NoitulovE
Encyclopedia
noitulovE is a British television and cinema
advertisement
launched by Diageo
in 2005 to promote Guinness
draught
stout
. The 60-second piece formed the cornerstone of a £
15 million advertising campaign
targeting men in their late twenties and early thirties. The commercial shows, in reverse, the adventures of three characters who evolve from mudskipper
s to present day humans before tasting Guinness in a London pub
. The commercial was handled by the advertising agency
Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO
, with a budget of £1.3M. It was directed by Daniel Kleinman
. Production was contracted to Kleinman Productions, with post-production
by Framestore CFC
. It premiered on British television
on 3 October 2005.
noitulovE is the fifth television/cinema piece in the Good things come to those who wait series, and its premiere marked the end of a four-year hiatus. The advert and its associated campaign were a critical and financial success. It received over 30 awards from professional organisations in the advertising and television industries, and was the most-awarded commercial worldwide in 2006. The impact of the campaign was such that during a period in which the UK beer market experienced a substantial decline in revenue
, Guinness reported that its year-on-year earnings within the region had noticeably increased. At the same time, Guinness achieved its highest-ever volume and value shares and became the market leader within the region. This was attributed in no small part to the positive reception of noitulovE.
's rendition of "The Rhythm of Life" from the 1969 film version
of the 1966 Broadway
musical
Sweet Charity
, a reverse-motion sequence begins. The three men retreat from the bar and into the street, other patrons disappearing as they pass. As they move down the street, a reverse time-lapse
-style sequence transforms their clothes to match a rapidly-changing urban scene, which progresses through modern-day London to the Edwardian period
. Electric light
s transform into gas lamps and buildings begin to disappear frame by frame. A short cutaway sequence shows the city regressing into the past, shrinking to a small Saxon
settlement before disappearing entirely. Returning to the main sequence, the three men's clothes and hairstyles are adjusted into Bronze Age
equivalents as they pass through thickening woodland. A close-up of one of the characters shows his features quickly transformed into those of a caveman
. The trio are then frozen in an ice age
glacier
.
The three re-emerge from the glacier as primitive hominids, their clothes ripped away to reveal loincloth
s. They continue to walk backwards with a more simian
gait, and soon turn into chimpanzee
s. From there, they are transformed into a number of different species in quick succession, including flying squirrel
s, furry mammals, aquatic mammal
s, fish
, flightless bird
s, small dinosaur
s, and burrowing lizard
-like creatures. The environment around them changes rapidly as they travel, with cutaways showing millions of years of geological changes occurring in less than a few seconds. Finally, the three become mudskipper
s around a green-brown puddle. The action briefly moves forward again to show the middle character registering his disgust at the taste of the water with a "Pweugh!" sound. The commercial ends with a transition to a product shot of three pints of Guinness accompanied by the strapline "Good things come to those who wait".
Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO won the account for Guinness in 1996 with a campaign centred around their new strapline "Good things come to those who wait". They produced several commercials using variations on the theme, including Swimblack
, Bet on Black
, and the critically acclaimed Surfer
, voted the "Best Advert of All Time" by the British public in 2002. After the 2001 Dreamer
advertisements, Diageo, the corporate owners of Guinness, decided to pursue a more pan-European marketing strategy. The strapline proved difficult to translate, and was abandoned. Several new straplines were tried out over the next three years, including "Believe" (Free and Tom Crean) and "A story of darkness and light" (Moth and Mustang).
The new marketing strategy did not prove particularly successful, and in 2004 Diageo returned to regional advertising. AMV BBDO were presented with the choice of coming up with either a new theme to appeal to the 18–35 British male demographic or a new angle on the tried and tested Good things... concept. A number of ideas were put forward, including "The Longest Wait". From this concept, noitulovE was quickly plotted out: the advert would show three individuals waiting 500,000,000 years before finally taking their first sip of Guinness, the timeline compressed into a 50-second clip. The decision to run the "Evolution sequence" in reverse was taken fairly early, as it was felt that it would better hold viewers' interest during a 60-second television spot.
when the agency approached Daniel Kleinman
, known for his work on James Bond
title sequences, with the intention of taking him on as a director. After looking over the concept pitch and a rough draft of the script, Kleinman's immediate impressions were that the idea was "fresh", "an opportunity to try out some new techniques", and that it would "put Guinness back on track, doing a big 'wow' idea".
Kleinman contacted a pair of Canadian graphic novel
artists to begin the storyboard
ing process. Storyboarding the commercial meant that the agency could determine how much of the £1.3M budget to allocate to each section, and provided them with visuals to use as part of the presentation to Diageo when pitching the various concepts for a decision on which to pursue. The effort paid off and approval was given to move ahead with production.
shot in Iceland
. Time-lapse photographs were taken of the country's mudpot
s, volcanic terrain and frozen lakes using 35 mm film
cameras. The shooting was done in the early summer for the nearly continuous daylight
that the season afforded them. The next pieces of the commercial to be assembled were the live-action segments, shot in a greenscreen studio in London. Filming was done in three stages, with the three actors changing into different sets of prosthetic makeup
at each stage. For the final section the actors spent a week practising the choreography
behind walking backwards with an appropriately simian gait. Wires were attached to the back of each actor, allowing them to lean forwards to give the impression that they were being "sucked back in time" when the final cut was put together. While filming the actor sequences, VFX supervisor William Bartlett filmed the aerial view of London from Tower 42
's Vertigo bar.
