Given the estimated three minutes of survival time in Iceland's icy arctic waters, the crew on Motorola "Colors" understandably cut their losses when more than a few walkie talkies were lost to the deep blue. Packed tightly in rubber zodiac boats within a few hundred meters of lumbering icebergs, those lost communications devices were the least of their concerns.

But the precarious location was integral to the spot's story, which follows Motorola's new Color Pebl phone skipping through a variety of distinctly hued global scenes, from crisp blue iceberg lagoons to a flash of pink flamingos to lush green jungles and a warm sunset.

While Iceland was the only solution for 'blue', locations for the other setups were up for grabs. And given the amazingly short shoot schedule for such an ambitious spot - just five shoot days with 10 days of pre-pro and 12 days of post - the team decided on Cape Town as their best option.

"One of the hardest things about this job was the schedule. If we had a little more time we probably would have gone to three countries," says Stink producer Mungo Maclagan, admitting that his fantasy was to shoot real flamingos in India. Oskar Holmedal of directing collective Stylewar says that while Chile was in the running for its proximity to lush green jungles, Cape Town's peninsula location offered the benefit of being exposed to both sunrise and sunset.

But before sunset came Iceland. The spot's opening shot, in which the camera looks in from sea to shore, shows a man on a rocky beach deftly skipping a stone into the water, which then embarks on a round-the-world journey. While the scene looks simple enough, 180 Amsterdam senior agency producer Matt C. Minor says it was one of the more difficult shots to capture.

"It looks really simple, but to get a whole camera crew out there in those waves we had to use an amphibious ex-army vehicle," he says, noting the production company Truenorth is well equipped with such gear.

According to Stink's Maclagan, not only did shooting on water in Iceland take five to six times longer than on dry land, but the icebergs in the spot's subsequent shot posed an added layer of difficulty. Because of their transient nature, Holmedal says location scouting icebergs is completely useless: "You'd look at an iceberg one day and it's broken up or moved the next. But we were [still] blown away by how beautiful it was."

It's also not without its hazards. Minor says that being in an inflatable rubber zodiac a mere few hundred yards from an iceberg is more precarious than you might think. "I didn't realize how dangerous they are," he says. "While we were shooting, one of them collapsed and changed its entire center of gravity. After that, the boats stayed a little farther back."

In Cape Town, the team's aquatic theme continued, but in far more inviting locales, all of which were facilitated by Stillking Films. With only three days to shoot, the crew headed to a pool to create underwater shots of the intrepid stone briskly skipping across a pond of lily pads and a jellyfish-filled reef. Both shots were set up in one day in the same pool.

While none of the actual pebble shots were done in-camera, the underwater shots had to move at the same speed as the skipping stone. Since water is such a drag, making it impossible for a DP to swim fast enough, a rig was fashioned out of a dolly, tracks and an old motorcycle motor sunk to the bottom of the pool that could be propelled at a faster speed.

Above ground, various cheats were made in South Africa, as the tight schedule made traveling even short distances within the country an impossibility. As such, the green scene, which shows the pebble skipping across a lush, alligator-inhabited pond, was actually shot in a muddy puddle. As for the flamingo scene, as Minor found out, the fowl are nearly impossible to shoot due to their extreme shyness and protected animal status. With the exception of two actual birds, the entire flock was created in post using reference shots.

In light of the frenetic pace, the choice to reserve two of the five shoot days for the closing sunset moneyshot might seem disproportionate. Yet, for the client it was the most important part. The crew had to collect footage with perfect lighting for a number of shots in a fleeting amount of time, which made the exposure to both sunrise and sunset an asset. In the end, to ensure the perfect product shot, the model's hand opening an orange Pebl phone was done on green screen.

Peter Cline, head of broadcast at 180, admits the job was challenging. "It was really a problem project because we were given a decent budget, but not to do what we were doing," he says. "And the time was ridiculously tight. But everyone did a great job. Knowing the constraints I think people would take their hats off to us."

GOOD TO KNOW
Currency exchange: $1 USD = 7.37 ZAR; $1 USD = 69.95 ISK
No rest for the wicked (or working): 180's Minor warns that when shooting in Iceland in summer, be sure to plan for sleep. "The sun doesn't set in summer, so I counted that in the first six days that we were there on recce, we'd only had 20 hours of sleep. We weren't allowed the luxury of giving up because it was dark."
Sticks and stones and Shrimps:Birds, frogs and alligators were all used to inject more nature into the spot. Frogs on lily pads were provoked to jump on command, and an inanimate alligator was poked with a stick and pulled with wire to give it life. In the shot's opening scene shrimps were thrown from the boat to entice a flock of sea birds to ever so-perfectly fly into view. Similarly ingenious and low-rent tactics were used to create pebble splashes, including a pebble tied to rods and jury-rigged paint guns. Naturally, simply throwing them worked the best.

180 Amsterdam http://www.180amsterdam.com
Stink http://www.stink.tv

Truenorth http://www.truenorth.is
Stillking http://www.stillking.com