Advertising Agency Mother Doubles Their Creativity with a Behind the Scenes Video Rivaling Their IKEA Ad

When I think of furniture advertising my brain automatically sorts the possible approaches into either expensively elegant mood pieces or forgettable functional and affordable spots. Ever since their well regarded 2002 Spike Jonze directed ad Lamp, IKEA have attempted to take a more interesting approach to convincing you they should furnish your home. Advertising agency Mother London and director Dougal Wilson, kick off the new IKEA 'Entertaining' campaign by placing viewers at centre of a young girl's choreographed dinner party experience in Playing with my Friends:

Video is no longer available: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPbDW_Y72Aw

To meet the multi-duration brief the spot had to work across three running times (30sec, 60sec and 3min) and although it may appear otherwise, things weren't quite the single shot ballet presented in the finished films and required some VFX trickery from The Moving Picture Company as Wilson explains:

Although the ads look like one take, they obviously have lots of hidden cuts, which were expertly sewn together by Tom Harding and his superb team. Somehow MPC managed to warp time and space and make the images work. Each time length isn't a cut down, so they all had to be treated as separate films. When we discovered that the robot couldn't walk faster than 0.25mph in his robot-feet, and came up with the genius solution of taking his feet off, MPC made us some brilliant 3D feet instead, which they tracked beautifully over the robot's trainers. They also gave the robot magnetic, telekinetic and laser-vision powers, got rid of lots of velcro, put a monkey-face on a somersaulting acrobat and made the dinosaur breathe fire.

You'd think that three variations of the spot would be more than enough for the campaign, but the playful creativity also extended into Charlie Inman's The making of... as told by Darren the Bear video:

Video is no longer available: www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN759pveY1E

I'm not sure I'd call it the most informative of making ofs but it certainly entertained, while revealing a little of the behind the scenes action. Far too many filmmakers have a tendency to go for purely informative over entertaining when sharing their production processes, do you have examples of BTS films which manage to balance both?

Links:

• Mother
• The Moving Picture Company

[via Creative Review]