Carousel (advertisement)

In January 2009, Philips announced its new Philips Cinema 21:9 line of LCD televisions, promoting them as being the first production television whose proportions matched that of a cinema screen.[1] To inform consumers about the product's features, Philips collaborated with their central agency team at DDB in London and advertising agency Tribal DDB in Amsterdam with a request to create an advertising campaign based around an educational website[2] The team assigned to the campaign knew that many, many variations on "real cinema experience" advertisements had been tried in the past,[3] and quickly came up with the idea of a piece composed of a single tracking shot.[3] The team proposed the idea to several production companies, eventually settling on London-based production house Stinkdigital. After consultation with Stinkdigital about the possibility of having the tracking shot move through a frozen moment in time,[4] the team brought on director Adam Berg, who had produced a similar advertisement for JC Jeans in 2006.[5][6]

Working together with Stinkdigital executive producer Mark Pytlik, Berg began brainstorming ideas for the piece in February, including car chases and bank robberies.[7][8] Eventually, they settled on the concept of a robbery gone wrong, with the clown-masked robbers escaping through a crowded hospital.[4][5] The brief created, the team began scouting for locations to shoot the ad. Several hospitals in Prague were looked at, but with a recent outbreak of influenza in the Czech capital, most were unavailable.[4] To speed up the location scouting, director of photography Fredrik Backar and post supervisor Richard Lyons accompanied the recce teams.[2] Eventually, the team discovered an old Communist university[6] which had been converted into a sports college, and gained permission to dress the location as a hospital.[4]

An animatic was assembled exactly matching the proportions of the chosen location,[6] though the action itself was made up by Berg as he went along.[4] Tribal DDB had a schedule of seven weeks from the pitching to the end of post-production,[5] and assigned two days for shooting the film itself.[9] A crew of more than a hundred people was assembled for Carousel.[7] The 60-strong[10] cast of extras mostly comprised Czech dancers and stuntmen, who had the muscle control necessary to stay sufficiently still for the extended filming sessions.[4][6][7]

The path taken through the location was 100 m long,[7] and was broken into seven shots.[10] These were taken on Kodak Vision3 500T 35 mm film stock in an Arriflex 435 camera.[6] Three cranes (a Fisher, a SuperTechnoCrane 50, and a Scorpio) and a motion-controlled rig were needed to produce the range of movement the camera takes through the scenery.[6][7] Two versions of each of the shots were taken, one at 50 fps (instead of the usual 25 fps) to minimise any motion from the extras,[11] and a second "clean" shot with all extras and suspended vehicles removed, to aid in post-production editing.[6][7]

Even with 90 percent of the final footage and stunts captured in-camera,[8] the post-production work required for Carousel was extensive.[3] An initial telecine transfer was performed by colourist Jean-Clement Soret at The Moving Picture Company in London.[6] The palette for each room was slightly altered to give the illusion of separate spaces,[12] and the colour grading was deliberately made "flat" to make video effects work easier.[6][12] The footage was then passed to Stockholm-based visual effects company Redrum, where editing and 3D effects work was overseen by Richard Lyons, who had worked with director Adam Berg on his earlier JC Jeans advertisement.[5][6] The first thing done was to stitch together the seven shots using video editing software Flame and Xpress Pro.[6] 3-D elements such as flying debris, bullets, explosions and muzzle flashes were created by Magoo Studios[10] using 3ds max.[6] Other video effects work included wire removal and set extension.[6] When the work was completed, another telecine transfer was performed to push the contrast and blend the added effects with the live-action footage.[6][12]

Carousel had been intended from the start to be primarily web-based,[13] as it was felt that the length and level of violence in the piece were too great for screenings on television to be an option.[5] A microsite was developed for the piece by Stinkdigital for Tribal DDB.[3] Because of the time it would take to buffer a Flash video of Carousel's length, a number of tricks were used to disguise the video's loading time. Buffering begins while users select their internet connection type on a page designed to look like an MPAA certification, and continues through a cinematic title sequence.[3] The length of the title sequence varies depending on the connection speed selected.[14]

At certain points during Carousel, viewers can elect to switch to watching one of three short films blended into the tracking shot.[10][14] When one of the films is selected, the effects which were added in post-production disappear, and the rigging used in production reappears. An actor portraying a member of the cast comes on to discuss an element of the filming or a feature of the product.[2][14] In the first, the director of photography discusses the lighting techniques used in Carousel. In the second, the director discusses the cinematic 21:9 aspect ratio and interacts with one of the extras. In the third, the VFX supervisor expands on the post-production process, and through a fake video-editing interface alters various aspects of the scene. The scripts for these short commentaries were written by Tribal DDB, with input from Stinkdigital and Redrum.[2]

The soundtrack to Carousel was composed by Michael Fakesch. The music was altered for the Philips microsite by Stinkdigital so that, if users chose to move through the film at a different rate or in a different direction, the music would distort to match.[14] Other features of the microsite included an Ambilight feature and the ability to switch at will between 21:9 and 16:9 aspect ratios.