Dave Gee: Life from Right Field: Sony paint the town for new TV Ad

Monday 20 November 2006

Sony paint the town for new TV Ad

Sony's spectacular bouncing coloured balls advert for their Bravia TV's were a big hit, spawning at least one ambitious imitation.

Now Sony are looking to make an even bigger splash with their followup campaign.

Drawing just a little inspiration from the guys at Eepybird and their famous Coke & Mentos fountains, Sony's new Bravia TV ads feature massive paint explosions, covering an abandoned 23-storey tower block in a rainbow of exploding colour.

The ad, shot at an unused counsil estate in Glasgow, Scotland was filmed in a single take, with the help of around 250 people. 70,000 litres of coloured paint was used to cover the building in colour, thanks to hundreds of paint bombs. More explosives were used in the synchronised pyrotechnics routine than in the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan.

Award-winning director Jonathan Glazer headed up the paint fireworks shoot. (He's responsible for a number of memorable music videos for the likes of Radiohead and Jamiroquai, as well as other ad campaigns for Guinness and Stella Artois).

The paint was delivered in 1 tonne trucks and mixed on location by 20 people. Pyrotechnics experts spent weeks getting all the explosions ready.

Their arsenal included 358 single bottle bombs, 33 sextuple air cluster bombs, 22 triple hung cluster bombs, 268 mortars, 33 triple mortars, 22 double mortars, 330 metres of steel pipe, and 57 km of copper wire.

Sixty people spent the next five days after the shoot on a major clean-up operation. A special water-based non-toxic paint was used, making it safe for workers and local, and a little easier to clean up!