With computer-generated imagery looking to make up so much of the commercial, Kleinman attempted to use film of real elements wherever possible. To this end, 200 mudskippers were brought to the studio from South Africa for the final scene, arriving via Singapore
. An entire afternoon was set aside for filming the mudskipper sequence. The footage obtained formed the major part of the final cut of the scene, with only one or two post-production changes: the addition of tail fins and animation of the expression of disgust that closes the piece. Stop motion
footage of other real elements was taken, including a stage-by-stage blowtorching of plants, used to show flora coming back to life in the reverse sequence, and shots of baking bread, used to model the geological changes to background rock formations. Additional real elements were to have been incorporated into the commercial, mostly from stock footage
of several animal species, but only short segments of apes and lizards appeared in the final cut.
work on the BBC
television documentary
Walking with Dinosaurs
. The original schedule allowed for three and a half months in post-production, with airing of the commercial to follow almost immediately.
The 24-man animation team was split into two groups. Half were assigned to the creation of the 15 new CGI creatures populating noitulovE (in Maya
), while the other half created the backgrounds (in Houdini
). Compositing
work – combining the greenscreen shots with stock footage and CGI elements – was performed in Flame and Inferno. As the final commercial was to be shown on cinema screens, the animators worked at a resolution higher than that afforded by the 576i
definition used by British PAL
-encoded television sets, to improve the appearance of the advert when projected.
Near the end of post-production, the creative team
decided that the music chosen to accompany the advert, an electronic
track by Groove Armada
, was not working particularly well. Peter Rayburn, who had chosen the track used in Surfer (Leftfield
's "Phat Planet"), was brought on as music director. Rayburn suggested three pieces, with "Rhythm of Life" ultimately presented to Guinness as an alternative and approved as a replacement.
and shows whose primary audience overlapped with the campaign's target demographic of British males in the 24–35 age range. The first burst was commissioned to run from 3 October to 13 November 2005, during programming such as the UEFA Champions League
, Lost
, Vincent
, Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway and terrestrial television
screenings of Austin Powers: Goldmember.
The second burst lasted through December. The focus moved to multichannel television
, with appearances in live
televised football matches, films, and popular programming such as I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!
. Two further bursts were commissioned for 2006, to run from 15 May to 9 June and 22 August to 8 October. Programmes selected for the May–June burst included Celebrity X Factor, Big Brother
and live football and cricket matches. The final series of spots ran during programming totalling 56 ratings points per week (56% of British television viewers), with much of the budget assigned to multichannel television.
noitulovE was well-received by critics within the advertising and television industries, and was predicted to win the 2006 Cannes Lions
Film Grand Prix, one of the advertising industry's highest awards. Advertising Age
said of the piece: "A flawless DGI production to an irresistible piece of music propelling a brilliant, astonishingly witty new iteration of a longstanding, unique positioning. This isn't just great advertising; it is perfect advertising." Gastón Bigio, Executive Creative Director for Del Campo Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi
remarked on the campaign in the run-up to the festival, saying "noitulovE is, in my opinion, the best. [...] This execution is absolutely incredible, as is the production." The main competition for the prize was thought to be the Australian Big Ad
for Carlton
draught beer, and the British Balls, for Sony
's BRAVIA
line of high definition television sets. After the three received Gold Lions in the Film category, they were shortlisted by the judges as contenders for the Grand Prix. Ultimately, the honour went to noitulovE. After the decision, David Droga, president of the jury which determined the outcome, said "It's a very very strong ad. A lot of the jurors felt that it was not only a stand-alone, remarkable ad, but also a triumphant return for a fabulous campaign." The victory placed director Daniel Kleinman at Number 29 in The Independent
's list of the Top 50 Newsmakers of 2006.
The 2006 edition of the Gunn Report
, an authoritative annual publication determining the advertising industry's most critically successful campaigns, revealed that noitulovE had received more awards that year than any other campaign worldwide. Among the awards were three Clios
, two Golden Sharks, and the Special Jury Prize at the Imagina Awards.
The ad was also a hit with the public. It has been credited by Guinness as being responsible for the substantial boost in sales experienced by the brand during the period in which it was broadcast. While revenues within the UK beer market declined by an average of −0.4% (−£19M), the year-on-year figures for Guinness showed an increase of 3.6% (+£13.3M). Between October 2005 and October 2006, Guinness achieved its highest ever volume (6.8%) and value (7.4%) shares, taking the position of market leader from Stella Artois
. Diageo attributed the growth in no small part to the positive reception garnered by noitulovE.
to raise awareness of the imminent switchover within the UK from analogue to digital television
. New versions of the two adverts were produced, showing the first few seconds of the original spot before being interrupted by "Digit Al", an animated spokesman for the campaign.
