A Volkswagen Beetle engages in a little kung fun fightin’ with a formidable foe–an alarm clock–in a new spot out of Arnold Worldwide, Boston. The :30 “Alarm Clock” is one of three commercials in the Volkswagen Beetle “Force of Good” campaign, which finds the car taking on some of our greatest pet peeves.
Explaining the reason behind positioning the Beetle as a force of good, art director Jen Wells said, “It’s a car that makes you smile, it’s fun to drive, it’s this bright, colorful thing that people generally have positive reactions to. So thinking along those lines we thought that it would be really funny to personify the Beetle as a superhero-ish force of good.”
That said, Arnold didn’t want to get too heavy-handed with the idea. “It’s not saving the world, it’s not saving kittens from trees, or helping old ladies cross the street,” Wells said of the Beetle as hero.
Instead, the Beetle battles everyday annoyances. While the car takes down an alarm clock in “Alarm Clock” by causing it to explode, other spots find the Beetle defeating sardines and a Port-O-Potty. The alarm clock is probably the most universally hated foe. “I don’t know anyone who loves an alarm clock going off at six a.m.,” Wells concurred.
The Beetle takes on each of its enemies in a classic fight-scene scenario. “Alarm Clock” spoofs the kung fun film genre; the other commercials in the campaign parody Westerns and gladiator films.
Directors Jonathan Notaro and Jens Gehlhaar of bicoastal Brand New School orchestrated each of the fights. According to Wells, the two directors were hired because they immediately understood that these spots were meant to be silly and quirky. Furthermore, the directors had the design chops needed to make the commercials look great.
Shot at a Fox Studios soundstage in Los Angeles, “Alarm Clock” is set in the courtyard of a kung fu palace tucked away in the mountains. The set, which includes backdrops of scenic vistas, was built from scratch, based on Notaro’s drawings. The set is brightly lit, much like a stage play, with an intentionally kitschy look. “We didn’t want people to think that we were trying to duplicate the look of an actual kung fu film,” Wells pointed out. “We’re not trying to trick anybody.”
Still, the spots needed to have an authentic feel, and that is achieved partially with the appearance of human characters–one is a woman who approaches the courtyard, sees the impending showdown and decides to go back where she came from; the other is a goofy guy who bangs a gong at the conclusion of the spot.
These people are seen only briefly, but “the success of the spot depends on those characters,” Notaro maintained. They are crucial, Gehlhaar agreed, noting. “We needed these cutaways to make the spot a little more human and to enhance the spoof.”
The people also add some movement to a spot that features a face-off during which neither the alarm clock nor the car actually move. “Half of the joke for us was that nothing happens,” Arnold Worldwide creative director/copywriter Colin Jeffery said.
Was there ever any thought of making the car move, perhaps through animation? “Having the car animated just seemed kind of weird to us,” Wells said. “It’s such a positive little car, such a force of good within itself that it doesn’t need to do anything. Just the natural goodness that it radiates–we felt that was enough to fend off any of these evil foes.”
Ultimately, the Beetle uses its power to blow the alarm clock to bits. According to Gehlhaar, getting the explosion right was a matter of trial and error. Pyrotechnic experts were on hand to handle the big bang, obliterating four or five alarm clocks before achieving an effect that Gehlhaar and Notaro were satisfied with.
Editor Paul Martinez of bicoastal Lost Planet Editorial cut “Alarm Clock” as well as the other spots in the campaign. “Editorially it was a challenge because you had to create the same kind of fight sequence you would in some Bruce Lee movie but with inanimate objects–an alarm clock and a car,” Martinez acknowledged.
Martinez relied on shots that employed camera movement. “What was great was they shot it with a lot of camera moves,” Martinez said, “and then I would speed up those moves with quick swish and whoosh pans.”
Anyone who appreciates filmmaking from the 1970s will notice that Martinez cut “Alarm Clock” in a way that mimics the way films were edited during that decade. “Toward the end of the spot, the alarm clock blows up, and then it blows up again in slow motion right after that. That’s a total technique of the ’70s, showing the action twice but slowing it down the second time,” Martinez said.
Playing nicely with the edit is ’70s-style music and sound design courtesy of Ten Music, Santa Monica.
Overall, Jeffery was thrilled with how well everything came together as well as the fun tone of “Alarm Clock” and the other spots in the “Force of Good” campaign, which also has print and online elements. “The whole car market is so somber at the moment with the sales being down, and everyone going for the employee discounts,” Jeffery said. “All the advertising is so serious–it’s all big product shots and prices and better deals. We just thought the Beetle lent itself to going completely the other way.”
