In a stylish urban loft, a seemingly single continuous shot reveals a half-dozen people engaged in various activities throughout a large living room-type space. The Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young rendition of "Our House" plays in the background.
The overall impression is that we’re seeing a gathering of friends who are kicking back and relaxing, enjoying some music and each other’s company. But there is something unusual about the surroundings.
A pen inexplicably rolling off a coffee table is the first clue. Behind the table, three of the young people sit on a couch, examining a map. As the camera moves through the living room, we catch fleeting glimpses of the exterior landscape through large windows. One view is of a cityscape. Later, a mirror reflection of a window across the room reveals a large tractor-trailer passing by; the vehicle seems to be only a few feet from the window. In another scenic view, lush, green countryside seems to roll by.
The camera then moves in tight on a woman who is lying back in an easy chair, looking dreamily through a window. A pull-back shot shows that she is no longer in the living room but is, instead, a passenger in a Fiat Multipla automobile, watching the scenery go by. From the outside, we see the car window close; then the camera takes us into the Fiat. Sharing the car with her is the group of friends from the house.
As they travel together on four wheels, it becomes clear that the car is being paralleled to a comfy living room, a homey place where friends get together. The spot ends with a graphic of the tagline: "You have the friends, we have the car. Fiat Multipla."
Titled "Friends," the :60 (with :45 and :30 versions) promotes the Multipla as a tall, wide, roomy vehicle that seats six passengers in two rows of three bucket seats. It’s neither a minivan nor an SUV, but a high-tech vehicle designed to appeal to a youthful demographic. Explaining the concept of making a living room the metaphor for the vehicle, Paolo Gorini, creative director at Torino, Italy-based BGS D’Arcy, explained: "The car is different from any other car. We want to position it for young families and people in the twenty-five to thirty-five bracket."
Agency senior art director Dario Mondonico added, "The client’s brief was the livability of the car. We don’t necessarily have to see a lot of the car itself, so we show six people who use the car as if it were a house, and we reinforce that with the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song."
The original boards related the story in a series of cuts, but director/DP Eric Saarinen of Santa Monica-based Plum Productions envisioned the living room sequence playing as if it were a single shot with a camera moving through the house, revealing different people and scenes. "It was obvious that the only way we were going to nail this down was with motion control," said Saarinen. "I had experience with the Milo motion control system, and we worked hard to choreograph each move with the actors."
Matching the motion control image of the woman in the living room to her corresponding image in a traveling car was another challenge. The shot was taken from a camera car crane on a road in Northern California. "Because the camera arm didn’t telescope, the camera car driver had to do the move for us … this was not motion controlled, and it was a remarkable feat to be able to do the match so closely." Vehicle drivers were Hugh Byrnes and Richard Emerson of Hugh Byrnes Camera Cars, San Francisco.
The agency team consisted of Gorino, Mondonico, copywriter Vincenzo Gitto and producer Giulio Pattarino. Although made for airing in Italy and other European markets, the spot was shot and posted entirely in the U.S. Three cars were air-freighted stateside for lensing at Raleigh Studios, Manhattan Beach, Calif., and on location in Northern California.
Sloan’s support team at Plum included executive producer Chuck Sloan, producer Naia Hall-West and production supervisor Ken Dooley. Coordinating the job in conjunction with Plum was Milan-based BRW & Partners. BRW’s key staffers on the project were company president Giulio Romieri and executive producer Lorenzo Cefis.
Visual effects and compositing were done by a contingent at Venice, Calif.-based Digital Domain, which included visual effects supervisors Michael Gibson and Perri Wainright, compositors Scott Rader, Katie Nook, Rob Trent, Kriston Trattner and Brian Battles, and roto artist Byron Werner.
Jim Bohn of Sea Level, Santa Monica, served as Fire artist. The spot was edited by Jim Rhoads of Look Ma No Hands, Santa Monica. Colorist was Mike Pethel of Company 3, Santa Monica. Audio mixer was Roberto Serra of Top Digital, Milan. Graham Nash was the composer of "Our House."
