Having debuted at last month’s New York International Auto Show and now making the viral rounds on YouTube, the branded music video “Get Ready” is generating buzz for the North American rollout of the Fiat 500. The clip was directed by Mark Kudsi of Motion Theory for Detroit ad agency Impatto.
Featuring Vivaldi’s Concerto in D Major recreated by MassiveMusic for the new soundtrack, “Get Ready” features slick documentary-style footage of an assembly line in the new Fiat plant in Toluca, Mexico. This footage–which captures cranes, robotic arms and other factory machinery as beautiful precise objects which in motion create a mechanical ballet–is combined with four loose storylines of regular individuals getting ready in their homes.
Kudsi found inspiration in romantic comedies, in which the action is intercut between two characters eagerly preparing for a blind date with each other, uncannily matching each other’s idiosyncrasies via parallel montage. Said Kudsi, “Instead of ‘boy meets girl,’ it’s ‘driver meets car.’ We’re so connected to our cars that we often name them, talk to them, and pick them based on how we think they’ll match our personalities and lifestyle. We wanted to celebrate this connection by bringing this extraordinarily synchronized magic to the time before that first ‘meeting.’ It’s all those things we don’t see that lead to love at first sight.”
Kudsi, a commercial director who has also made a name through music videos, including the Grammy Award-winning “Boom Boom Pow” for Black Eyed Peas, deployed his trademark interplay between music, visuals, style and concept–elements which laid the foundation for the larger Fiat campaign.
“Get Ready” re-launches the Fiat in North America after an absence of almost 30 years. Kudsi and his Motion Theory production team spent two days inside the Fiat Toluca plant documenting the production line as the Fiat 500 was being made from sheet metal into finished product. An additional two days were spent on location in Los Angeles shooting the talent vignettes. All told, Kudsi accumulated 36 hours of footage, which was edited in-house by Mirada‘s Lenny Messina. Kudsi deployed a variety of cameras on the shoot, including the RED, Canon 5D and 7D and two GoPro cameras mounted onto robotic arms and inside cars as they were being assembled. As part of the same Fiat USA marketing effort, Kudsi also shot numerous interviews with Fiat customers.
The Impatto team on “Get Ready” included president/CEO Michael D’Antonio, sr. writer Parag Tembulkar, sr. art director Craig Smith, head of integrated content Gail Simon, and producers Lorraine Kraus and Kristin Loudis.
Javier Jimenez exec produced for Motion Theory, with Anna Joseph serving as line producer. The DP was Ericd Schmidt. Teri Whittaker was the production designer.
Mirada, a sister shop to Motion Theory, was the post house on the job, with an ensemble of talent consisting of creative director kudsi, VFX producer James Taylor, online producer Christina Caldwell, sr. art director Jonathan Wu, lead compositing artist Ash Wagers, compositing artists Jason Lowe, Ed Laag, Thomas Horne, Oliver Scott and Phil Guthrie, code artists Keith Pasko and Tim Stutts, designer Chris Ballard, roto artist Midori Witsken, Flame artists Danny Yoon and Matt Bramante and production manager Tina Van Delden. Mirada’s editorial contingent was comprised of editor Messina, Fred Foquet who did additional editing, online editor Jeff Aquino and assistant editor Hoa Mai.
Martin Scorsese On “The Saints,” Faith In Filmmaking and His Next Movie
When Martin Scorsese was a child growing up in New York's Little Italy, he would gaze up at the figures he saw around St. Patrick's Old Cathedral. "Who are these people? What is a saint?" Scorsese recalls. "The minute I walk out the door of the cathedral and I don't see any saints. I saw people trying to behave well within a world that was very primal and oppressed by organized crime. As a child, you wonder about the saints: Are they human?" For decades, Scorsese has pondered a project dedicated to the saints. Now, he's finally realized it in "Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints," an eight-part docudrama series debuting Sunday on Fox Nation, the streaming service from Fox News Media. The one-hour episodes, written by Kent Jones and directed by Elizabeth Chomko, each chronicle a saint: Joan of Arc, Francis of Assisi, John the Baptist, Thomas Becket, Mary Magdalene, Moses the Black, Sebastian and Maximillian Kolbe. Joan of Arc kicks off the series on Sunday, with three weekly installments to follow; the last four will stream closer to Easter next year. In naturalistic reenactments followed by brief Scorsese-led discussions with experts, "The Saints" emphasizes that, yes, the saints were very human. They were flawed, imperfect people, which, to Scorsese, only heightens their great sacrifices and gestures of compassion. The Polish priest Kolbe, for example, helped spread antisemitism before, during WWII, sheltering Jews and, ultimately, volunteering to die in the place of a man who had been condemned at Auschwitz. Scorsese, who turns 82 on Sunday, recently met for an interview not long after returning from a trip to his grandfather's hometown in Sicily. He was made an honorary citizen and the experience was still lingering in his mind. Remarks have... Read More