A true testament to the power of globalization–this job was for a fruit juice called Almarai for the Saudi market, the agency was BBDO based in Dubai and Jeddah, and the shoot was in Shanghai China. Actually, thats quite normal, but the strange part was trying to get Chinese stuntmen to fight like Mexican wrestlers. It was a surreal moment when everything started to come together. It took about a week, but eventually the Chinese stunt team were able to master it–although they had blank stares when I showed them Mexican wrestling on youtube. All the other cast were from Arab countries. It was a challenge to find Saudi looking teenagers in Shanghai!

Above, rigging our fearless Ninja stuntmen to a moving bus. The scene called for two Ninjas fighting it out on top of a moving bus (going about 60 km/h) filled with onlooking teenagers. I used a combination of in-camera techniques and composite shots on a green screen. This was a fairly technical shoot–and it was one of the hottest days in Shanghai history! My highlight was riding along side the action on the quad while capturing and editing on FCP.

Above, setting up for a shot where one of the Mexican wrestlers gets thrown onto a table in a cafeteria. The food goes flying everywhere as the burly wrestlers slides comedically along the table. To give the scene more momentum, I used a skater dolly rigged to follow the action.

To add to the surreality of the project, we had a full solar eclipse in the middle of the day. Obviously we had to stop shooting because we lost most of our light! Above are some photos of the client and agency mesmerized by the darkness. It was one of those “once in 300 years” events! Check out the “making of” made by Spunk Productions, Shanghai.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 at 12:54 am and is filed under Commercials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.