ABOUT

We realise now more than ever that we define our future by the choices we make today. It is an exciting journey we jumped on, together with Audi and Selmore, thriving for everything to end up with nothing. Audi takes a strong stand in the future of the automobile industry with their new E-tron cars with zero emission.

The visual story of the one minute film explores the different connotations of the word ‘zero’, while keeping the recognisable round scape, explains Bas Moonen, VFX Supervisor. “During the post-production Creative Director Diederik Hillenius, Director Bram Schouw and our team kept exploring every angle, looking for the best visual translation of the zero concept while maintaining a very human feel. I used as much photographic references as possible to keep the visuals realistic, but always maintaining a personal touch.”
While almost every shot was touched in the post-production, the final scene became the icing on the cake to complete the story. “The final scene bring the conceptual idea of the 0 and the humane feeling together by linking back to nature, as a contrast to the technical shots of the particle accelerator, the engine and the wind tunnel. So for this shot, I completely redesigned the stock image in Flame to make the perspective, mountains and trees fit the previous scenes.”

The shots of the engine, wind tunnel and particle accelerator were made by a combination of CG and 2D visual effects. “The engine and wind tunnel scenes are built from scratch in CG in order to create a continuous story with strong technical visual elements without loosing the 0 shape. For the particle accelerator we created a set up in CG, which was finalised and updated in Flame by Jeroen van Berkel” explains Mark van Berkel, Lead 3D Artist. “For the engine shot we created several different set ups until we found the right set of parts we wanted to highlight, while keeping a realistic look and maintaining the round shape. It couldn’t be too clean, so we tried out different lighting and shading options. Our main goal was highlighting an extraordinary car, inside and out, in a stylish way.”

The music develops in three parts emphasising the different connotations of zero, illustrates Sebastiaan Roestenburg, Composer and Founding Partner. “To find right tone for the story we were after a unique sound of used instruments and harmony. The music guides you through all the different emotions to a kind of ecstasy at the end where it all comes together. Or actually comes to nothing. The first phase looks at the disappointment, which is underlined by the piano melody. It swiftly transforms to a heavenly and elevated feel in the second part, due to the choir and strings, until the music stops on the turning point.”

This point brings the story to Audi’s zero emission strategy. “Immediately after the fraction of silence the tempo accelerates combining the esoteric sound of the hang drum with a classical touch. The strong and honest voice over highlights these different parts even more and lets the music trigger your emotion.”

Responsible at client - Wil Giezenaar en Joost Klumper

Agency - Selmore
Creative Directors - Diederick Hillenius & Poppe van Pelt
Copy Writers - Diederick Hillenius & Zwier Veldhoen
Art Director - Diederick Hillenius
RTV Director - Hanneke Kampschreur
Account - Tom Stoffels en Gijs de Bruijn
Strategy - Gijs de Bruijn

Production Company - Bonkers
Director - Bram Schouw
Executive Producer - Saskia Kok
Producer - Jan Jinek
D.O.P./Cameraman - Jasper Wolf
Production Designer - Rikke Jelier
Service productie - Division


AMBASSADORS
VFX Producer - Jeroen van Es
VFX Supervisor - Bas Moonen
Lead 3D Artist - Mark van Berkel, Jeroen Cloosterman
3D Artists - Jonathan Krijgsman, Jurriën Boogert, Jeroen Hoolmans, Will Jeffers
2D Artists - Bas Moonen (lead), Jeroen van Berkel, Jeremy Verf, Dennis van der Linden, Sil Bulterman, Stephen Pepper, Peter van Rij, Hans van der Steilen
Music - Sebastiaan Roestenburg
Final mix - Ed Meijaard