SA alcoholic beverage industry first for Amarulas VR tour of Africa

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SA alcoholic beverage industry first for Amarula s VR tour of Africa --

Fri, 19 Aug 2016 12:08

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In a South African alcoholic industry first, Distell and its African brand, Amarula, have created a virtual reality tour of Africa so that consumers can experience the continent s open spaces, plentiful wildlife, beautiful people, and distinctive culture.

According to the brand s global marketing manager, Mncedisi Junior Jekwa, virtual reality (VR1) is trending as the most exciting technology driving brand activity and the entertainment industry. He quoted Samsungs S7 launch, CES 2016, Ridley Scott s VR movie and the Oculus Rift fandom as leading the new wave.

And now joining the frontrunners is Amarula.

Africa has always been rooted in the brand s DNA. This exciting technology allows us to bring the Amarula story to life in a more visceral manner, Jekwa said. We believe strengthening the link between Amarula and Africa will enable us to grow the brand further as the world is starting to look to Africa for creative inspiration.

FCB Cape Town executive creative director, Mike Barnwell, said VR was chosen as the medium ahead of traditional channels as it was the perfect fit and vehicle for such an immersive experience.

The technology itself was the creative treatment, Barnwell said. It fitted the job at hand perfectly because it would allow Amarula to take consumers on a journey to locations they would probably never otherwise travel to, and allow them the opportunity to experience these as they would in real time.

The three minutes 45 seconds 3D-360 experience will be rolled out using Samsung Gear VR headsets and Oculus Rift units around the world in travel retail, focusing on duty free shops in major airports.

The video unlocks the story of the product and how it is truly made from Africa; from the marula trees growing wild, to the maturation houses and eventual product experience each scene offers the consumers a step in the Amarula brand story and the Amarula process.

A 2D-360 experience will also be available on Amarulas YouTube channel and Facebook page so that consumers can immerse themselves in the majestic tour at their own leisure. View it in HD here.

Partnering with FCB Cape Town to produce the experience was Deep VR, a South African virtual reality film production company specialising in 360 video to be relived in 2D and 3D. It uses in-house design proprietary camera systems to capture spherical video content in a variety of environments.

The shoot to capture the footage we needed took us two weeks but from conception to final product took just over five months, because the process of stitching the images together for VR is a lot more involved and labour intensive compared to traditional film, said Deep VR CEO, Ulrico Grech-Cumbo.

If after experiencing Africa in 3D, consumers are unable able to make the trip to the continent, the best way to experience Africa is to taste it, with a tall glass of Amarula, Jekwa concluded.

Credits

Client: Distell

Brand: Amarula

General Manager for Amarula: Dino D Araujo

Creative agency: FCB Cape Town

Executive Creative Director: Mike Barnwell

Creative Director FCB: Aaron Harris

Group Head and Senior Art Director: Dylan Davies

Radio and TV Producer: Ashleigh Jarratt

Group Account Director: Stephanie Binns

Virtual reality agency: Deep VR

CEO: Ulrico Grech-Cumbo

Director of Photography: Telmo dos Reis

Audio specialist: Samukelo Mahlalela

Additional information:

For FCB Cape Town producer, Ashleigh Jarratt, the exciting challenges had more to do with the nature of filming for VR versus filming for traditional television commercials.

The first difference was that we couldn t do a pre-production recce. Given the duration of the shoot and distances we needed to travel, we had to recce while on the shoot and then wait for the sun to align with our lighting requirements. That added on several long hours.

Also, I couldn t create my usual production schedules and shot-lists as we were filming in nature and relying on the performance of wild animals, local villagers and unpredictable weather. It was a real hands-on experience and required a lot of flexibility and patience from all involved.

As a producer, it was my responsibility to source the best director and crew, based solely on their experience with VR. Doing so, while absorbing all this new technical information and jargon, was rather daunting.

Then, we had to get used to this very limited crew. On any given television commercial shoot, there s a crew of 50. For the Amarula Made from Africa VR, we were six three crew and three agency. We had to perform many roles to keep the numbers down; it s easier to hide six people from the 360 camera view than 50!

Finally, on set for a TV sport, we have the luxury of instant playback for progress approval. However, with VR, we could only approve the scene from the point-of-view of your head being the lens before jumping out of frame and letting the magic happen while hiding around the corner.

This meant very little control of depth, angle, lighting or movement of characters and it was crucial for the whole team to be aligned when visualising the shot before filming. At the end of the day, I m exceptionally proud of what we achieved and thrilled to have learnt to work with an entirely new way of filming, Jarratt said.

Each location for the VR was selected for a specific experience. The air balloon gave us height. The Savannah gave us space. There was the intimacy of being with elephants as they crowded around a watering hole, explained DeepVR CEO, Ulrico Grech-Cumbo.

The camera was used to simply capture the scene in beautiful light and to do so as naturally and as authentically as possible. But we did record each of the scenes for longer than was needed for the main edit.

Given the

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