It’s a battle to the death… but not for the two experts in contest, one a
housewife, the other a demolition engineer. Instead, the two face off in an
explosive challenge to find out whether a fast acting bug spray can compete
with a blast of dynamite when it comes to clocking up cockroach fatalities. This
new series of Doom commercials tests the seemingly impossible, the potentially
dangerous and the categorically crazy.
Shooting over two days at a disused factory in downtown Johannesburg, the
perfect location for a Mythbusters-esque real life experiment, director and DOP
Lourens van Rensburg and his team from 7Films, set out to capture a reality-
style spot which would stand out from the conventional commercials commonly
seen in this product category.
Benjamin Kaufman, who produced the advert, said: “We approached the filming
of the experiments like we would a TV show or documentary. We used four Sony
FS700s and we had four GoPro Hero 3s. For the slow motion scenes we used a
Phantom Gold.’
Everything seen in the video is real, from crew and cast to bugs and blast,
requiring Kaufman to have a team of experts able to handle the action, on
board. Jason Plumbly, the executive producer, and Andrew Faber, the first
assistant director, brought a wealth of reality TV experience to the production
having worked on shows such as MasterChef, Survivor and Fear Factor.
The jackhammer operators and the demolitions expert were as legitimate as the
experiment results, which were scientifically recorded. Animal wranglers and
entomologists were brought on set to help control and manage the creepy
crawlies and if you’re wondering about the action movie style flames – those
were real too.
“Being an experiment, the majority of all SFX were done in-camera, the old
fashioned way. We blew caravans up, we built the jackhammers. We did partner
with Left and Blade from a post-production point of view, for them to add
finishing touches. Their brief was to make things as real as possible and we
believe they delivered well in that regard,’ said Kaufman.
Of working with creative agency TBWA / Hunt / Lascaris Johannesburg on the
project, Kaufman comments: “It was great partnering with them and we had a
lot of creative freedom. Our brief was to produce an entertaining, fun and light-
hearted campaign to watch, of which the message is to use Doom to control
your pests – as per the client and agency. We just wanted to blow stuff
up!’
