Director Jose Gomez Gets Smart

The filmmakers from U.S. creative production company Shilo are very proud to detail the work of co-founder and director Jose Gomez for BBDO Berlin and the phenomenal smart vehicles from Daimler AG. Over the past several months, Gomez has directed five spots for the smart campaign through co-production with the principals of Film Deluxe GmbH, which is now representing Shilo as directors in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The first two spots premiered in Germany and elsewhere in February, and two new ones entitled "For the curious" and "For individualists" recently launched online at www.youtube.com/smart. A fifth spot will debut soon.

The "A Big Idea" campaign ads from BBDO Berlin focus on the smart fortwo vehicle, where each spot presents an important quandary many people face, and uses clever copy to position the smart fortwo as the ideal solution. To interest a wide range of viewers within the narratives, the spots' simple style features engaging animated characters coming to life on live-action city walls. At the end of each one, the location-based stop-motion background cinematography finds a smart fortwo.

"A vital aspect to the project were spots that tell stories in the smart's native environment, where we follow the story through the city to get to the smart fortwo," Gomez began. "At Shilo, we direct live-action and design as a single thought, so this project was really a perfect fit for us. Beyond the character animations and the production approach, our first focus was to make sure that the messages were clear and easily digestible, and that we were telling great stories."

smart fortwo "A big idea" campaign from Shilo on Vimeo.

"A big challenge was to take our client by the hand on our journey to execute the spots," said BBDO Berlin creative director Ton Hollander. "Due to the separate elements it was a journey of constant evolvement, adjustment and changes to get the best possible end-result. Only at the very end, every element came together and worked out just perfect. Together with Shilo and Film Deluxe it became a journey worth traveling."

After sewing their design concepts into each spot, Gomez, Shilo executive producer Arthur Portnoy and their colleagues at Film Deluxe set a workflow in motion that played out across Europe, North America and South America. In Shilo's West Coast studio in the U.S., Gomez assembled a team of illustrators and character designers who produced hundreds of different character designs to set the right looks. After planning their live-action approach with Film Deluxe principals Glenn Bernstein and Jürgen Krause in Berlin, the crew set out for a six-day shoot on location in Buenos Aires to capture their live-action footage.

Since the live-action portion of each spot was designed to use stop-motion, time-lapse photography, Gomez and director of photography Daniel Ortega shot stills in 4K resolution on nearly 50 different locations, using Canon 5D systems. The team's preplanning and efficiency allowed them to use over 90% of the captured footage in the finished spots. After editing in Final Cut Pro and compositing in After Effects, each spot was conformed at Company 3 on Autodesk Flame.

"Glenn and Jürgen were very kind to invite us to be a part of this project, and we have found their project management and production expertise to be outstanding," Portnoy added. "We're very proud to have had the chance to join forces with them for BBDO Berlin and smart, and we are looking forward to further collaborations where our combined talents can have big impacts for established and emerging brands in Germany, Austria and Switzerland."