Colorado Springs Utilities

Somewhere in Colorado Springs, a tiny-footed creature was allegedly sneaking into homes and lowering people’s utility bills. The culprit turned out to be Smallfoot, an elusive little energy-saver hunted by fictional tracker Hemingway Flynn.

Our job was to make the whole thing feel like a straight-faced mockumentary, complete with plaster footprints, fingerprint kits, infrared cameras, green-screen thermostats and pre-heated lava lamps.

Across two days, one house became a field investigation, laundry-room crime scene, living-room stakeout and patio grill setup. We brought in curved-track dolly moves, top-down stovetop rigs and a full blackout infrared setup for good measure. We’d like to think, by the end, we’d built a surprisingly convincing case for a creature that absolutely did not exist.