Is This a Short Survivalist Film or an Ad for Citroën?

By Patrick Coffee 

So we have to tell you, readers, about one of our weird pet peeves: when people refer to ads as “films.”

A film is something you watch because you want to. You are legitimately interested to see where it goes and you almost certainly enjoy the experience. And even then, it’s kind of pretentious to call it “a film” rather than a movie.

An ad, on the other hand, is something completely different.

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That said, here is a 5-minute video created by France’s HumanSeven to promote the Citroën brand. And it is definitely not your standard car ad.

That was well-done in a somber sort of way, and we always appreciate the outdoors.

It’s also quite different from your standard “EIGHT PERCENT APR FINANCING!!!!” auto spot. And it was worth watching for the protagonist’s MacGyver-style way of turning a car into bridge-crawling thing.

Here’s the agency’s explanation of the process that wrought this work:

The Agency has been exploring different ways of working, creating and producing and has launched its own Content Lab: a space where the pace is reduced, pressure from daily tasks removed along with the ability to give sufficient time to take a big step back in order to find the right partners, produce, think and put things into question.

One year ago the Agency presented a wild idea to the Citroën Client and proposed a completely different way of approaching and producing it.

The story of a man face to face with nature in which the Agency was free to create it’s own form and tone . The car is shown in a way that has never been seen before and the brand logo appears nowhere in the film.

In conclusion the Agency has produced a hybrid piece of work which is hard to identify or even name: in short an unidentified advertising object.

It’s pretty cool that certain clients allow them to do this—and the process sounds like something unto itself.

But will it really help sell cars?

CREDITS

Chief Creative Officer: Xavier Beauregard
Artistic Director: Christophe Caubel
TV Producer: Sarah Bouadjera

FILM PRODUCTION: SOVAGE
Director: Sophie Levy
Producer: Franck Annese
Production Director : Louise Morand
Director of Photography : Nicolas Desaintquentin
Art Designer: Rudy Annese / Atelier Downtown
Location Manager: Hugo Obert
Engineer Design: No Design
Actor : Carloto Cotta

POST-PRODUCTION: SMALL STUDIO
Post producer: Vincent Guttman
Supervisor: Thomas Eid.
Flame: Yann Masson & Philippe laridan
Compositing: Serhat Baykal & Lise Fisher
3D: Léo Ewald & Romain Balloy

POST-PRODUCTION: HRCLS
CEO: Christopher Thiery
VFX supervisor: Yann Dubois
Post producer: Mélanie Teixeira
Editor: Sophie Levy & Nicolas Capus
Colorist: Arthur Paux

SOUND PRODUCTION: HRCLS
Sound producer: Anthony Leblond
Compositor: Brice Davoli
Sound Designer: Anaïs Khout
Mix: Alex Louboutin

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