The Reel Blog
Barclaycard - Rollercoaster
22/01/2010
0 Commentsadd commentSo you've seen the new 'Rollercoaster' ad from Barclaycard, admired the slick SpideyCam work, revelled in the Paul Giamatti-a-like protagonists beard-and-hair combo and downloaded 'More Than A Feeling for your iPod and now you want to know how they did it. Well luckily for you The Reel caught up with Art Director Szymon Rose and Copywirter Daniel Schaefer for a quick Q&A.
Did you feel a lot of pressure in following up ‘Waterslide’, as the spot was on most people’s 2008 Best Of lists?
Of course there was a lot of pressure straight from the beginning. Internally as well as externally.
Were any other crazy forms of transport you considered?
Yes. We thought about almost anything. Cheetahs, sledges, airships ... But a rollercoaster seemed to be the most fun for us.
Did you have any trouble retaining the consistency of the campaign and brand message whilst creating a distinctly new commercial?
The aim was always to make 'Rollercoaster' as distinctive and outstanding as possible. But without losing the feel and character of the overall campaign of course. We wanted this film to be a move forward since the Waterslide campaign, something bigger, more engaging and more exhilarating– we weren’t trying to create a replica.
Was it difficult convincing the client that rollercoasters were the waterslides for 2010?
Not at all. Luckily, they pretty much instantly fell in love with this idea.
How hard was the shoot? Were there any physical elements built or is it CG-tastic?
This shoot was a beast. Thank god we had MJZ, the Mill and Nicolai on board. Without their professionalism and enthusiasm it would have been impossible to pull this thing off. They did an amazing job. Of course there was a huge amount of CG necessary for this commercial. I think in every single shot there are CG elements. Although we tried to make as much as possible in camera. We had a 40 feet long real rollercoaster track and a real cart. Everything else was animation.
Who chose Boston as the soundtrack? Kudos!
Boston came to the table really early on in our music search process and it beat out the rest of the options.
Are you rollercoaster fans yourself? What’s your favourite? We like the Nemesis.
Of course we are. don't know the Nemesis. Just a few rollercoasters from Germany. But they are great as well.
What would be your ultimate form of transport to work? We can’t decide between a teleporter and battle elephant.
Well, the ultimate form of transport to work for us would be a Porsche 911 or an Audi R8. We know, it's not as exotic and exciting as a teleporter or a battle elephant and we might even be stuck in traffic. But we love cars. We're from Germany, what do you expect?
So there we go. Big thanks to Szymon, Daniel and Romy for their help.
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