Do you enjoy alternate-reality films? Do you enjoy dystopian video games? Do you enjoy the hackneyed one-liners often found in alternate-reality films and dystopian video games? Then you'll love Saatchi & Saatchi's spot for the Toyota GT86 sports car—an ad that manages to distill various clichés from The Matrix and a host of Christopher Nolan films into a CGI-illustrated dissertation on reality.
The CGI star of the spot, directed by Adam Berg, is a guy stuck in a noir-ish world that's "just pixels, pretense and driver assist" (whatever that means) and is clearly not enjoying himself. So, he swings by an unmarked warehouse, filled with vintage hanging lightbulbs and a very unattractive man eating an enormous burger, where he discovers a Toyota GT86 under a drop cloth. This car, he proclaims, is "real."
To the tune of Edith Piaf's "Je Ne Regrette Rien" (which, by utter coincidence, was also used as the "kick" music in Inception), the CGI dude goes on a joyride around the city, feeling alive. Unfortunately, he tells us, "feeling" is a capital offense, so he flees the cops and ends up on the city's outskirts, where a digitally created wall signals "the end of the world." Except, of course, it's not. The man drives through the barrier and emerges in lush, green, non-CGI reality.
Pretty high concept for a car commercial. But will the fantasy make a real difference to the model's bottom line?
CREDITS
Client: Toyota
Spot: "The Real Deal"
Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi, London
Executive Creative Directors: Paul Silburn, Kate Stanners
Copywriter: Rob Potts
Art Director: Andy Jex
Planner: Tom Callard
Producer: Kate O'Mulloy
Production Company: Stink
Director: Adam Berg
Producer: Ben Croker
Animation, Visual Effects: Digital Domain
Chief Creative Officer: Ed Ulbrich
Executive Producer: Scott Gemmell
Visual Effects Supervisor: Vernon Wilbert
Visual Effects Producer: John Kokum
Visual Effects Coordinator: Cody Shelley
Computer Graphics Supervisor: Ron Herbst
Previz Artist: Niles Heckman
On-Set Integration, Tracking: Michael Lori
Rotoscope: David Wilson
Character Animators: Greg Breitzman, Anthony Rizzo, Althea Suarez Gata
Character Rigger, Digital Artist: Tim Petre
Digital Artists: Bekah Baik, Casey Benn, Dave Carlson, Greg Gangemi, Robert Kim
Effects Artist: Ken Jones
Compositors: Scot Hale, Dave Takayama, Ned Wilson, Niles Heckman, Soyoun Lee, Marcel Martins
Flame, Compositor: Jeff Heusser
Postproduction: MPC
Audio Postproduction: Wave
Music: Edith Piaf