Back with another car ad and hot off the heels of their campaign for Standard Bank, there is no denying First Pencil is having a moment! The team’s latest commercial for Omoda and agency Clockwork Media, directed by Justine Calverley and EP’d by Lebo Mabuela, is a prime example of their ability to merge their technical chops with some laser-infused cinematic storytelling. The ad has beams cutting through the scenes like something straight out of a sci-fi movie (with an added nod to Back to the Future) and the impressive in-camera work leaves you wondering what’s real and what’s not.

Omoda | The Future is Here. Get In!

The task: showcase the new Omoda’s moves, but um, shoot it almost entirely in studio while the car is standing completely still…oh and… can you do it all in one day?

“The best sentence I have ever said – in fact, my favourite sentence that I have ever uttered in a treatment—was, ‘We’ll solve it with lasers,’” says director Justine Calverley.

Behind the scenes, Executive Producer Lebo Mabuela was the driving force that kept the project on track saying, “First Pencil excels at solving problems and balancing big creative ideas with budget. Simply put we know how to achieve something extraordinary.”

Omoda BTS and 100% in-camera

“This was a big technical job. To create the sense that the car is constantly moving through time we used a combination of lasers, helios tubes and a suspended LED screen to project the data/maths textures. It looked like the car was moving even though it was standing dead still. The setup gave us incredible depth” adds Justine. Surprisingly most of the ad was shot in camera, with some crafty post by Christian van der Walt at Sinister and Jason Bason at Hashtag Post.