In 2004, Guinness launched a retrospective television advertising campaign promoting Guinness Extra Cold stout, featuring new ten-second versions of commercials broadcast between 1984 and 2004. These included Mars (with Rutger Hauer reprising his role as the "Pure Genius"), Anticipation
, Fish Bicycle, Surfer, and Bet on Black. noitulovE joined the campaign in 2006, and was the only piece to receive more than one new version. In the first of these, the patrons are encased only seconds after taking their first sip of Guinness in a glacier identical to the one which appeared half-way through the original spot. In the second, the sea through which the three fish bound backwards in the original spot is frozen while the trio are in mid-leap, leaving the characters skidding across the surface. In the final version, the primeval
pool at the end of the original spot freezes while the mudskippers are taking their drink, and the protagonists' tongues are left stuck in the ice.
When noitulovE was first proposed, it was the only pitch revisiting the Good things come to those who wait campaign, as, according to copywriter Ian Heartfield, both AMV BBDO and Diageo "didn't think [they] could do something good enough to warrant following on from Surfer and the like." However, following the success of noitulovE, three additional commercials have been aired within the Good Things... campaign: Fridge, Hands, and Tipping Point (Guinness' most expensive advertising campaign to date).
Television advertisement
A television advertisement or television commercial, often just commercial, advert, ad, or ad-film – is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization that conveys a message, typically one intended to market a product...
advertisement
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
launched by Diageo
Diageo
Diageo plc is a global alcoholic beverages company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the world's largest producer of spirits and a major producer of beer and wine....
in 2005 to promote Guinness
Guinness
Guinness is a popular Irish dry stout that originated in the brewery of Arthur Guinness at St. James's Gate, Dublin. Guinness is directly descended from the porter style that originated in London in the early 18th century and is one of the most successful beer brands worldwide, brewed in almost...
draught
Draught beer
Draught beer is beer served from a cask or a pressurised keg.-History of draught:Until Joseph Bramah patented the beer engine in 1785, beer was served directly from the barrel and carried to the customer. The Old English word for carry was dragen which developed into a series of related words,...
stout
Stout
Stout is a dark beer made using roasted malt or barley, hops, water and yeast. Stouts were traditionally the generic term for the strongest or stoutest porters, typically 7% or 8%, produced by a brewery....
. The 60-second piece formed the cornerstone of a £
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
15 million advertising campaign
Advertising campaign
An advertising campaign is a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme which make up an integrated marketing communication...
targeting men in their late twenties and early thirties. The commercial shows, in reverse, the adventures of three characters who evolve from mudskipper
Mudskipper
Mudskippers are members of the subfamily Oxudercinae , within the family Gobiidae . They are completely amphibious fish, fish that can use their pectoral fins to walk on land...
s to present day humans before tasting Guinness in a London pub
Public house
A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...
. The commercial was handled by the advertising agency
Advertising agency
An advertising agency or ad agency is a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients. An ad agency is independent from the client and provides an outside point of view to the effort of selling the client's products or services...
Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO
Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO
AMV BBDO is an advertising agency that works with over 85 brands, including BT, BlackBerry, Sainsbury’s, Aviva, Walkers and Mars. AMV identifies and addresses business challenges for its clients with integrated campaigns, incorporating digital, social, experiential, print or broadcast...
, with a budget of £1.3M. It was directed by Daniel Kleinman
Daniel Kleinman
Daniel Kleinman is a British television commercial and music video director who was title sequence designer for the James Bond series of films from 1995's GoldenEye until he was replaced by MK12 for 2008's Quantum of Solace....
. Production was contracted to Kleinman Productions, with post-production
Post-production
Post-production is part of filmmaking and the video production process. It occurs in the making of motion pictures, television programs, radio programs, advertising, audio recordings, photography, and digital art...
by Framestore CFC
Framestore CFC
Framestore is a British Oscar-winning visual effects company based near Oxford Street in London. Formed in 1986, it acquired the Computer Film Company in 1997. The company works across several different areas of the media: feature films, commercials, music videos, feature animation and digital.The...
. It premiered on British television
British television
Public television broadcasting started in the United Kingdom in 1936, and now has a collection of free and subscription services over a variety of distribution media, through which there are over 480 channelsTaking the base Sky EPG TV Channels. A breakdown is impossible due to a) the number of...
on 3 October 2005.
noitulovE is the fifth television/cinema piece in the Good things come to those who wait series, and its premiere marked the end of a four-year hiatus. The advert and its associated campaign were a critical and financial success. It received over 30 awards from professional organisations in the advertising and television industries, and was the most-awarded commercial worldwide in 2006. The impact of the campaign was such that during a period in which the UK beer market experienced a substantial decline in revenue
Revenue
In business, revenue is income that a company receives from its normal business activities, usually from the sale of goods and services to customers. In many countries, such as the United Kingdom, revenue is referred to as turnover....
