Written by new-contact on Apr 17, 2013. Posted in Production News

Thomas Thomas Films shoots global locations for Blackberry commercial

Thomas Thomas Films shot locations around the world for the new Blackberry commercial Keep Moving. The spot features a series of snappily-edited vignettes showing individuals in profile as they move through their daily adventures with the help of the Blackberry Z10.

Several weeks of scouting took in potential filming locations all over the world before the production team chose Shanghai, South Africa, Namibia and Paris for their ten-day shoot.

“Scheduling was a challenge,” says Trent Simpson, a Producer with Thomas Thomas Films: “Although the style of the spot dictated that we only had one shot in each location, we sometimes needed several hours to get the art direction and lighting conditions exactly right."

To keep the look of the profile-shot style consistent, each actor in each location had to be the same distance from the camera. The strict casting brief also meant that the actors had to be the same height, which became one of several factors that impacted casting.

Filming in China was great but casting was trickier because our brief was so specific. We brought over Latino and Arabic actors from Hong Kong.

Trent Simpson, Thomas Thomas Films

“The bigger challenge was with local casting," Simpson adds: "As the spot was going to be screened in lots of different markets around the world, we had to film some of the shots two or three times using actors from different ethnic backgrounds. Filming in China was great but casting was trickier because our brief was so specific. We brought over Latino and Arabic actors from Hong Kong.”

Shanghai and Cape Town were the longest shoots of four days each and then there were just two days for both Namibia and Paris.

The French capital was potentially tricky as it involved a high-wire walk more than a hundred metres high. It turned out getting all the necessary permissions was a lot quicker because a similar stunt had actually been carried out before. “That was helpful,” Simpson adds: “It meant the process took a couple of weeks to finalise rather than several months.”

Credits:
Client: Blackberry (RIM)
Agency: AMV BBDO, London
Senior TV Producer: Nick Godden
Production Company: Thomas Thomas Films, London
Producer: Trent Simpson
Executive Producer: Philippa Thomas
Production Service Company (China): PIG, Shanghai
Production Service Company (South Africa): The Farm Film, Cape Town
Production Service Company (France): Bandits, Paris
Director of Photography: Newton Thomas Sigel
Director: Kevin Thomas