Smoke & Mirrors deliver new Wrangler commercials

Smoke & Mirrors (S&M) have completed a trio of 'wild west' themed commercials for the Wrangler clothing brand.
The new ads were directed by Fredrik Bond for agency AMV, and employ the strapline “There’s a bit of the west in all of us”.
Written by AMV’s Nick Worthington and art directed by Paul Brazier, each commercial sends-up the typical gun fights and stunts in spaghetti westerns and cowboy movies, although the sets and clothing are contemporary and the action happens in slow motion.
Two of the commercials are set in a high-street café, with mops and ketchup bottles taking the place of rifles and pistols. One features a mock gunfight between friends pretending to be in rival cowboy gangs, the other is a showdown between two gunslingers across a Formica tabletop.
The same theme continues in the third commercial, where the fight spills over from an apartment bedroom into the hallway and the unwitting next-door neighbour thinks he’s stumbled across a body.
The commercials were completed in Flame at S&M by creative director Sean Broughton, entailing "seamless invisible digital manipulation", rather than the elaborate visual effects for which S&M are renowned.
The live action was shot on location in Slough and at Shepperton Studios, with the actors performing set piece, action sequences in slow motion. In postproduction, completing each ad required Broughton to finesse the choreography of the action sequences by finely adjusting the timing of the action within shots to the director’s satisfaction.
This involved using split screens to finesse timings across shots to create a razor sharp precision between the actions and reactions being carefully enacted in slow motion, to enhance the drama and narrative flow and essentially sync up the actors. Subtle adjustments to the gun fighters' gestures were also employed, such as adapting hand positions and movements, to focus the viewer's attention.
(GB)