Enjoy the Magic: How a Blockbuster Coca-Cola Spot Is Bringing Fizz to Cinemas

There’s no feeling like cinema; whether it’s the gripping drama playing out on the big screen, or drifting away into the story from the comfort of your seat. For millions, it’s also a feeling synonymous with Coca-Cola, as the drink invariably finds itself nestled by the side of moviegoers to accompany their popcorn. 

It makes perfect sense, then, for the iconic cola brand to put a cinematic ad together which will help welcome audiences into AMC theatres over the next few years. Directed by Yves Callewaert (represented by Cake Factory in the USA), the ad plays out as a whistle stop, action-packed ode to the big screen. Zooming past kinetic dancers, a frenetic car chase and towards a beautiful romantic finale, the short film is the perfect reminder of what makes cinema so special. 

And, like all the best movie projects, a lot of love went into the ad’s production. Shot on location in South Africa, the finished film represents the end of a journey years in the making. 

To find out more about how the blockbuster ad came together, LBB caught up with Yves… 

LBB> Yves, how did you first encounter this project and what was your vision at the very start? 

Yves> It’s funny, because this is an ad that really has evolved in scope over time. When I first joined the project it was purely going to be a shoot with dancers at an AMC theatre, but it organically grew into something much more ambitious where we would imitate film scenes. So in terms of my own vision, it never felt like it was ‘one’ thing. It was amorphous. It was a lot of collaboration and back and forth with the agency to develop a structured script.

LBB> And the end result is something which feels very cinematic. What did you do as a director to capture that feeling of high-octane cinema playing out in an ad? 

Yves> I come from a background as a photographer and DoP. So I have a kind of instinctive reflex to frame and compose shots in a way that probably does feel quite cinematic - I love doing that. The thing about making something feel like ‘cinema’, in my view, is that it doesn’t mean everything needs to be slick and overly clean. It can be raw, as well. 

In this instance, I also knew that I wanted to utilise colour. My main reference for doing that was actually the 2011 Ryan Gosling film Drive. And that became even more of an influence as we tackled the driving scene, which proved to be one of the toughest parts of the production. 

Above: A behind-the-scenes film shows how the ad got made. 

LBB> Why was that? 

Yves> Well, from a location standpoint I wanted to shoot in a city centre, and not in a remote place. I wanted to really feel the speed of the car, making it feel more tangible and dangerous. We only had five seconds to show the car chase, so this was a great way to communicate that. 

Because of that choice, you can’t always ensure you’ve blocked off every single street and access point and there will always be some unpredictable variables. But in the end, the way we did it adds to the rawness of it which I mentioned earlier. 

LBB> Given there are so many nods to Hollywood moments in the ad, did you look to any other specific movies for inspiration? 

Yves> Not really, because we didn’t want it to feel too much like one specific film. And also, from my point of view, I wanted to leave some of the visual composition open to adjustments given we were shooting on location. You want to have a possibility for some spontaneity. I think it’s important to act on your instincts once you’re on location, rather than be locked into one specific vision. 

LBB> Was it helpful for you to have a bit of freedom to find the right visuals whilst on-set? 

Yves> Yeah, but of course our focus was on delivering what was required for the project. If we’d been told that, for example, we needed to get something that looked like ‘Avatar’ then we’d have found a way to make that happen. But the goal was to make something ‘cinematic’ in a broad, open sense - so there’s obviously a lot more room to play within that and it is more freeing, yes. 

An interesting thing for us to keep in mind throughout the production was the fact that this film was going to play in cinemas, so everything we made would need to feel at home on a cinema screen. That’s a fun challenge as a filmmaker, and it does inspire you to think in slightly different ways. 

LBB> How was the casting process? 

Yves> As it happens, this was one of those jobs where you see someone really early on who you just know is perfect for the role. In this case it was Jada Delgado, she had the perfect spirit and was an amazing dancer. Happily, she ended up getting the role and it went as brilliantly as I hoped it would do. 

LBB> Were there any other noteworthy challenges that you had to overcome? 

Yves> The finished film is incredibly fast-paced, which made for an interesting challenge in the transitional moments. Although we’ve talked about how everything we shot needed to feel cinematic, it also needed to be disparate and yet stitched together in a way that felt coherent and at least somewhat smooth. 

I had to be cognisant of this in the way that my camera moved. As a scene ended, the picture still needed to be on-the-move so that it would flow into the next moment. Calculating that was a challenge, because you had to think about what felt like a good pace for the shot you’re currently looking at, as well as what will feel right for the one it transitions into. 

Because the entire ad will be cut down into thirty seconds, there’s a danger of it feeling a little schizophrenic! Fortunately, I’m really delighted with how the finished spot has turned out. 

LBB> Is there anything that you’d do differently if you had your time again? 

Yves> There’s nothing burning in my mind, no. At the end of the day the whole thing is such a team effort and I really feel that everyone involved stepped up brilliantly to make something which overcomes those challenges and really works. I suppose I could say that I wish it wasn’t so windy in South Africa, given that it played havoc with our camera movement. But, as I say, we overcame that and found solutions in the end. 

LBB> Could you ever have been tempted to go for a virtual production-style stage with an LED background, where you could control everything? 

Yves> I think that approach has a lot of benefits. But there’s also something to be said for the moments where you feel the full force of a car passing by you in the real world - replicating that digitally is just as much, if not more, of a challenge than going out and capturing it. I’m not trying to denigrate it as a solution or even as an artform. I’m just saying that it comes with its own challenges and the grass is not always greener. 

LBB> Before we wrap up - would you say you’re a bit of a romantic, in the appreciation you have for capturing those really cinematic moments out in the real world? 

Yves> Ha, well, I guess all directors probably grow up and have a romantic ideal of being a filmmaker, or an appreciation for the physicality of film. I wouldn’t say that I’m ideologically obsessed with it, though. I just want to make the best film I can in every circumstance, and I go with whatever method helps me to do that.