If laughter were a bankable commodity, Buenos Aires would be the richest city on earth. That's the logical conclusion to draw from the experiences of the team behind the six-spot Instant Laughter campaign from Euro RSCG MVBMS, NY - shot for Polaroid.

With a cast of up to five per spot, the emphasis was on how credibly the actors could run the gamut from suppressed shoulder-shaking chuckle to tear-gushing belly-roar. The audience never sees the Polaroid snaps that cause the reaction. "It had to be genuine, natural laughter," says agency producer Joe Guyt. "It was all about the talent... And we needed a diverse ethnic cast."

Luckily the Argentines can, apparently, cackle like nobody else. Euro considered 800 at preliminary casting, whittled down to 200 recalled hopefuls, then the final 17.

But there were other considerations, too. Geographically, "Buenos Aires wasn't top of the list," says Guyt, "but this is a global campaign and the client wanted a non-specific location with a European feel." So the Argentine capital's chameleon qualities helped to swing the choice. Plus the euro and sterling/dollar exchange rates were deemed prohibitively high, whereas the detached Argentine peso offered shooting costs as much as 20% less even than Canada or South Africa.

BA has been climbing the location ranks for some time but when they touched down for the 10-day job - including just 48 hours for the actual shoot - the entire lead crew was on new territory. "We were a New York agency working for a Boston client with a British director (Rogue Films' Nick Jones) and liaising with a local production service company (Pioneer Productions, an offshoot of its Hungarian parent) who we'd never worked with, so it was a virgin experience for us all," says Guyt.

As it turned out, there was unanimous praise for the casting and location scouting, and Guyt admits to feeling shielded from the day-to-day idiosyncrasies of filming in an emerging location.

Rogue executive producer Simon Eakhurst agrees: "These were simple spots, but there was a lot going on and the shoots were tight. Pioneer worked like slaves in the background."

For Jones, the priority was to get the best from his actors. "It wasn't so much about performing as getting them to just be themselves," he says. Working with an interpreter where necessary, he found the experience refreshing. "Not like Brits getting arsey and actorly."

The overriding collective memory is, appropriately, of laughter. One morning, remembers Eakhurst, he and Jones were picked up by a cab driver who maintained a discreet silence while they spent the journey ranting about everything from the Four Seasons Hotel to the standard of catering. "It was just a release valve for us," he says. But they were temporarily chastened when their driver dropped them off with a few words of perfect English.

Fortunately, some of that discretion rubbed off on Eakhurst when he spent downtime at a soccer match. In contrast to the shoot, the atmosphere was "gladiatorial, quite stunning" and the nearest they came to danger. He says in general, the sense of security is comparable to wandering around a Spanish town. They shot in residential areas, and most local prodcos have premises among the boutiques, bars and cafes of the Palermo district.

Jones found the local crew excellent. "The first ADs are very good, so are the grips. And the cameras are new," he says, adding that he'd recommend Argentina for its "red wine, red meat and regular bowel movements". Guyt, who's keeping his digestive state to himself, likens BA to South Africa or Australia a few years ago. The service levels will polish up as more work is shot there. "I'd be more reluctant if we had a complicated visual FX production. We might need to do a lot more research. But this time we had a blast."

GOODTOKNOW

Currency: The Argentine peso averages around 2.96/$ and 3.6/euro

Equipment: Cameras and lighting equipment often owned by the same company. Charges can mount at the back end on anything from the number of frames on the lights to the length of the cable.

Services: Argentina has a proud state-run domestic film heritage but since the economy collapsed in 2001, it has welcomed an influx of foreign production More than half the spots shot in BA are for foreign clients.

Locations: Never expect to turn up and shoot. Permits can take days to arrange. A good local scout is essential, but you could still find yourself making decisions based on photos.

Euro RSCG MVBMS> www.mvbms.com

Polaroid> www.polaroid.com