Human beings are sculpted into everything from buses to factory machines in a captivatingly artful spot for pain relief ointment Himani Fast Relief. Created by Mumbai’s Ambience Publicis and directed by Ram Madhvani, “Man Made Machines,” which runs more than a minute, portrays the non-stop hustle and bustle of life in a big city.
“The basic idea for the campaign stems from the life of our target–the people who outstretch themselves every day. To them, life’s become a machine,” Ambience Publicis creative director/copywriter Ashish Khazanchi said. “Though this product can’t change that, what it certainly can do is make it less of a pain.”
The agency hired Madhvani–who is repped in India by Mumbai’s Equinox Films and throughout the rest of the world by Great Guns, bicoastal and London–to direct the spot because he has a history of pulling off visually stunning ads, and he realized that “Man Made Machines” had to reach people on a visceral level, according to creative director Khazanchi.
“I can’t even begin to enumerate what Ram brought to the table. This was a difficult project and just to keep our sanity going was a task,” Khazanchi said. “Ram not only pulled it off beautifully for us, he kept the faith alive in the idea.”
The making of “Man Made Machines” was a long process that involved a month and a half of ideating, two months of rehearsals, six days of shooting in a studio, a month shooting backplates on location and a month and a half of postproduction.
Altogether, the job took about six months. By comparison normally in India, a commercial would go from conception to completion in just six weeks, Madhvani said.
Tone of voice According to the director, the agency came to him with “the concept very clear in their minds. They wanted to form machines with human beings, and they also had a tone of voice–they were very clear that they wanted it to be slightly cynical. They wanted it to be that you go through your day, you have a problem to fix, you try to fix the problem, and you go right back to the grind,” Madhvani explained. “So they were very clear about the device and the tone of voice. What we didn’t have was a story.”
After brainstorming, the agency and director hit upon the idea of portraying the big city grind.
With a concept firmed up, Madhvani put together a cast of about 200 people made up of two groups–practitioners of a gymnastic sport called Mallakhamb, and dancers.
“The reason we went for these people was there was going to be lots of touchy-feely, human bodies in contact, and I didn’t want to be a position where people said, ‘Excuse me, where are you putting your hands?'” Madhvani related with a laugh. “So I wanted people who were comfortable with touching each other.”
Madhvani relied on choreographers Avit Dias and Ganesh Devrukhar to then help him shape these people into everyday objects.
Organic formations “I wanted the formations to be–to use a word that is very topical today–organic,” Madhvani said.
“Though every vehicle had a frame onto which these people had been put, I didn’t want it to feel like the frame was there.”
Upon completion of rehearsals, Madhvani and DP Kartik Vijay shot “Man Made Machines” in a studio in front of a green screen.
“I had to do this in an air-conditioned environment with safety mats because I wanted the people to be comfortable. Obviously, the agency was very worried that we would not be able to pull off the reality of it,” Madhvani acknowledged.
“But,” he continued, “I must say they were very trusting because I said, ‘No guys, this is the only way that we can actually attempt this because I don’t want to be in the middle of a road with a one-hour road permission. You just can’t do this kind of thing in one hour.’ “
Once Madhvani had his live action and backplates, which were a combination of 35mm and digital stills, he dove into the editorial and postproduction process. Anshuman Gokel of Mumbai’s Pixion edited the commercial, and the artisans at Tata Elxsi, also in Mumbai, handled the post and the visual effects.
There was a lot of back and forth between Madhvani, the editor, the art directors from the agency and the team at Tata Elxsi.
“The art directors are very good with things like shadows and all of the other things directors don’t really want to look at. You sit there with what you felt was a good shot, and they turn around and say, ‘Oh, there are fifteen problems with this shot–the perspective is not matching, the shadows are not right. I think you need to plant a tree there. The clouds don’t match–you can’t have cirrus and cumulus clouds together’,” Madhvani said with a laugh..
While painstaking attention was paid to the visuals, the music also played an important role in conveying the commercial’s message.
The agency’s Khazanchi actually wrote the song lyrics, while well-known Indian composers Vishal Dadlani and Shekhar Ravjiani, who go by Vishal-Shekhar and are based in Mumbai, composed a hypnotic track with an Indian techno feel.
“The music says that the wise men say that men have become machines as the wheels of time turn. That’s a very, very bad translation, and it sounds very corny when I say it,” Madhvani said. “But when you hear it in Hindi, it is evocative of an insight that is part of our lives.”
