Distell’s Amarula have created a 360 degree virtual reality (VR) safari through Africa that explores the continent’s incredible beauty in their latest commercial. With VR making waves in the industry, the brand’s Global Marketing Manager, Mncedisi Junior Jekwa says: “Africa has always been rooted in the brand’s DNA. This exciting technology allows us to bring the Amarula story to life in a more visceral manner.”
As Amarula reinforces its motto, Made From Africa, VR presented an opportunity to bring to life the African continent when viewed from anywhere in the world. FCB Cape Town executive creative director, Mike Barnwell, says VR was chosen as the medium ahead of traditional channels as it was the perfect fit and vehicle for such an immersive experience.
“The technology itself was the creative treatment,” Barnwell adds. The commercial flows like a holiday experience with a 360 degree view of Africa, flowing over the marula trees in the wild, to the maturation houses and eventual pouring over ice experience.
“Through the technology, Amarula is able to transport consumers to the African veld and immerse them in an experience that brings the Amarula brand story to life. From the vast plains of the African savannah, to the watering holes where graceful elephants gather – the technology allows the consumer an opportunity not just to see the Made From Africa story, but to feel it and understand it in a very real and inspiring way,” says Dylan Davies, senior art director.
The scenes were filmed in the Waterberg and Pilanesberg National Park in South Africa as well as in the Okavango Delta in Botswana.
“It was our intent to fully immerse and inspire the viewer with the colour, atmosphere, energy and majesty of Africa. True to Amarula brand values of being real and authentic, great effort was made to capture the scenes as they are in nature – unlit and undoctored,” explains Davies. “From the elephants at their morning watering hole to the quietness of the Baines’s Baobabs on the Nxai Pan – each scene was crafted true to its surrounding and its part in an authentic story.”
Deep VR designed and manufactured the specific housing rig used for the VR experience. In total, the rig comprised 14 GoPro 4K cameras. “We designed a stereoscopic 360 camera rig based on human anatomy,” says Ulrico Grech-Cumbo, managing director at Deep VR. “We revised the design four times, reviewing the quality of depth we were achieving, until we got to the design which we used on the Amarula project,” he adds. Explaining his choice of camera he advises that GoPros are highly modifiable, and gave the highest quality-to-size ratio possible at the time of design.
Little to almost no supplementary lighting was used throughout the scenes, only natural lighting was used. Grech-Cumbo says this involved timing each shot so as to achieve the perfect lighting conditions for the lens and for the camera. “We used special 195 degree wide-angle lenses,” he says.
Editing was done using a combination of APV, FCPX, PhotoShop, After Effects, DaVinci Resolve and Nuke for the video production and Logic Pro for the Audio. These all included specialised plugins and effects to work with 360° VR specifically.
The ad was shot for 10 days in two different countries and had 11 scenes, across five locations.
“Embracing a new and unfamiliar technology is both unnerving and exciting,” explains Davies. “Over time we have become accustomed to viewing images in 2D. VR records in full 360 degrees so thinking in 360 was a new challenge in both how you need to think about a scene and how you go about recording it.” Davies explains that stepping out of the traditional film production approach in favour of a looser, more nimble production model afforded them the opportunity to setup the camera and record scenes that would otherwise never have been possible to film on such a tight production schedule. “16 hours on a dirt road for a single shot. We do truly love what we do,” adds Davies.
“What’s interesting about filming in VR is the fact that scenes have to play out like theatre,” explains Grech-Cumbo. “There are no cuts, breaks, framed shots and splicing. A re-take means a complete retake of the scene from the beginning. This proved especially difficult with elephants, which feature in two scenes.”
Grech-Cumbo says that further technical challenges included post-production stabilising as the footage is in a full sphere. “What made it challenging is that a 360 video is moving relative to a canoe in complex ways, which itself is moving relative to the water in complex ways,” he says. “One of the other technical things is that, because the camera is sort of like the all-seeing eye of Sauron, the tripod is visible. So it had to be painted out in every shot.”
Grech-Cumbo explains the challenges of stitching. “Each camera picks up a certain angle, which has to be mated to an adjacent camera. Due to unavoidable lens distortion on each camera, when these areas join up you often experience what’s known as a parallax issue – where subject matter appears to distort, disappear or ghost when passing a stitch line. The process of fine stitching is a true art in itself, which minimises or eliminates this effect.”
The three minutes 45 seconds, 3D, 360-degree experience will be rolled out using Samsung Gear VR headsets and Oculus Rift units around the world in travel retail, focusing on duty free shops in major airports.
Key companies and crew:
- Creative agency: FCB Cape Town
- Executive Creative Director: Mike Barnwell
- Creative Director FCB: Aaron Harris
- Group Head and Senior Art Director: Dylan Davies
- Radio and TV Producer: Ashleigh Jarratt
- Group Account Director: Stephanie Binns
- Virtual reality agency: Deep VR
- CEO: Ulrico Grech-Cumbo
- Director of Photography: Telmo dos Reis
- Audio specialist: Samukelo Mahlalela