, Guinness reported that its year-on-year earnings within the region had noticeably increased. At the same time, Guinness achieved its highest-ever volume and value shares and became the market leader within the region. This was attributed in no small part to the positive reception of noitulovE.
Sequence
The piece begins with three patrons taking their first sip of Guinness in a London pub. To the accompaniment of Sammy Davis, Jr.Sammy Davis, Jr.
Samuel George "Sammy" Davis Jr. was an American entertainer and was also known for his impersonations of actors and other celebrities....
's rendition of "The Rhythm of Life" from the 1969 film version
Sweet Charity (film)
Sweet Charity, full title of which is Sweet Charity: The Adventures of a Girl Who Wanted to Be Loved, is a 1969 American musical film directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse, written by Neil Simon, and with music by Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields...
of the 1966 Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
musical
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
Sweet Charity
Sweet Charity
Sweet Charity is a musical with music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by Dorothy Fields and book by Neil Simon. It was directed and choreographed for Broadway by Bob Fosse starring his wife and muse Gwen Verdon. It is based on Federico Fellini's screenplay for Nights of Cabiria...
, a reverse-motion sequence begins. The three men retreat from the bar and into the street, other patrons disappearing as they pass. As they move down the street, a reverse time-lapse
Time-lapse
Time-lapse photography is a cinematography technique whereby the frequency at which film frames are captured is much lower than that which will be used to play the sequence back. When replayed at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster and thus lapsing...
-style sequence transforms their clothes to match a rapidly-changing urban scene, which progresses through modern-day London to the Edwardian period
Edwardian period
The Edwardian era or Edwardian period in the United Kingdom is the period covering the reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910.The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 and the succession of her son Edward marked the end of the Victorian era...
. Electric light
Electric light
Electric lights are a convenient and economic form of artificial lighting which provide increased comfort, safety and efficiency. Most electric lighting is powered by centrally-generated electric power, but lighting may also be powered by mobile or standby electric generators or battery systems...
s transform into gas lamps and buildings begin to disappear frame by frame. A short cutaway sequence shows the city regressing into the past, shrinking to a small Saxon
Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...
settlement before disappearing entirely. Returning to the main sequence, the three men's clothes and hairstyles are adjusted into Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
equivalents as they pass through thickening woodland. A close-up of one of the characters shows his features quickly transformed into those of a caveman
Caveman
A caveman or troglodyte is a stock character based upon widespread concepts of the way in which early prehistoric humans may have looked and behaved...
. The trio are then frozen in an ice age
Ice age
An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...
glacier
Glacier
A glacier is a large persistent body of ice that forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. At least 0.1 km² in area and 50 m thick, but often much larger, a glacier slowly deforms and flows due to stresses induced by its weight...
.
The three re-emerge from the glacier as primitive hominids, their clothes ripped away to reveal loincloth
Loincloth
A loincloth is a one-piece male garment, sometimes kept in place by a belt, which covers the genitals and, at least partially, the buttocks.-History and types:Loincloths are being and have been worn:*in societies where no other clothing is needed or wanted...
s. They continue to walk backwards with a more simian
Simian
The simians are the "higher primates" familiar to most people: the Old World monkeys and apes, including humans, , and the New World monkeys or platyrrhines. Simians tend to be larger than the "lower primates" or prosimians.- Classification and evolution :The simians are split into three groups...
gait, and soon turn into chimpanzee
Chimpanzee
Chimpanzee, sometimes colloquially chimp, is the common name for the two extant species of ape in the genus Pan. The Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species:...
s. From there, they are transformed into a number of different species in quick succession, including flying squirrel
Flying squirrel
Flying squirrels, scientifically known as Pteromyini or Petauristini, are a tribe of 44 species of squirrels .- Description :...
s, furry mammals, aquatic mammal
Aquatic mammal
Aquatic and semi-aquatic mammals are a diverse group of mammals that dwell partly or entirely in bodies of water. They include the various marine mammals who dwell in oceans, as well as various freshwater species, such as the Platypus and the European Otter.-Groups:* Order Sirenia: Sirenians**...
s, fish
Fish
Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...
, flightless bird
Flightless bird
Flightless birds are birds which lack the ability to fly, relying instead on their ability to run or swim. They are thought to have evolved from flying ancestors. There are about forty species in existence today, the best known being the ostrich, emu, cassowary, rhea, kiwi, and penguin...
s, small dinosaur
Dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...
s, and burrowing lizard
Lizard
Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with nearly 3800 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica as well as most oceanic island chains...
-like creatures. The environment around them changes rapidly as they travel, with cutaways showing millions of years of geological changes occurring in less than a few seconds. Finally, the three become mudskipper
Mudskipper
Mudskippers are members of the subfamily Oxudercinae , within the family Gobiidae . They are completely amphibious fish, fish that can use their pectoral fins to walk on land...
s around a green-brown puddle. The action briefly moves forward again to show the middle character registering his disgust at the taste of the water with a "Pweugh!" sound. The commercial ends with a transition to a product shot of three pints of Guinness accompanied by the strapline "Good things come to those who wait".
