The directorial team of Jerry (Richard D'Alessio and Dale Heslip) revisited their 2001 commercial collaboration for Fidelity Investments with another technically sophisticated spin around the globe. The first commercial the pair and Toronto's Imported Artists produced for Fidelity follows a world-wise investment advisor as he trots around the globe. The black and white spot pans left to right, following the protagonist and the camera as they seamlessly pass through several world financial centers, ultimately coming full circle back to Toronto. While this spot was created by Publicis Toronto, Fidelity's new agency, Toronto's Zig (see Zig, pg. 20) handled the 2002 campaign.

"Because this spot was so successful for Fidelity we had to respect the structure given to us. The structure was the around the world, global feeling and that's the strategy we stayed with," says Zig partner and creative director Lorraine Tao. "So one of our new spots is similar, moving from one city to the next. We've added a person who speaks, and as she crosses from one city to the next, she crosses into different languages: German, French, Italian, Chinese and English."

Tao says working with D'Alessio and Heslip again made sense due to the two directors' success and familiarity with the technical process of creating the revolving effect. While last year's spot sent the production team around the world in search of visual fodder, widespread travel fears limited the production to shoots in Prague and Toronto. A second spot, stressing the long-term stability of Fidelity through prognostications on futuristic trends through several vignettes (such as H2O fuelled-cars) was also filmed. Prague's Bohemian Pictures covered production services on the job.

Although many components of last year's group returned this year, including editor Peter McAuley of Toronto's AXYS, DP Dean Cundey (a veteran effects cinematographer who shot such flicks as Jurassic Park and Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) was a new addition to the 2002 campaign team.

"There was no way to do the job without Peter being there. We would line up shots and using a Mac G4 with Final Cut Pro's video assisted capture system, we were cutting spots right on location, lining up previous shots while shooting and figuring out where the editorial in-point would be. This eliminated the guess work," says D'Alessio, also praising Cundey for his creative technical shortcuts.

After filming in Prague, which stood in for Germany, France, Italy and China, McAuley did a rough composite, stitching the various scenes together, often using existing architectural elements to cover any seams. Then, at a Toronto blue screen stage, the actors were filmed on a specially-designed stage. The circular stage was divided into different segments representative of each country that the lead talent traversed.

"There was more of a storyline this year. Last year it was a guy walking around the world, but this time the woman is speaking on camera. Everything had to be designed to that one camera angle rotating at a constant speed," says Heslip. "The fact we did one last year made it a little bit easier since we knew some of the answers to the riddle. We used the exact same camera, same rig, same lens, same tilt and same speed. This camera celebrates architecture and makes it dramatic because it's low and wide. It's funny we came full circle (pun intended)."

During the shoot, D'Alessio and Heslip poured over their production bible, a worn notebook containing the exact measurements required to blend location footage and talent performances, ensuring that the spatial relationship between actors, props and composited backgrounds was convincing and accurate. The main talent, whose phonetically delivered German, Italian and Chinese lines were pre-recorded, circled the camera on stage, lip-synching to her own voice track.

"It was abstract, performance wise," says D'Alessio. "Directing the talent was actually a process of getting them familiar with what they had to do. She walked the blue screen circle with cues; the only directions were on eyeline and the mechanics of what she had to do."

The camera was set to complete a full 360-degree rotation in 24 seconds, with adjustable film speed and recalibrations to the panning head allowing the directors to delicately tweak the talent's movement.

"So we could have people moving quickly or slowly in the same shot, but the pan speed would remain constant. The talent has to speak five languages on a fast motion film speed, so we filmed her at 40 FPS so it came out slightly slow mo. Also, since we ultimately cover 390 degrees of blue screen, we needed a little bit of theater. In one shot, a group of people walk up stairs. The moment the staircase is off camera, the art department guys pull down and fold over the railing, so when we come back to the same area, it's gone and it will look like she is walking on a different street," says Heslip.

As for the futuristic spot depicting the potential fruits of long-term investment with Fidelity, the scenarios presented included water powered cars, a democratic China, a female US president and the discovery of a cure for AIDS. Blade Runner-like cityscapes and other sci-fi trappings such as flying cars further ground this spot in this best-case scenario outcomes.

Webfiles:

Zig> http://www.zig.ca
Imported Artists> http://www.importedartist.com