Gather Round: How Camp Lucky Is Crafting Authentic Storytelling at Scale

Campsites have always been a natural home for storytellers. In our own lives, we’ve all passed the flashlight around a circle, recounting scary stories to entertain our friends. Going back into history, the campfire provided a communal space to gather and recount stories of the day. And today, Camp Lucky is home to a coalition of modern storytellers - experienced artists, producers, and marketing professionals who are helping brands craft their own engaging, entertaining narratives. 

Initially born from the fusion of Lucky 21 and Lucky Post in Austin, Texas, Camp Lucky is now a uniquely multifaceted  creative entity. Straddling creative, production, post production, stages and a cutting-edge LED volume, what unites the company is, in the words of executive producer Brandon Tapp, a commitment to quality by “protecting the artist” at the centre of their work. 

“What I mean by that is we want our artists to be able to focus on the art, because that’s when we all do our best work”, Brandon tells LBB. “So we give people everything they need to be able to do their job and not think about all of the other logistics and planning that’s involved. We’ll take care of that stuff, so that the artists can take care of the art”. 

Above: Camp Lucky's reel

That focused approach is informed by the team’s deep understanding of the changing ways we all consume content in 2024. Although the name ‘Camp Lucky’ harkens back to a more traditional storytelling era, Brandon and his colleagues are thoroughly modern in their approach. 

“The way people interact with content is becoming more diverse than it ever has been before”, he says. “The fundamental change that has happened is we’ve gone from a culture where what we watch is decided for us by TV schedules and executives, to one where everything we want is on-demand. The consumer makes the call. That’s been a major shift and it feeds into everything from YouTube, to the rise of streaming, to short form video like TikTok and Instagram reels”. 

One of the consequences of that shift has been a greater competition for audiences’ attention. And when it comes to crafting effective content which cuts through the noise, that’s something which Brandon and the Camp Lucky team keep in mind at all times. “I do believe that, broadly speaking, our collective attention spans have decreased in recent years. Those initial six seconds are very important in earning the right to be heard and ensuring that a message is going to be remembered”, he explains. 

There’s a link here between the realities of the modern media ecosystem and the practicalities of Camp Lucky’s approach of protecting and enabling artists. To cut through, Brandon notes, brands and storytellers “must be distinctive”. It’s no longer enough to look the part and sound like everyone else - “personality and tone are now equally as important as quality and craft”. 

So, to ensure that level of distinctiveness, Camp Lucky puts that aforementioned ‘firewall’ between artists and the wider production process to ensure that their own distinctiveness is coming to the fore. By enabling creativity and allowing it to flourish, the company is mitigating the risk of blandness. “It takes boldness and creativity to see, for example, why an off-the-wall influencer might in fact be the perfect fit for a brand and its audience”, explains Brandon. “We feel that our approach enables us to be imaginative and think of messages which will be unique and remembered, rather than wallpaper”. 

Modern Camping 

That boldness of imagination and ideation feeds into an enviable array of capabilities enjoyed by the team at Camp Lucky. There’s scarcely an aspect of the modern production process that Camp Lucky doesn’t touch, as Brandon breaks down. 

“We have production, virtual production - including our own volume on our own stage - colour, sound design and mix, VFX, and finishing all in one place, under one roof in one facility”, he says. “That means that we have the artists physically present - watching something being filmed which they might later edit themselves. That’s a powerful thing and again speaks to how we want to enable them to do their best work”. 

Within the production industry, there have been plenty of hotly discussed trends in recent years. Virtual production and AI are currently two of the hottest, and that’s no different for Brandon and the Camp Lucky team who are taking a keen interest in what these technologies mean for the future. What’s focusing their minds, however, is less about the froth of excitement in the short term - but rather what it might mean for the way that content is both produced and consumed in the long term. 

“Something we’ve always put a lot of value into in this industry - and rightly so - is this idea of ‘craft’”, he explains. “Craft is important, and technology can help us to improve our craft. But what’s happening at the same time, and I’m seeing a lot of it right now, is a demand for more authentic, more almost lo-fi production - stuff that feels like it could be shot on a phone. I think that’s connected to how that type of content is grounded in the realities of people’s lives - it feels relevant rather than aloof”. 

And so the challenge, as Brandon sees it, is connecting the mind-boggling potential of tech like virtual production and AI with the real and growing demand for authenticity. “I think that’s what we’re going to be talking about for the next couple of years”, he predicts. “We want to marry cutting-edge tech and scale with craft that feels real, authentic, and rooted in reality. The content that proves successful over the next few years will be the stuff which gets that right”. 

Even now, in the chaotic maelstrom of the modern production world, those fundamentals of storytelling aren’t lost on Brandon or the team at Camp Lucky. Whether it’s by the warmth of the campfire or in the light of a smartphone screen, one thing stays the same: The stories that grip us are the ones that stay with us.