Background
Swimblack
Swimblack is a 1998 advertisement for Guinness-brand draught stout broadcast in the United Kingdom. It is the first in the Good things come to those who wait advertising campaign created by Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO who had won the Guinness account from Ogilvy & Mather in January 1998...
, Bet on Black
Bet on Black
Bet on Black, occasionally referred to as "Snail Race", is an advertising campaign run in 2000 by Diageo to promote Guinness-brand stout in the United Kingdom. The piece, directed by Frank Budgen, follows a snail race taking place in a town of Latin American appearance...
, and the critically acclaimed Surfer
Surfer (Guinness)
Surfer is a critically acclaimed integrated advertising campaign launched in 1999 by Diageo to promote Guinness-brand draught stout in the United Kingdom. The cornerstone of the campaign is a television commercial, originally 60 seconds long, which centred around a Polynesian surfer...
, voted the "Best Advert of All Time" by the British public in 2002. After the 2001 Dreamer
Dreamer (Guinness)
Dreamer is an integrated advertising campaign launched by Diageo in 2001 to promote Guinness-brand draught stout in the United Kingdom. It is the fourth piece of the Good things come to those who wait campaign, following on from Swimblack, Surfer, and Bet on Black...
advertisements, Diageo, the corporate owners of Guinness, decided to pursue a more pan-European marketing strategy. The strapline proved difficult to translate, and was abandoned. Several new straplines were tried out over the next three years, including "Believe" (Free and Tom Crean) and "A story of darkness and light" (Moth and Mustang).
The new marketing strategy did not prove particularly successful, and in 2004 Diageo returned to regional advertising. AMV BBDO were presented with the choice of coming up with either a new theme to appeal to the 18–35 British male demographic or a new angle on the tried and tested Good things... concept. A number of ideas were put forward, including "The Longest Wait". From this concept, noitulovE was quickly plotted out: the advert would show three individuals waiting 500,000,000 years before finally taking their first sip of Guinness, the timeline compressed into a 50-second clip. The decision to run the "Evolution sequence" in reverse was taken fairly early, as it was felt that it would better hold viewers' interest during a 60-second television spot.
Pre-production
The project had not yet been greenlitGreenlight
To green-light a project is to give permission or a go ahead to move forward with a project. In the context of the movie and TV businesses, to green-light something is to formally approve its production finance, thereby allowing the project to move forward from the development phase to...
when the agency approached Daniel Kleinman
Daniel Kleinman
Daniel Kleinman is a British television commercial and music video director who was title sequence designer for the James Bond series of films from 1995's GoldenEye until he was replaced by MK12 for 2008's Quantum of Solace....
, known for his work on James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
title sequences, with the intention of taking him on as a director. After looking over the concept pitch and a rough draft of the script, Kleinman's immediate impressions were that the idea was "fresh", "an opportunity to try out some new techniques", and that it would "put Guinness back on track, doing a big 'wow' idea".
Kleinman contacted a pair of Canadian graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
artists to begin the storyboard
Storyboard
Storyboards are graphic organizers in the form of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence....
ing process. Storyboarding the commercial meant that the agency could determine how much of the £1.3M budget to allocate to each section, and provided them with visuals to use as part of the presentation to Diageo when pitching the various concepts for a decision on which to pursue. The effort paid off and approval was given to move ahead with production.
Production
Production of the commercial took place over two months, with principal photographyPrincipal photography
thumb|300px|Film production on location in [[Newark, New Jersey]].Principal photography is the phase of film production in which the movie is filmed, with actors on set and cameras rolling, as distinct from pre-production and post-production....
shot in Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
. Time-lapse photographs were taken of the country's mudpot
Mudpot
A mudpot, mud pool or paint pot is a sort of hot spring or fumarole consisting of a pool of usually bubbling mud. The mud is generally of white to greyish color, but is sometimes stained with reddish or pink spots from iron compounds...
s, volcanic terrain and frozen lakes using 35 mm film
35 mm film
35 mm film is the film gauge most commonly used for chemical still photography and motion pictures. The name of the gauge refers to the width of the photographic film, which consists of strips 35 millimeters in width...
cameras. The shooting was done in the early summer for the nearly continuous daylight
Midnight sun
The midnight sun is a natural phenomenon occurring in summer months at latitudes north and nearby to the south of the Arctic Circle, and south and nearby to the north of the Antarctic Circle where the sun remains visible at the local midnight. Given fair weather, the sun is visible for a continuous...
that the season afforded them. The next pieces of the commercial to be assembled were the live-action segments, shot in a greenscreen studio in London. Filming was done in three stages, with the three actors changing into different sets of prosthetic makeup
Prosthetic makeup
Prosthetic makeup is the process of using prosthetic sculpting, molding and casting techniques to create advanced cosmetic effects...
at each stage. For the final section the actors spent a week practising the choreography
Choreography
Choreography is the art of designing sequences of movements in which motion, form, or both are specified. Choreography may also refer to the design itself, which is sometimes expressed by means of dance notation. The word choreography literally means "dance-writing" from the Greek words "χορεία" ...
behind walking backwards with an appropriately simian gait. Wires were attached to the back of each actor, allowing them to lean forwards to give the impression that they were being "sucked back in time" when the final cut was put together. While filming the actor sequences, VFX supervisor William Bartlett filmed the aerial view of London from Tower 42
Tower 42
Tower 42 is the second tallest skyscraper in the City of London and the fifth tallest in London overall. The original name was the National Westminster Tower, having been built to house the National Westminster Bank's International Division. Seen from above, the tower closely resembles the NatWest...
