Ebenezers, beware: There’s no bah humbugging the Gap’s Yuletide campaign, a kaleidoscopic celebration of the holiday season. A throwback to the musical productions choreographed for Hollywood films by Busby Berkeley in the ’30s and ’40s, the campaign was created by the Gap’s San Francisco-based in-house ad agency, and directed by Michel Gondry of bicoastal/international Partizan. "Mountains"—one of three ads in the "That’s Holiday" campaign—features a colorful, ever-morphing cast of dancers and ice skaters.
BUF Compagnie, Paris, created the 3-D computer-generated effects that turn "Mountains" into a visual spectacle. The ad is paired with the classic holiday tune "Sleigh Ride," originally composed by Leroy Anderson and Mitchell Parish, and is mixed with a sample of Vanilla Ice’s "Ice Ice Baby." The original music was reproduced by the Dust Brothers (a.k.a. Michael Simpson and John King) of the Dust Brothers Produce, Los Angeles.
"In all our ads, the main goal is to entertain," said Gap spokesperson Anna Lonergan. "In this instance, we use dancing, snippets of ice skating and great music to really put forth that message of holiday cheer." The two additional ads in the campaign are "Trees" and "Kids."
"Mountains" opens on a young woman wearing a blue sweater and black pants standing in the center of Gap’s signature white background. Some dimension is brought to the setting by two white "mountains"—2-D triangles, really—that populate the background. "Sleigh Ride" accompanies the footage.
Almost instantly, the woman on screen becomes three, as two clones step out from behind her. The trio then begins to dance. As if by magic, the trio then triples. The original row of women sprouts two additional rows—three dancers per row—each row dressed in matching sweaters. Simultaneously, the white mountains spawn something of a 2-D mountain range. The seamlessness of the overall effect is achieved partly because the perspective of the camera has moved from a frontal view, wherein the viewer cannot see behind the dancers, to a raised one. The cast of nine then dances into a cross formation, and eventually into a single-file line. As the music changes to "Ice Ice Baby," the row of dancers twirls and becomes a single girl in a pink vest.
As she embarks on a solo dance number, we notice that the mountains have arranged themselves in equally spaced rows. Between them, two groups of ice skaters emerge from opposite sides of the screen, moving horizontally and thereby crossing in the center of the screen.
After the ice skaters disappear, the girl in the pink vest bends forward at the waist and, as the audio track returns to "Sleigh Ride," her form morphs into a circle comprised of eight people. The camera, now stationed overhead, then zooms out to reveal a second, larger circle of people. Both groups begin a choreographed routine that best demonstrates the kaleidoscopic effect, a Busby Berkeley signature. Gap’s choreographer was Paris-based Blanca Li. After, the cast stands and moves into a single-circle formation. This then transitions into a threesome of cloned women, much like the original trio, this time wearing striped sweaters. Eventually the threesome becomes a single woman. The screen then fades to white, and the tag reads "That’s Holiday," followed by the Gap logo and web address.
Gondry related that Gap approached him after seeing his music video for the Chemical Brothers, "Let Forever Be." The clip features similar effects to the Gap spots—although they are not so much kaleidoscopic, as they are about multiplying the images of a single person. The Chemical Brothers effects were also created by BUF, and "that was the starting point," said the director.
According to a BUF release, the company’s Gap work consists of "a very elaborate realization of transitions. The dancers appear and disappear, come toward the camera and then backward, substitute one for another, [and] go from one to an infinite number of dancers or objects. Pre-visualization was done to help both the shoot and the effects team. By pre-visualizing this kind of work, you can edit the number of transitions you will need—where and when. This process also allows you to work out your timing before you start shooting."
The ads were shot at Sony Pictures Studios, Culver City, Calif. Gondry said by the time the shooting took place, he knew "exactly what I wanted. I do very precise graphics. Everything was very carefully planned." He added that, working from storyboards, he then printed the shot film and, using a photocopier, "created the effect" he was after—a model that BUF could refer to.
What Gondry is most pleased with is the fact that all the spots in the "That’s Holiday" campaign are less about the stylistic "attitude" that is evident in many of the retailer’s campaigns. "Gap is a lot about attitude and posing. I didn’t want to go for that. I think it [the new campaign] is quite fresh, and very good for the end of the millennium," he observed.
