If you couldn’t make it to the 1999 North American International Auto Show in Detroit on Jan. 4, you would still have had access to one of the more significant car events of the year-the unveiling of BMW’s new X5, billed as the world’s "first sports activity vehicle"-via a live Webcast.
Created by Fallon McElligott, Minneapolis, the Webcast took place the day of the auto show, from 2:15 to 3:30 p.m. EST, and was highlighted by a video presentation and a press conference featuring speakers Jack Pitney, BMW director of corporate communications, Victor H. Doolan, president of BMW of North America, and Wolfgang Reitzle, a member of German parent company BMW AG’s board of management. The actual unveiling of the X5 followed, accompanied by a performance by MOMIX, a troupe of performance artists, who danced in silver outfits with skis and rollerblades. Users can view the Webcast online for the next three months by logging onto BMW’s Web site, www.bmwusa.com, and clicking on the archive. (The Real Player plug-in is required for viewing.)
Fallon also created and uploaded that day a new section about the X5 for the BMW of North America Web site. The section includes a gallery of images, background on the vehicle and its availability and information about the Webcast. Users who had registered as guests of the Web site received e-mail announcements prior to the event.
Fallon account executive Cori Van Brunt, who served as the Webcast’s producer, explained that the client came up with the idea of a Webcast in order to create a buzz about the X5, which won’t be available to the public until October. Said Van Brunt, "It will be the biggest launch for BMW this year. They have no other vehicle like the X5, and so we definitely wanted to come out with something big and very exciting to set this launch apart from any other that we’d done." That led them to the idea of using the North American International Auto Show, the biggest U.S. automotive event, for the unveiling.
Mark Sandau, Fallon’s multimedia group manager who served as the technical lead and the director of the Webcast, said the two-camera shoot was largely confined to the press area. "It was kind of difficult to find stuff to shoot at the beginning," said Sandau. "We treated it as a live event; we tried to do a lot of wide shots so as not to miss anything."
Sandau added that his crew took into consideration the technical limitations inherent in producing a Webcast. "You have to realize the final destination of what people are going to see when they see this," he said. "Some things that are in play in photography and video don’t apply to a Webcast. This is a relatively small image, the frame rate is quite slow, it doesn’t react very well to things like quick-cuts and high contrast. You’ll notice there aren’t any cuts, but there are a lot of long dissolves, which gave the encoder a chance to catch up so it didn’t break up the image."
"[The Webcast] actually turned out to be a blessing with the [bad] weather they had in Detroit," noted Van Brunt. "So many flights were cancelled, and the press who were unable to get into town were able to access the Webcast." She said this also proved true for several BMW executives who were unable to fly into Detroit.
