a dense script feel effortless - turning an abstract product behaviour into a distinctive, repeatable world that could extend across film, digital, print, OOH and in-store.
The craft was in making something complex feel simple - and making anticipation itself entertaining.