's Vertigo bar.
With computer-generated imagery looking to make up so much of the commercial, Kleinman attempted to use film of real elements wherever possible. To this end, 200 mudskippers were brought to the studio from South Africa for the final scene, arriving via Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
. An entire afternoon was set aside for filming the mudskipper sequence. The footage obtained formed the major part of the final cut of the scene, with only one or two post-production changes: the addition of tail fins and animation of the expression of disgust that closes the piece. Stop motion
Stop motion
Stop motion is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence...
footage of other real elements was taken, including a stage-by-stage blowtorching of plants, used to show flora coming back to life in the reverse sequence, and shots of baking bread, used to model the geological changes to background rock formations. Additional real elements were to have been incorporated into the commercial, mostly from stock footage
Stock footage
Stock footage, and similarly, archive footage, library pictures and file footage are film or video footage that may or may not be custom shot for use in a specific film or television program. Stock footage is of beneficial use to filmmakers as it is sometimes less expensive than shooting new...
of several animal species, but only short segments of apes and lizards appeared in the final cut.
Post-production
Post-production work was handled mostly by Framestore CFC, who had worked on previous Guinness campaigns Surfer and Dreamer, and had worked with Daniel Kleinman on a number of outside projects, including several commercials and James Bond title sequences. The project was overseen by William Bartlett, known for his visual effectsVisual effects
Visual effects are the various processes by which imagery is created and/or manipulated outside the context of a live action shoot. Visual effects involve the integration of live-action footage and generated imagery to create environments which look realistic, but would be dangerous, costly, or...
work on the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
television documentary
Television documentary
Documentary television is a genre of television programming that broadcasts documentaries.* Documentary television series, a television series which is made up of documentary episodes....
Walking with Dinosaurs
Walking with Dinosaurs
Walking with Dinosaurs is a six-part documentary television miniseries that was produced by BBC, narrated by Kenneth Branagh, and first aired in the United Kingdom, in 1999. The series was subsequently aired in North America on the Discovery Channel in 2000, with Branagh's voice replaced with that...
. The original schedule allowed for three and a half months in post-production, with airing of the commercial to follow almost immediately.
The 24-man animation team was split into two groups. Half were assigned to the creation of the 15 new CGI creatures populating noitulovE (in Maya
Maya (software)
Autodesk Maya , commonly shortened to Maya, is 3D computer graphics software that runs on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS and Linux, originally developed by Alias Systems Corporation and currently owned and developed by Autodesk, Inc. It is used to create interactive 3D applications, including video...
), while the other half created the backgrounds (in Houdini
Houdini (software)
Houdini is a high-end 3D animation package developed by Side Effects Software which is headquartered in Toronto, Canada. It is a rewrite of the PRISMS ecosystem of standalone tools. Its chief distinction from other packages is that it has been designed as a purely procedural environment...
). Compositing
Compositing
Compositing is the combining of visual elements from separate sources into single images, often to create the illusion that all those elements are parts of the same scene. Live-action shooting for compositing is variously called "chroma key", "blue screen", "green screen" and other names. Today,...
work – combining the greenscreen shots with stock footage and CGI elements – was performed in Flame and Inferno. As the final commercial was to be shown on cinema screens, the animators worked at a resolution higher than that afforded by the 576i
576i
576i is a standard-definition video mode used in PAL and SECAM countries. In digital applications it is usually referred to as "576i", in analogue contexts it is often quoted as "625 lines"...
definition used by British PAL
PAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
-encoded television sets, to improve the appearance of the advert when projected.
Near the end of post-production, the creative team
Creative Director
A creative director is a position often found within the graphic design, film, music, fashion, advertising, media or entertainment industries, but may be useful in other creative organizations such as web development and software development firms as well....
decided that the music chosen to accompany the advert, an electronic
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
track by Groove Armada
Groove Armada
Groove Armada is an English electronic music duo from London, England comprising Andy Cato and Tom Findlay. They are perhaps best known for their singles "I See You Baby" and "Superstylin'"...
, was not working particularly well. Peter Rayburn, who had chosen the track used in Surfer (Leftfield
Leftfield
Leftfield are a British duo of electronica artists and record producers, namely Paul Daley and Neil Barnes, who formed in 1990 in London, England...
's "Phat Planet"), was brought on as music director. Rayburn suggested three pieces, with "Rhythm of Life" ultimately presented to Guinness as an alternative and approved as a replacement.
