Six cities, nine spots and 26 days. Such was the outline of an ambitious brief awarded to London's Outsider Films by a European agency late last year. Consisting of Champions League-themed idents for a major beer company (the spots don't break until late February), the campaign called for nine pieces set in exotic (if unlikely) locations around the world.

"It was a dream board," says Outsider producer Paul McPadden. "It called for a beach, a deserted island, a glacier, etc. They were only 10 seconds each, but the basic idea was that there's a bar in a series of remote locations where you wouldn't expect to see a bar and they've all got the Champions League on."

Along with the beach, island and glacier, McPadden and director Jess Hall needed to source a mountain range, a Canadian tower (either the Calgary Tower or Toronto's CN Tower would do) and a Chinese riverboat, among other things. With both money and time a consideration, the team prepared a plan that included going straight to the source for certain locations (Shanghai for a riverboat party on the Bund) and faking a few others (British Columbia for the Andes and Indonesia for a Jamaican beach).

Although McPadden briefly considered both Chile and Iceland for various shots, he quickly realized he could get the most bang for his buck in Canada. With Toronto's Soft Citizen lending production services, the team found a perfect set of locations within close distance from each other. "Vancouver is only an hour's drive to the Whistler area, which has mountains, glaciers and variable terrain, so it was a logical choice," says Soft Citizen production manager Jacqui Waddingham. "We found that by also considering Calgary, it expanded our location options tremendously."

For the riverboat scene, McPadden enlisted the services of Tokyo- and Shanghai-based Twenty First City. "The Bund is always a challenge because it's one of the most crowded spots in China," says production manager Georgina Pope. "Locals and tourists flock to the area, and when they see a foreign film crew, massive crowds build."

While all of the idents are single shots that appear relatively simple, McPadden says each came with its own challenge, whether it be 130kmph winds in the mountains or finding an Indonesian helicopter to mount a camera on. When it came to the Bund, the challenges were mostly logistic. "The Shanghai city office, the water authority - a lot of people have their finger in that pie," says Pope. "It was a matter of being patient, having the right location scout and working your way through lots of meetings and the formal process."

Outsider http://www.outsider.tv
Soft Citizen http://www.softcitizen.com
Twenty First City http://www.twentyfirstcity.com