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Magazine
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How a Commercial was MadeA television commercial promoting the Czech Republic's participation in Expo 2005 in Aichi has been running on both of Czech Television's channels since the beginning of November. The release of this commercial represents the culmination of this advertising campaign our country. The campaign was developed by the Publicis Advertising Agency in cooperation with the Office of the General Commissioner. The selection of a firm to create the ideas for this campaign was not the subject of a public tender. What was important for the selection of Publicis was their successful work on similar projects in the past, including a very well received integrated advertising campaign for the exhibition "Ten Centuries of Architecture" that was held at Prague Castle. Publicis was also able to offer advertising and communications support in Japan itself because of its two strong partners there. One is their sister office, Publicis Japan and the other is Dentsu, the most successful communications group on the Asian market, with whom Publicis has an exclusive partnership. As was already stated, this television commercial represents the culmination of a multi-pronged promotional campaign. For most Czechs visiting Japan and the World Exposition is not financially possible. For this reason, the Office of the General Commissioner wanted to show the Czech people the very best of what the country will be presenting this year in Japan and in that way help boost national pride and confidence. Now let's take a brief look at the events that preceded the creation of this promotional campaign and a look behind the scenes at the shooting of the television commercial. Publicis reached an agreement of the Office of the General Commissioner to give priority to presenting events that would be accompany the Czech Republic's exposition in Japan and not necessarily the main theme of the 2005 World Expo in Japan, which is "Nature's Wisdom." This meant that main guidelines for developing creative proposals were projects with the themes Czech art glass, Czech music, the Czech arts and Czech film. These fields draw upon the historical examples of successful Czechoslovak expositions and are also areas that have been well known throughout Japan for many years. They represent something that our "small" country can be proud of. This was the thought behind the main slogan for the promotional campaign: "A big opportunity for a small country." A number of directors were approached to direct the commercial. The director Saša Lauf was selected by the Publicis agency in agreement with the Office of the General Commissioner. Lauf is known both at home and abroad for his work with Finlandia Vodka and the National Gallery in Prague amongst others. In describing his work on the commercial, Lauf notes, "The thirty-second commercial, which we've called 'Wandering Light,' is based on a screenplay given to my by the agency. The basic idea was to create at the beginning of the story the atmosphere of an early morning in some unknown spot. So we chose the rising sun and the roofs of some unidentifiable houses. The camera in the form of a wandering light then takes us to four different places: a modern gallery, an exhibition of glass, a cinema and finally a concert hall - precisely those places that are in some way associated with the events accompanying Expo 2005 in Aichi." At the end of the commercial, the camera closes in on a group of Japanese applauding a musical quartet seated on a podium. This is the moment of surprise, when the whole point of this commercial's "story" is revealed. Here is where the viewer finally understands why no specific location was revealed at the very beginning and why the motif of the rising sun accompanies us throughout the ad. The concept behind this commercial for the Office of the General Commissioner for Czech Participation at Expo 2005 in Aichi may seem new and somewhat unusual to the average viewer. In explaining the concept behind the ad, Saša Lauf adds "We wanted with Publicis to create a commercial that would make an impact even beyond our borders. For this reason, we chose an interesting collection of shots and a somewhat non-traditional conception for the individual images. We still believe that the joining of the motifs of the rising sun a Japanese audience applauding at the close of the television commercial will leave a positive reaction with the viewer." The music accompaniment for the commercial comes for the workshop of Pavel Rejholec, a leading figure among music composers. There was one rather humorous incident during the filming that is worth mentioning. Trying to film even the shortest of commercials with a Japanese theme in Prague can be fraught with difficulties. It was in fact somewhat of a problem to find forty Japanese extras in Prague during the autumn. The commercial's producers finally came up with a solution with the help of a Japanese tour group. Another problem was finding all the necessary props at such short notice. The screenplay for the commercial called
for the actual exhibits that will be on view in our pavilion in Aichi to be shown. This meant that the film crew had to travel
one evening halfway across the country to the studio of Jaroslav Matouš and safely bring back to Prague his work Park III.
This work of art will also appear in a ten-second teaser to promote the exhibition of Czech glass. The paintings of the artist
Jiří David were fortunately easier to access because his studio is in Prague. The problem here was to adjust in a very short
timeframe the size of his paintings to meet the needs of the camera and the demands of the Veletržní Palace, which plays
the role of the unknown gallery in the commercial. What's more, the musicians had to really learn to play the music heard
during the commercial. One additional challenge facing the creative team was to bring to life old photographs of earlier
Czech(oslovak) participation in world expos. These photos are used in a second ten-second teaser that invites the public
to the current exhibition "From Brussels 1958 to Aichi 2005" in the Nostitz Palace. Success in making these photographs move
was finally achieved through the use of the most modern technology and the talents of those working in the studio. Michaela Foltýnová |