Schedule
noitulovE was originally to have begun its run in September 2005, but the airdate was pushed back several weeks as post-production took longer than anticipated. As had been the case with several earlier campaigns, the commercial was to air in several bursts, throughout 2005 and 2006. Spots were purchased in the commercial breaks of sports broadcasts, high-budget television dramasDramatic programming
Dramatic programming in the UK, or television drama and television drama series in the US, is television program content that is scripted and fictional along the lines of √a traditional drama. This excludes, for example, sports television, television news, reality show and game shows, stand-up...
and shows whose primary audience overlapped with the campaign's target demographic of British males in the 24–35 age range. The first burst was commissioned to run from 3 October to 13 November 2005, during programming such as the UEFA Champions League
UEFA Champions League
The UEFA Champions League, known simply the Champions League and originally known as the European Champion Clubs' Cup or European Cup, is an annual international club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations since 1955 for the top football clubs in Europe. It...
, Lost
Lost (TV series)
Lost is an American television series that originally aired on ABC from September 22, 2004 to May 23, 2010, consisting of six seasons. Lost is a drama series that follows the survivors of the crash of a commercial passenger jet flying between Sydney and Los Angeles, on a mysterious tropical island...
, Vincent
Vincent (TV series)
Vincent is an ITV drama series. An initial series was made and aired in 2005 and starred Ray Winstone, in the title role, and Suranne Jones as two members of a team of private eyes hired by people to spy on their partners or indeed anyone else they need to keep tabs on. The four part series also...
, Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway and terrestrial television
Terrestrial television
Terrestrial television is a mode of television broadcasting which does not involve satellite transmission or cables — typically using radio waves through transmitting and receiving antennas or television antenna aerials...
screenings of Austin Powers: Goldmember.
The second burst lasted through December. The focus moved to multichannel television
Satellite television
Satellite television is television programming delivered by the means of communications satellite and received by an outdoor antenna, usually a parabolic mirror generally referred to as a satellite dish, and as far as household usage is concerned, a satellite receiver either in the form of an...
, with appearances in live
Live television
Live television refers to a television production broadcast in real-time, as events happen, in the present. From the early days of television until about 1958, live television was used heavily, except for filmed shows such as I Love Lucy and Gunsmoke. Video tape did not exist until 1957...
televised football matches, films, and popular programming such as I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!
I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!
I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here is a reality television game show series in which 8 to 15 celebrities live together in a jungle environment for a few weeks. They have no luxuries, and compete to win a cash prize...
. Two further bursts were commissioned for 2006, to run from 15 May to 9 June and 22 August to 8 October. Programmes selected for the May–June burst included Celebrity X Factor, Big Brother
Big Brother (UK)
Big Brother UK is the British version of the Dutch Big Brother television format, which takes its name from the character in George Orwell's 1948 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four...
and live football and cricket matches. The final series of spots ran during programming totalling 56 ratings points per week (56% of British television viewers), with much of the budget assigned to multichannel television.
Awards
| List of awards | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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EWLINE
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noitulovE was well-received by critics within the advertising and television industries, and was predicted to win the 2006 Cannes Lions
Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival
The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is a global event for those working in advertising and related fields. The seven-day festival, incorporating the awarding of the Lions awards, is held yearly at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès in Cannes, France...
Film Grand Prix, one of the advertising industry's highest awards. Advertising Age
Advertising Age
Advertising Age is a magazine, delivering news, analysis and data on marketing and media. The magazine was started as a broadsheet newspaper in Chicago in 1930...
said of the piece: "A flawless DGI production to an irresistible piece of music propelling a brilliant, astonishingly witty new iteration of a longstanding, unique positioning. This isn't just great advertising; it is perfect advertising." Gastón Bigio, Executive Creative Director for Del Campo Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi
Saatchi & Saatchi
Saatchi & Saatchi is a global advertising agency network with 140 offices in 80 countries and over 6,500 staff. It was founded in London in 1970 but now headquartered in New York. The parent company of the agency group was known as Saatchi & Saatchi PLC from 1976 to 1994, was listed on the London...
remarked on the campaign in the run-up to the festival, saying "noitulovE is, in my opinion, the best. [...] This execution is absolutely incredible, as is the production." The main competition for the prize was thought to be the Australian Big Ad
Carlton Draught: Big Ad
The "Big Ad" is a television advertisement for Carlton Draught pale lager. It was created by George Patterson and Partners of Melbourne, Australia. The agency used viral marketing techniques to promote the advertisement before it was broadcast on television...
for Carlton
Carlton & United Beverages
Carlton & United Breweries is an Australian brewing company based in Abbotsford, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria. In 1983 it became a wholly owned subsidiary of Elders IXL and CUB was delisted. In 1990, Elders IXL renamed to the Foster's Group, and in July 2004, CUB changed its name to Carlton and...
draught beer, and the British Balls, for Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
's BRAVIA
BRAVIA
BRAVIA is a Sony brand used to market its high-definition LCD televisions, projection TVs and front projectors and for the PlayStation 3 , along with its home cinema range under the sub-brand BRAVIA Theatre. The BRAVIA name is an acronym of "Best Resolution Audio Visual Integrated Architecture"...
line of high definition television sets. After the three received Gold Lions in the Film category, they were shortlisted by the judges as contenders for the Grand Prix. Ultimately, the honour went to noitulovE. After the decision, David Droga, president of the jury which determined the outcome, said "It's a very very strong ad. A lot of the jurors felt that it was not only a stand-alone, remarkable ad, but also a triumphant return for a fabulous campaign." The victory placed director Daniel Kleinman at Number 29 in The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
's list of the Top 50 Newsmakers of 2006.
