Farm Communication and Framestore CFC complete smart spots

Farm Communications have created a set of four spots for ‘smart forfour’ cars, the brand's new four-door car range, that are decribed as witty, beautiful and smart.
Each of the spots highlights a different feature of the range and is quite different in content, while maintaining a strong visual unity.
Directed by Simon Green for Large, the spots also received a classy boost from the voiceover talents of Rutger Hauer. The digital effects, supplied by Framestore CFC, are discreet, cool and elegant.
'Kaleidoscope' (40s), 'Lemmings', 'Bloodhounds' and 'Crooners' (all 20s) are currently airing on UK television.
The shoot, which took place over three days last month, was supervised for Framestore CFC jointly by Stephane Allender and Ben Cronin. During the subsequent seven days of postproduction work, Cronin worked chiefly on 'Kaleidoscope' and Allender on 'Lemmings', while Inferno Artists Avtar Bains and Jonathan Hairman worked on 'Bloodhounds' and 'Crooners' respectively. Stephanie Mills and Chris Redding provided 2D and matte work. Telecine, which included a gentle 'vignetting' of the cars, was created in Spirit by Dave Ludlam.
The most overt visual effects can be seen on 'Kaleidoscope', which features the forfour passion 1.1 seen through a kaleidoscopic effect. Kaleidoscopes, the voiceover informs us, inspired the 30 different colour combinations available from smart. A cool, jazzy soundtrack accompanies the rich, constantly changing colours. The effect was created partly in camera, and partly by Cronin who made multiple versions in the Inferno which he passed over to the editor who assembled the final version in the Avid, before returning it to Allender for finishing touches.
Although some of the creatures featured in 'Lemmings' and 'Bloodhounds' were real, rest assured that none were harmed – though you might not think it when you see a shower of lemmings apparently striking a forfour pulse 1.1 with appropriate thuds and squeaks, or a bloodhound gently driving a smart off camera. Four lemmings were filmed scuttling around the car, and then digitally animated and multiplied for their plummets, and the driving dog was 'Infernally' cut and pasted into the car. Thus skilful blends of the real and the digital ensured a quietly humorous take on the promotion of dent resistant panels and satellite navigation.
Similarly, the use of motion-control rigs and the addition of moon and star reflections were finessed in the Framestore CFC Inferno.
(GB)