Written by David Lewis on Jun 17, 2009. Posted in Production News

Ferré goes underground

When agencies Duda Propaganda and Propeg asked BossaNovaFilms director Luiz Ferré to shoot a spot for the São Paulo train and subway systems, explaining their expansion programme, it was immediately clear it would be a challenging brief.

The planned commercial, Constructions, would start high in the air above a city avenue before descending, at speed, into the confined space of a 100-foot-deep hole stopping just short of the actresses head inside it. It would then go on to show the men hard at work in the 120-foot-diameter tunnel as they extended the system.

Luiz Ferré commented: "It was of the utmost importance to explain the details of each scene of the commercial to the production team, starting with the aerial images, through the takes using the Jimmy Jib, to the details of the ‘Tatuzão’, a giant machine responsible for digging the hole.”

A huge crane, as tall as a 12 storey building, was used for the aerial shots and to t ake the viewer to the mouth of the tunnel. To complete the sequence, another crane was placed inside the hole to allow the camera to get even closer to the actress. Over 800 pictures were taken and which were transformed in post-production to give the appearance of a single-take sequence.

In order to film inside the tunnel, with men and machines working at all times, many planning and logistics meetings were required with the producer, the agencies and specialists from both client companies, such as engineers and the security team.

The preproduction details were worked on exhaustively in order to get as much out of the five days of filming as possible. “The project was fascinating, as much for its complexity as for its delicate scenes, such as when it was necessary to stop the ‘Tatuzão’ that digs the tunnel connecting one subway station to another,” says Ferré, “not to mention the safety measures that had to be taken to manage 80 people in adverse conditions inside the hole.”