Sherbet complete second Seat commercial

Sherbet Director Dirk Van de Vondel has recently completed 'Surf', the follow up television and print campaign for the new model Seat Ibiza.
Following the huge success of 'Imagineering', the teaser ads embodying Seat’s philosophy of combining style and passion with advanced technology in the new model Ibiza, the 30’ and 20’ Surf ads focus on the theme of driver control and the direct steering response offered by the new Ibiza.
Van de Vondel’s unique and superbly crafted painterly animation fuses seamlessly with photographic footage to take the viewer from a winding mountain road out onto dramatic painted waves where an animated surfer twists and turns with complete control before the image transforms back to a photographic driving sequence.
“The core creative ideas based on the theme of passion and power were developed over two years by Bates and Sherbet” says Sherbet Producer Jonathan Bairstow. “It has obviously paid off with the success of Imagineering and it’s been wonderful for us to take the visual ideas further with the follow up campaign.”
Production on Surf started in April 2002 with Sherbet boarding the ads and Dream Team of Barcelona setting up a location shoot in the mountains of the Costa Brava. Enrique Mezziat directed dramatic driving shots to Van de Vondel’s specification using the flying cam mini helicopter.
The selected shots were digitised and worked on frame by frame at Sherbet by Van de Vondel and a team of specialist animators and digital designers using combinations of Photoshop, After FX, Painter, Combustion and Aura.
Before being digitised the shots were graded in five separate passes by Pete Williams at Condor in London and extensive Inferno work was done by Mike Skrgatik and Aron Baxter. Sky, road surfaces and mountains were skilfully combined from different shots and reflections on the surface of the car were manipulated for dramatic effect. Retiming was also carried out to improve the dynamic structure of the shots. Reframing was also carried out in telecine in order to match the composition between live action and animated sequences.
The TV campaign will air in the UK, Europe, South America and Asia from October 2002.
(GB)