Nokia Bullet Time Adverts

Four Nokia adverts on one 84 camera rig: a lawn, a wall of glass, a room with 30 centimetres to spare, and a downpour with one shot left.

What Did We Do?

Four adverts for Nokia, all on an 84 camera rig, each with its own problem to solve.

Advert 1: Intelligent Care

On the freshly cut lawn of a multi million pound house in West London, we set the first 24 cameras to sequential firing, ramping from 50 milliseconds per camera down to 4, to follow a father being knocked off his feet by his family charging at him to complain about the wifi. From camera 25 the array went static, freezing him mid fall as the view sweeps round.

The crash mat that arrived was a safety mat, roughly as soft as a concrete slab. 48 takes and one sore back later, we shot clean plates without the mat, and in post the mat was cut away frame by frame. See the finished advert.

Advert 2: Security

Shot in Newham beside ExCel, straight into a full wall of glass. Every light and the rig itself reflected in the window, so it took hours of repositioning and covering before the rig disappeared from its own shot. Same 84 cameras, same sequential to static trigger pattern. See the finished advert.

Advert 3: Shoe Factory

Filmed at York University in a room that fitted the rig with about 30 centimetres to spare on each side, catching a trainer thrown into the air. The shoe has overlays in the finished advert, but it is not CGI: what you see was caught in camera.

Advert 4: Communication Connection

On the street set at Wimbledon Studios, in gale force winds, with the full array set static this time. As the last shot fired, the rain arrived and turned into a downpour, with water pouring off the lights. We covered the rig and hoped. Everything survived, and all of it still works.