Juan Cabral likes making porn. Yes, we said it. The creative director of Fallon, London makes porn, albeit of the HD variety. And as far as techno porn goes, "Experiment", Fallon's latest for Sony High Definition, is truly triple-X.

If you're wondering what gets the technophile set excited, it goes something like this: On a brightly lit set, a car, cut from bonnet to bumper, glides slowly along a rig with a white poodle inside. A car wash brush spins into life, cleaning one side, while lasers rake the bisected vehicle. As it moves forward, mirrored silver balloons rise from the trunk, highlighted by flashes of light and color. Foam flutters down, followed by milk splashing against the front fender in slow motion as black sponges rain down from above to bounce gently against the hood - all captured in glorious pin-perfect high definition by Sony cameras, camcorders and computers.

According to Cabral, "Experiment" was the most difficult brief to date from Sony. The challenge was to feature all of the company's electronic products in a spot that showcased high definition, melded with the art-piece aesthetic that has typified the brand's earlier work. "We got into writing and thought, 'What if the Sony engineers were a bit mad and they tested these products to the limit'?" he explains.

It was a marked creative departure for Cabral in two senses. Tonally, it's tongue-in-cheek as he says he wanted to get away from the "hardcore" stereotype of traditional electronics ads. Secondly, there's product in there, and lots of it. Sony has conspicuously been coy with product shots, keeping them out of the earlier pieces "Balls" and "Paint", to create films that were more art house than ad land.

"I tried to keep the spirit [of those pieces] in it," muses Cabral. "Imagine 'Balls', but instead of just the beautiful balls we showed you the 'making of' instead - the cameras or the people taking shots on their phones. If you go wider you can see that there is a reason for the products to be there. So that's what we did [with] this crazy, surreal HD thing, but when you go a bit wider all of this product is scrutinizing it."

Blinkink's French directing team Pleix were drafted in to make the incredibly complex piece come together after producing what Cabral rates as a spectacular treatment. "They have this look that is very strong. It is a little tongue-in-cheek too, but it's very finessed," says Cabral. Making the whole thing as real as possible was absolutely crucial to Cabral, an irony for a team heavily versed in the dark arts of CG. "They're very good with machines," he acknowledges, "and they tried to avoid that as much as they could. It was a big challenge for them too and that's what I liked about it. They were pushed, just like the products in the spot in a way."

Pleix were instantly hooked by the script. "The crazy, challenging and experimental aspect instantly seduced us. Some moments of the script made us think of experiments we've always wanted to do in the past but have never had the opportunity to develop."

Their focus was to develop what might have seemed a hodge-podge of disparate elements into a coherent, structured sequence that would relay the idea of an experiment in progress. To do this the team designed the main wide shot before production to have something from which the agency, art and special effects departments could understand and build on. They then collaborated heavily with Cabral to come up with a final sequence of events.

To ensure that such an enormously complicated shoot went off as smoothly as possible, the whole experiment was meticulously built in 3D during pre-production by The Mill. After exhaustive real experimentation with foam, milk, sponges and balloons, the disparate elements were factored into the simulation. "It enabled us to find the graphical harmony within elements that seem completely disconnected and random at first," say Pleix. "In the end, the 3D simulation served as our storyboard."

Despite the pre-production preparations, the production team faced an uphill struggle with a hugely ambitious shot list and just four shoot days. Hair-raisingly dangerous elements in close proximity - animals, water, electricity, photosonic cameras and intricate electronic equipment - added to the complications.

In keeping with Cabral and Pleix's vision, nearly everything was in-camera. All model-making elements were shot together on a rig built by London-based industrial company Artem, who also sourced and reprogrammed the bubble-blowing robot arms. Visual trickery was only employed where elements interacted badly: the hot lights evaporated the foam, the water affected the wafting balloons and the breeze generated by the car wash burst the giant bubbles. These were shot as individual passes, which were then composited into the finished piece.

As with the spot's commercial forebears "Balls" and "Paint", music was a key component. In this instance, Cabral wanted something that you'd imagine engineers listening to while crafting such a grandiose experiment. "I was looking for a 'guilty pleasure' kind of track, but at the same time it had to have the same deep sounds and rich tones, very complex. If the visuals are so complex the lyrics should be complex too," says Cabral. Manfred Mann's Earth Band's version of "Blinded By The Light" was initially touted, then, much to Cabral's dismay, ditched for legal reasons.

In the end, Iron Maiden's metal classic "Can I Play With Madness" became the soundtrack to Sony's technological blue movie. "It makes it even more wrong," Cabral laughs. "They have the high-pitched voices, the drums and the double guitar going on at the same time. And the lyrics seemed like fun and provided probably the safest bet."

Fallon, London http://www.fallon.co.uk
Blinkink http://www.blinkink.com
Artem http://www.artem.com
The Mill, London http://www.the-mill.com