VW One Film shoot

September 10, 2012June 30, 2015 | Zapfly

Last summer, I executive produced a global campaign for VW around the launch of the new Golf 7. Part of the work created included a personalised film we shot out in the US. This film was known as the One Film and was based around choices that users entered on the www.onething.com website. Their input was then rendered in a personalised movie and served back to them as a dreamlike view of a journey through their one things.

We worked with JK and Todd Kellstein at Paydirt in LA, to capture a lovely 2 minute short film – our take if you will of the classic American road movie. The team also created two TVC commercials for global release. Below is one of those TV ads that aired in Hong Kong.

Below are some behind the scenes images from the 5 days we were shooting in California:

Big Sur

Day 1

Crew on Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Crew on Day 4

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 2

A day in Death Valley, USA

August 7, 2012August 7, 2012 | Zapfly

Recently, after being on a film shoot in California, I had a couple of days spare at the end of my trip and decided to capture some images in Death Valley. I made the classic tourist error of hiring a convertible car, which in the desert, is a bad idea. You want, no, you need to have air conditioning. Being stoic, I chose discomfort and sunburn instead, which turned out well for me.

Anyhow, here are a few shots I took in a day long photography shoot in Death Valley. It effectively documents the arrival of a fierce thunder-storm, gale force winds and a torrential downpour that flooded the roads in multiple places.

The fluffy white clouds formed the perfect backdrop to this ghost town

Thick, heavy cloud was blowing into Death Valley from Nevada to the east.

The sky seemed to lose colour as the heavy, grey clouds gathered overheat, blocking out the intense sun and dropping the temperature some 20 degrees Celsius.

Rain began to fall and there were two separate rainbows in the desert. It was magnificent.

For these last two images, the wind was blowing a gale and I had to cling on to my camera gear to fear that it would be snatched away by the wind.

Forks of lightening spread 180 degrees sideways through the sky as I drove back to my hotel after taking the final session of shots on Zabriskie Point.

Launch of the new Corsa – Work from the archive

April 16, 2012June 17, 2013 | Zapfly

Back in 2006, whilst based at PCI Fitch as Head of the Web team, we worked on amongst other things, a large animation for the main screen on the Vauxhall stand, which sat behind a half-pipe. The animation was several thousand pixels wide and played on a screen around 11m wide.

Gathering design and creative input from our surround environment and internet research, we crafted a completely new alphabet for the Corsa launch, used in this animation.

This approach was such a resounding success that it was adopted unilaterally by Vauxhall on other Corsa release material creative work.

Below are some images from the motorshow in London, showing all the different eleemnts the new font was used within as well as the main event, which was the half pipe.

Large animation behind car

New Corsa with our creative graphics

BMX bikes on half pipe

Welcome to the Corsa stand

People on the Corsa stand

BMX on half pipe

Corsa reveal on stand

Same of new alphabet branding

End of the BMX and rollerblade session on te half pipe

Interactive table games

Graphic details on the car

HTC One global launch

March 19, 2012June 11, 2013 | Zapfly

During my time at Mother, I was the Head of Integrated Production on the HTC account and worked on the launch of the company’s latest and greatest smartphone, to combat top models from Apple and Samsung.

My production team co-ordinated the creation of all global launch material, ranging from a photo shoot of the new handset, the TVC of a photorgaphy student sky diving with the HTC One handset to collateral for all the subsequent digital channels with interesting behind the scenes material as well as social commentary and a PR event at the launch of the HTC One on the site of the TVC drop zone, in the desert around Arizona.

Here is how we made the TVC.

24Photography 2012

January 22, 2012January 30, 2012 | Zapfly

Third year running for me to participate in the 24Photography artist’s group. Each year, 24 photography artists document New Year’s Day. Each of us are assigned an hour to capture the day through our eyes and relate it to that year’s theme. This year, the chosen theme is Empty.

I was based in Hong Kong for most of December this year and although I was allotted 12 noon GMT, this translated to 8pm in Hong Kong. The city is one of the most vibrant and hectic places on earth, so following the empty theme appeared complicated at first. I wanted to focus on the hyper realism of the city, which I accomplished through using HDR to enhance the already bright end of day colours.

