Cape Town

I Want to Amarok Your World.

I want to hand it to Ogilvey’s Cape Town South Africa offices for turning out a smart and engaging spot for the VW Amarok (sadly a vehicle that will never make it to the USA). The production quality of this spot shines, with really great cinematography, editing, staging, casting and soundtrack.

Produced by Velocity Films the ad features the Amarok rolling through a museum designed to look like the Smithsonian built on a sound stage at Cape Town Film Studios. Velocity created five dioramas using over 130 tons of sand and 26 tons of rock depicting everything from cavemen to the lunar landings. As the truck rolls through the museum an unsuspecting janitor polishes the floors while listening to a funky version of “It Don’t Mean a Thing, If It Ain’t Got That Swing”.

The shoot and post work took more than two months to complete including the build out of the sets, and it shows. The final piece has a highly credible museum look and feel.

“The final result provides an unexpected, striking and amusing way of highlighting the technological innovation and smart, tough capabilities of the Amarok”. Jacques Massardo

Radio does Mad Men.

Lately I have been watching Mad Men seasons 1 through 4 on Netflix. With Season 5 delayed until January 2012 I’ve been jonesing for the show just a bit, and I decided to watch the first for seasons over. I’m actually really glad that I have. I am catching all sorts of things this time around that I either missed or forgot over the last 4 and a half years.

The real reason I am posting about Mad Men has nothing to do with my TV viewing habits. What it does have to do with are these great posters from Cape Town-based design studio Radio. I have no idea if these are going to be used to promote Mad Men for the AMC network, but if not they should. The posters have a really nice retro feel to them without being to period. At times they feel older than the decade that Mad Men is set in, but that doesn’t bother me that much. They have a great illustrative style and the execution is really well done.

30,000: An African surfing odyssey

Thirty Thousand is a film about two Australian surfers on a thirty kilometer journey along the West Coast of Africa in search of the perfect wave. Their travels take them through Angola, Liberia, Morocco, Namibia, Senegal, South Africa, Gambia, and the Western Sahara.

The trailer looks stunning with gorgeous cinematography and surroundings as the group takes us on a journey from Casablanca to Cape Town, showing us the wonderfully rich culture, untouched waves and the amazing people of Africa.