The 2006 edition of the Gunn Report
Gunn Report
The Gunn Report and Showreel of the Year is an annual publication detailing the most successful print and television advertising campaigns of the year. It is authored by Donald Gunn and Emma Wilkie...
, an authoritative annual publication determining the advertising industry's most critically successful campaigns, revealed that noitulovE had received more awards that year than any other campaign worldwide. Among the awards were three Clios
Clio Awards
The Clio Awards are annual awards bestowed to reward innovation and creative excellence in advertising, design and communication. The categories include work in nearly all types of media, and the judges are advertising professionals from around the world....
, two Golden Sharks, and the Special Jury Prize at the Imagina Awards.
The ad was also a hit with the public. It has been credited by Guinness as being responsible for the substantial boost in sales experienced by the brand during the period in which it was broadcast. While revenues within the UK beer market declined by an average of −0.4% (−£19M), the year-on-year figures for Guinness showed an increase of 3.6% (+£13.3M). Between October 2005 and October 2006, Guinness achieved its highest ever volume (6.8%) and value (7.4%) shares, taking the position of market leader from Stella Artois
Stella Artois
Stella Artois is a 5% ABV lager brewed in Leuven, Belgium since 1926. In the UK, Canada and New Zealand a 4% ABV version is also available.-Production:...
. Diageo attributed the growth in no small part to the positive reception garnered by noitulovE.
Legacy
As one of the most recognisable British television advertisements of 2006, noitulovE was one of two commercials (the other being Sony's Balls) to feature in a £200M campaign launched by Digital UKDigital UK
Digital UK is the body in charge of the digital switchover of television in the United Kingdom.Digital UK communicates switchover to the public, works with industry to build support for the switchover programme, and co-ordinates engineering work across the UK broadcast network...
to raise awareness of the imminent switchover within the UK from analogue to digital television
Digital television
Digital television is the transmission of audio and video by digital signals, in contrast to the analog signals used by analog TV...
. New versions of the two adverts were produced, showing the first few seconds of the original spot before being interrupted by "Digit Al", an animated spokesman for the campaign.
In 2004, Guinness launched a retrospective television advertising campaign promoting Guinness Extra Cold stout, featuring new ten-second versions of commercials broadcast between 1984 and 2004. These included Mars (with Rutger Hauer reprising his role as the "Pure Genius"), Anticipation
Anticipation (Guinness)
Anticipation is an award-winning Irish advertisement launched by Guinness plc in 1994 to promote Guinness-brand draught stout. The advert, which appeared in print, posters, and cinema and television spots, was produced by Irish advertising agency Arks, was directed by Richie Smyth and starred the...
, Fish Bicycle, Surfer, and Bet on Black. noitulovE joined the campaign in 2006, and was the only piece to receive more than one new version. In the first of these, the patrons are encased only seconds after taking their first sip of Guinness in a glacier identical to the one which appeared half-way through the original spot. In the second, the sea through which the three fish bound backwards in the original spot is frozen while the trio are in mid-leap, leaving the characters skidding across the surface. In the final version, the primeval
Primeval
Primeval or primæval may refer to:* Primeval, a British science fiction television series.* Primeval , a 2007 film* Primeval , a score of music from the BBC TV series Doctor Who...
pool at the end of the original spot freezes while the mudskippers are taking their drink, and the protagonists' tongues are left stuck in the ice.
When noitulovE was first proposed, it was the only pitch revisiting the Good things come to those who wait campaign, as, according to copywriter Ian Heartfield, both AMV BBDO and Diageo "didn't think [they] could do something good enough to warrant following on from Surfer and the like." However, following the success of noitulovE, three additional commercials have been aired within the Good Things... campaign: Fridge, Hands, and Tipping Point (Guinness' most expensive advertising campaign to date).
External links
- Original noitulovE spot at the Framestore CFC website. (.mov format)
- A compilation of the three noitulovE Extra Cold spots at the Guinness website. Requires age verification. (Direct link to the swfSWFSWF is an Adobe Flash file format used for multimedia, vector graphics and ActionScript. Originating with FutureWave Software, then transferred to Macromedia, and then coming under the control of Adobe, SWF files can contain animations or applets of varying degrees of interactivity and function.,...
file.) - The "Digital Switchover Takeover" spot at Esphinx.com