Ad of the Day | Experience the Never-Ending Consequences of Reckless Driving in Brutal SAAQ Campaign

Jan. 24, 2020

Great Guns director Olivier Staub, creative agency Lg2, and creative director Luc Du Sault, have debuted a powerful and dynamic new campaign for SAAQ (Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec), highlighting the danger of using a mobile phone whilst driving.

The intriguing cinematic piece uses stunt performers and impactful photography to recreate brutal collisions that occur when drivers become distracted. Creating a unique campaign out of a sadly common situation, the film highlights how one deadly mistake can trigger an infinite loop of disasters.

Mixing a range of techniques, the campaign was shot entirely through still images. Wanting to explore an entirely new direction, director Olivier chose not to shoot in a traditional high frame rate, instead recording a large amount of detail in each photographed frame. To push the loop of accidents into infinity, he kept the layers of story independent with a mix of photography, CGI, traditional retouching, composition, and 3D mapping.

Director Olivier Staub comments:

“I chose to use the idea of a ‘screen within a screen’ to emphasise the never-ending risk posed by mobile phones if people continue to act recklessly. I didn’t want the advert to look like a slideshow, so we shot every necessary angle and perspective in order to reconstruct an animated 3D environment in CGI, preserving all the organic perspective and focus changes.”

 

To achieve the dynamic shots, stunt performers were required to bounce from a small trampoline and project themselves into a sheet of plexiglass.

Speaking of such a method, Olivier says:

“What a shoot! Our amazing stunt performers were insanely talented. I want to make a special shout out to Robyn, an incredible older stuntwoman who fearlessly projected herself into 3-inch plexiglass – what a performance! I also want to highlight the great work of Boulevard’s Sylvain Roux. His unnerving sound design added the final but essential layer of drama to the film.”

 

The campaign launched across SAAQ’s digital channels.