Shooting cars in Australia

Sydney has many great locations within 200km, and these are all “new” to Asian viewers. But perhaps the biggest attraction is the availability of some of the world’s best car shooting equipment. Sydney has both the Libra and Scorpio fully stabilized remote heads, the new Orbital arm capable of doing a 360 degree shot from a moving vehicle, Steadicam, Skycams, Technocranes, air suspension tracking vehicles, process trailers and helicopters equipped with the latest Cineflex HD gyro sphere.

In China, one of the regions’ most awarded creatives, Murphy Chou of Firstell was looking for both a director and a location for his Kia Sportage TV launch. He found Tenn Xoomsai from Bangkok’s Triton Productions and turned to UFOFILM in Sydney for the production. The client was used to very high production values, and the script called for a great number of locations, urban rooftops, fire escapes, ocean beaches, forests, waterfalls, sheer rockfaces, deserted sand dunes and rough dirt roads.

The idea was for the camera to follow a runner’s feet through all these difficult locations, until he finally reaches the Kia Sportage on a deserted rock overlooking a grand valley. Murphy’s clever end super then appears - “the world’s 2nd best 4WD”. In the 90 second version a montage of rough road driving highlights the Kia’s off road ability.

Shooting took place over four days in Sydney and the nearby Blue Mountains. For the helicopter day the Blue Mountains experienced incredibly strong winds. It was too dangerous to stand next to the Kia and Tenn’s cameraman Pip was understandably getting airsick as the Squirrel helicopter was tossed about the sky like a toy; but the footage from the stabilized Cineflex was dead steady. The finished commercials have so far scored two Golden Seal awards in China’s 4As. Murphy Chou says he likes shooting in Australia “because of the variety of topography, the good production values and it’s a convenient distance”.

Triton’s executive producer, Pump Pradubpongsa was so impressed with the Kia experience that he decided to bring his prestigious Lexus shoot to Australia.

This time director Tenn wanted a series of stunning visuals in “new to Asia” locations, and the coast south of Sydney was selected. The stunning Sea Cliff Bridge at Stanwell Park was closed for filming and waiting motorists were surprised to see a helicopter fly under the bridge and pass within a few metres of the speeding Lexus.

Pump commented ” When we received the brief the agency wanted a scenery spot that had the premium and luxury feel to reflect the nature of their brand. We don’t really have those locations in Thailand but prior to the brief we had shot another car commercial in Australia and we showed it to them. They loved the look and feel of the scenery down under with the variety of breathtaking locations from red sandy desert to snowy rocky mountains and everything in-between.

On top of that it came down to the easy access to skilled production teams; helicopters and other specialized equipment that helped us capture the grandeur of the location; as well as the comfort feeling of being able to work within the given budget and enjoy top rate support from UFOFILM. The team from Saatchi and Saatchi Bangkok and their client were very happy with the result”.

For both the Kia and Lexus shoots the hero cars were sourced in Sydney. Lexus was easy as the Aussie model is identical to the Thai one. But for Kia the agency sent out bumper bars, lights, handles, mirrors, badges and grilles and a friendly Kia dealer rented out a car and did all the modifications.

When the driver was in the shot the film was simply flipped over in post, so it appeared the car was the right hand drive Chinese model. Number plates were printed up in reverse to make the post process very easy. Even though it’s easy to get a car through Australian customs, being able to use Australian cars saved the cost of two-way air freight.

With great locations, crew’s that are very experienced in car shooting and all the production toys Australia is looking good as Asia’s car location. Especially if the Aussie dollar stays around 70 cents to the US! ASIAIMAGE