KFC initiates the return of “It’s Finger Lickin’ Good” in its latest TVC featuring the song ‘Good Vibrations’, which turns Church Square in Cape Town’s CBD into an alfresco orchestra.
In the commercial, the various features of a playground are turned into musical instruments, with each swing, jump and skip supplying a beat or a note in an improvised, orchestrated rendition of the Beach Boys classic.
KFC and Ogilvy & Mather Johannesburg asked director Keith Rose at Velocity Films to create a TVC that evokes the taste of KFC in a unique and unexpected way. “This advert should celebrate the moments in life that unite us all. It features a full adult size themed play park where families are enjoying a picnic with fun, games and fairground entertainment, including roundabouts and hopscotch,” explains Shannon Gloyne, producer at Velocity.
She describes how in the commercial a group of friends craft the elements of the park to produce upbeat music as the people of the park bring the song to life.
It was Rose’s vision to remove the park from the more traditional green, leafy park environment and to situate it in an urban, inner city area embracing the everyday grit of life, and so, it was built in the CBD.
“We see a mundane environment transported in an unexpected but deliberate fashion. We open on a group of friends rigging up the last pieces of equipment and getting into position, together they begin the core of their musical track. The narrative from here is simple, we encounter different groups of people emerging to partake in this event. The musical symphony builds towards a heart-warming ending,” says Gloyne.
“We avoided the use of primary colour throughout as this would create a childlike impression which would distract from our bold and authentic vision of a reinvented environment appealing to an older market,” adds Gloyne. The layout of the park is designed to create the impression of a stage band where each element plays its part. “The gritty qualities we see in street life ultimately provide us with a point of difference,” Gloyne explains.
In order to maximise shooting time they shot with five cameras, each on a different rig, making use of crane platforms, rooftops, polecams and Ronin rigs, as well as handheld shooting. Gloyne explains that Church Square is surrounded by high-rise buildings and therefore they did not have access to much natural lighting. “Huge reflectors were placed on a rooftop of one of the adjacent buildings and light was bounced down to the square. This lighting was further enhanced during the post-production process,” she says.
In order to build up the city environment in the background, additional buildings were added in during post-production. “It was also necessary to rotoscope a few of the camera crew out of the top shots,” adds Gloyne.
Filming took place over two days at the end of May 2016. The design and manufacture of the park was undertaken by Mary Minty at Artichoke and the stylist was Sylvia van Heerden. Saki Bergh at Left Post Production was the editor and the online VFX were done by Keno Naidoo, Michael Naidoo and Giulio Galinos at Left Post Production. Terry Simpson at Black Ginger was the colourist. Final mix and sound design was completed with Dave Harris at Freq’ncy.
The biggest challenge of the production was finding a track which would be able to work to the beat and percussion created by the musical instruments as developed in the park, and, adds Gloyne, a song which everyone agreed on. “Numerous international and local music searches were undertaken. Once narrowed down to a handful of song options, music rights were investigated, and this was then followed by briefing a group of international and local music producers who compiled pilots,” says Gloyne.
After an intensive four-month period, they were able to narrow it down to one pilot. The musician, Markus Wormstorm of Honeymoon Studios, then worked very closely with the director and editor to compile numerous offline edits. “It was tricky; as you changed the music, you had to change the picture, and vice versa. It was difficult to get the pictures to feel good without having finalised music but with repeated music or picture sessions we eventually had a client approved commercial the day of material submission.”
