Written by new-contact on Jan 25, 2010. Posted in Production News

Orange World Cup ad shot in Pretoria

A crowded township near Pretoria in South Africa has been used for a new Orange commercial.

Airball ties in with the World Cup in South Africa this summer. Paris-based Publicis Conseil created the campaign, which features people of all ages playing football in a crowd with an imaginary ball.

Steve O’Leary, creative director at Publicis Conseil, said: “We were looking for a cosmopolitan feel, the coming and going of a market, a hub where people would congregate.”

Hundreds of locals were recruited as extras for the crowd, while around 20 professional actors specially cast from across Africa played the people pretending to play football.

Airball was shot next to a taxi rank and bus station in Pretoria, around 50km from Johannesburg. Jerome Rucki, who co-produced the shoot for Premiere Heure alongside Dave Morrison of Anonymous Content, said this was to “show the real Africa, not Hollywood Africa.”

He added that cameras were kept light to enable more fluid movement through the crowd.

Ken McKenzie, owner of McKenzie Rudolph, the production service company for the shoot, described the location as “a working taxi rank”. He added that dealing with the volume of activity was challenging, but he wouldn’t do anything differently if he went back.

Film crews aiming to shoot in Pretoria should seek a permit from the local council. Puisano Phatoli, marketing manager at Gauteng Film Commission in South Africa, said production companies can in some instances be asked to make donations to organisations that own locations being used in lieu of a location fee, although this does not substitute the film permit where such permits are required by the council.

Credits
Client: Orange
Agency: Publicis Conseil
Production Company: Premiere Heure
Production Service Company: McKenzie Rudolph
Producers: Jerome Rucki, Dave Morrison, Patrice Haddad
Creative Director: Steve O’Leary
Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Director of Photography: Emmanuel Lubezki