The Brief

Nissan wanted to showcase their electric vehicle technology through an engaging and innovative film set against the walls of a race track - only viewable and recordable by driving at the set speed of the all-electric Nissan ARIYA thanks to its smooth acceleration and total control.

Medium

Film for TV and Online

Concept

Imagine this: 450m of wall in a hot desert, clad with 150 illustrated frames, each one printed out 3m by 2m in size. Nissan’s all-electric ARIYA drives past, camera attached to the bonnet, capturing footage as it goes. The result? A larger-than-life Zoetrope animation. (In its traditional form, an optical cylinder, which, when spun, gives the illusion of continuous motion.)

Execution

To capture the 150 beautifully illustrated Japanese-style frames in camera with pinpoint accuracy, we worked with Justin Pentecost, a renowned motion control and stop frame animation expert to develop a custom system using an off the shelf camera. Connected to a flash and set up with incredible precision to capture exactly five frames per second, the camera was attached to the bonnet of the car to allow us to take photos of each cell animation as the vehicle made its way down the track. 

It was vital that we hit a consistent speed to capture the content accurately - and with only 5 minutes of perfect light to work with, there was no room for error. Despite having such a small window of time to pull off an incredibly complicated mission, the capture was perfectly executed to create the ultimate high-speed Zoetrope.