As usual, the exhibition will open on 24th February in Berkeley Square, Mayfair. Nearest tube station is Green Park.

Useful links:
24Photography website: http://www.24photography.org/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/24photography
Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/24photography

Boeing Dreamspace photography – Work from the archive

December 28, 2011June 17, 2013 | Zapfly

Sometimes I end up doing vary varied tasks for different projects. Whilst based at PCI Fitch, I was the agency photographer and one of the jobs I covered was the Farnborough Airshow in 2006. The design team had created the Boeing Dreamscape interior at the air show, which I shot for Boeing. It was a delightful mixture of physical installation and digital elements.

Here are some images of the space.

Main installation room

Client space

Interactive flight simulator

Life size model of aircraft

Entrance pathway

Main installation room

Canada photoshoot 2011

October 1, 2011November 22, 2011 | Zapfly

Just prior to the Frankfurt motorshow in September, I went out to Canada for a two week photoshoot. Starting off in Calgary, I headed west to Banff National Park. From here, I drove through all the surrounding national parks including Kootenay, Yoho and Jasper. Over the first ten days, I covered almost 2000 miles.

After returning to Calgary, I then flew further west to Victoria, capital of Vancouver Island. My good friend Justene Miller, a Canadian from Vancouver, gave me some excellent advice, to visit Tofino and Ucluelet, on the Pacific coast of the island. I was treated to a cloud rainbow, something I have never seen before.

I loved Canada, with its spectacular landscape and friendly locals. My only reservation is that the food is much like the US is pretty awful most of the time.

Honda at Frankfurt 2011 motorshow

September 16, 2011August 15, 2016 | Zapfly

For several months leading up to the Frankfurt 2011 motorshow, I executive produced the Honda stand with an excellent team at Wieden & Kennedy. Creative directing the stand was Tom Seymour and David Bruno. You can see more of their work on their website www.davidandtom.co.uk.

Collaborating with a production company just outside of Frankfurt, Germany, a Belgian artist based in Marseille and Honda clients based across Europe and Japan, we designed, built and implemented a stand for Honda in less than 4 months from start to finish. The design was meant to visual representation of the roads to zero emissions for the motor show, one of Honda’s key cornerstone values.

The stand was covered by the full breadth of auto press and design magazines, including Wallpaper (who used one of my images).

Here are more images of the stand I took for Wieden + Kennedy’s press releases.

Links for further information on the stand:

Where are the Joneses – Work from the archive

July 25, 2011June 17, 2013 | Zapfly

One of the most demanding projects I have lead was for Ford, whilst I was based at Imagination. I was brought on board to create a far reaching social media platform, at the time when WordPress and Wikis were still very much in their infancy from a public consciousness perspective.

Ford wanted to utilise social media to engage with people in a more genuine manner than just pitch sales messages and thereby establish a closer connection between audience and brand.

The aim of the project was to tell a story and inviting readers to contribute to it, thus making them feel engaged, rather than “talked at”.

The result was an interactive online comedy called “Where Are The Joneses?”, which followed the adventures of two characters, Dawn and Ian Jones, who were searching for siblings after learning that their father was a prolific sperm donor.

Accompanied by my film crew, the cast improvised an episode a day on a 3 month European road-trip. We asked Ford to provide a car fit for the journey and paint it in the pantone derived from the colour used by Seth Godin’s book, Purple Cow, about transforming your business by being remarkable.

Each episode was uploaded to our WRTJ channel on YouTube and discussed in an accompanying blog, hosted on WordPress, which featured videos from viewers, images, diaries written by the characters and audience comments. (www.wherearethejoneses.com)

The wiki allowed the audience to help shape the storyline, write the script, create new characters and even cast themselves to appear in the show. It was distributed widely across social networking sites to maximise audience participation, utilising everything from Facebook to Twitter, GoogleMaps, Flickr, Digg, Technorati, Del.icio.us, iTunes and MySpace amongst others.

The result was extensive coverage in mainstream media, both UK national and trade press as well as national TV coverage. This helped to set the campaign up as a rewarding articulation of Ford’s brand positioning “Feel the difference. It also earned the project a Webby nomination.

This is Episode 1 that started the whole European adventure off and introduced us to Dawn and Ian.