I Am the Wind

1 September 2008

The Skinny
The client brief was to distill the highly complex explanation of Singapore's fully integrated, highly flexible, and operationally relevant third-generation Air Force into a simple, emotive film.
The idea was conceived by the DDB-RSAF team – namely Neil Johnson (executive creative director, DDB Singapore) and Terrence Tan (creative director, DDB Singapore).

The creative idea stems from a combination of the words 'Air' and 'Force', therein creating 'Wind'. Strong, resilient and tempered with a certain gentleness, it is an invisible, omnipresent force of nature. Marrying two key concepts - images of a formidable force built on cutting-edge technology and the essence of strong character and undefeatable spirit of the dedicated members of the RSAF saw the birth of the campaign theme, I am the Wind.
The idea evolves from the depiction of Wind as an element that delivers strength to people wherever and whenever it is needed. It is an idea that defines the very essence of the RSAF - it is there for a higher purpose.
The campaign is a branding effort for RSAF targeted at the mass public. It is also developed to target tertiary students as part of the RSAF's recruitment efforts.
The Production
The shoot for this project was mainly held in Singapore. Synchronising the shoot, especially for the footage within the airbases required much coordination and pre-planning with the rotary wing (Chinook and Apache) pilots themselves. Another challenge was shooting the aerial shots. A lot of effort and coordination was necessary to keep the camera steady while on the Chinook.
Considering that most of the shots needed to take place outdoors, the production team relied greatly on the weather. Fortunately, weather conditions were good during the shoot - encountering moderate cloud cover but with sufficient natural light for the duration of the shoot.
The helicopter shots were acquired on HDCAM while the rest of the project was shot with the Panasonic VariCam. As the production team had a lot of locations and footage to capture, shooting on a HDCAM was a lot more cost-effective.
The choice of shooting format for this project was widescreen 16:9 format. The advantage of shooting in this format was that the team was able to achieve a panoramic view for the commercial. This complimented the commercial as they had several scenic shots that were suited for this format.
The challenges of working on this project included the organization of pre-production and logistics to ensure seamless coordination between the agency, production house, client and the respective RSAF units.
The Post
In total, Infinite Frameworks took about 5 weeks, while Blackmagic Design took 6 weeks for post. The challenges involved compositing of various elements. Most of the scenes had two (or more) different elements and the tricky part is integrating them together so that the audience feels the interaction is real.
Each of the five Apaches was shot separately, as were the foreground and background. The timing and interaction had to be nailed perfectly for the different plates and other elements like lens flares, fog and mist had to be smoothly integrated.
In addition, all the skies were replaced to enhance the drama. The colour of the sky played a part in storytelling as well. The Chinooks in the TVC were shown flying on a rescue mission, so the presence of the rain clouds in the scene lent a sense of foreboding to it.
With the use of still images of aircrafts and painstakingly matching the details as close as possible, Infinite Frameworks then test rendered with different camera lenses to ensure that they were able to match the proportion and details to all the images that was collated through research.
Through research from various sources, Infinite Frameworks' goal was to animate the flight pattern of the various aircraft that not only looked authentic to personnel who are familiar with the planes' capabilities, but also appear dynamic and exciting.