10. 06. 2024
electriclime° and INNOCEAN teamed up to bring the planet of Mars to Earth in a stunning new film for the Kia EV9 series.
Filmed through the deserts of the Middle East, along with leveraging on the creativity of AI-Animation, the project accentuates the aspirational brand of Kia and its creative advancements and notable accomplishments throughout the MENA region.
The objective of the film was to highlight the brand’s four key pillars: Sustainability, Innovation, Futuristic & Pride in the region.
Director Marco Placanica takes the audience on a journey through multi-stylistic visuals, combining together to build an imaginary bridge between the past and future.
Check out our chat with the director below and you can see the full film here.
What were your initial thoughts when you saw the brief?
…I wanna do it!
When you came up with your original concept, how did you go about visualising the final film?
I love to energise my brain by receiving tons of informations. This brief was extremely interesting because of the multitude of scenarios involved, so I started watching contents about crazy architecture built in the desert, listening to podcasts about space travel, seeking for surreal photoarts about different worlds merging together.
The music is also fundamental for my creative process, I need to find the right playlist to drive me through the writing and sometimes the same playlist I’ve been listening to is going to be used as a reference for the music composition of the final film itself, like it happened in this case.
What were you looking for when selecting your DoP?
Strong and solid automotive knowledges, but also something related to post-production and the ability of creating different imaginaries that could fit together.
Tobia Sempi has been a marvellous travel mate.
Tell us about the Space element to the film and how you went about recreating Mars on Earth…
I grew up with Star Wars and I have to admit that shooting those Mars scenes in open-air has been a touching moment, for a brief second I felt as we were shooting something like the myths I’ve been watching since I was a kid. We challenged ourself shooting on location and not in studio, I think it was worth it.
How did you use the visual effects and CGI to further enhance the story?
I’m not an expert in this field but I have to say that from now on I will definitely dive deep into this incredible world. We had a beautiful collaboration with CGF post-house that helped me crafting exactly what was on my mind since the very beginning. It’s been amazing, really.
How did you find the balance of creating a visually-stunning film whilst also highlighting all the elements of the Kia?
I want to spend a word for the agency Innocean and the KIA brand itself, they’ve been crucial for this final result. They trusted my vision and my automotive knowledges letting me free to play with this balance, I love showcasing cars and I will never put them in the shadows of narrative or visual techniques, I think these must always highlight the features of cars.
What were the main challenges of the project and how did you overcome them?
We worked as a team together with my agent Anna Mira from Cartello Directors and all the electriclime°’s production crew, challenges are always behind the corner in this kind of projects with so many people involved and goals to achieve, I think we all did a stunning job.
There’s just one challenge that I didn’t overcome: the heat in the middle of the desert.
Oof, that was crazy man.
LOCATION | ITALY
TIME | 13:55
41.8719° N, 12.5674° E
