Although it became a groundbreaking commercial, "Trampoline" was originally conceived and bid as a live-action spot and Terry Windell, a noted car director at A Band Apart, was selected to shoot it. But after exhausting all the possibilities, the creative team could not come up with a relatively uncomplicated, inexpensive way to rig the car to make it bounce up and down on a trampoline.

"It was going to be a long, expensive shoot," states Eric Barba, a visual effects supervisor at Digital Domain. "So, one our other effects supervisors pitched Terry to do it as a CG car. We did some tests to show him we could do it. Then we moved ahead and did the spot."

But ad agencies were still not thinking digital cars. "This was an example of a live-action director having the confidence of the agency already," Barba points out. "The spot was already in his hands."

Proving Digital Might
Right after "Trampoline," BBD&O produced a live-action spot entitled "Time" to show off the new line of Dodge vehicles including the Viper GTS, a sleek, high-powered sports car. All the vehicles were the same color -- red -- so one could dissolve into the other as it passed through a glass wall. But the red Viper also had two white racing stripes. When Dodge decided not to produce Vipers with stripes, the agency had to find a way to remove them. But it was impossible to paint the stripes out. Pleased with the results of "Trampoline," they once again called on Digital Domain, which in turn did away with the original Viper completely and replaced it with a digital one. BBD&O loved it. When they decided to do "Time 2," adding the Durango and the Intrepid to the original spot, they had Digital Domain do the honors rather than incur the expense of shooting the new models.

"That was really the break-through usage of digital cars in advertising," Barba emphasizes. "That got them [ad agencies] to buy that we could do fully photo-real digital cars, and from then on we've been pitching the idea."

In "Metal City," it’s metal that’s mighty! © General Motors. Images courtesy of Digital Domain (Pontiac).

Next came the two impressive Pontiac Grand Am spots, "Metal City" and "Steel Desert," produced by D'Arcy, Massius, Benton and Bowles, which have a Grand Am maneuvering deftly through a virtual all-metal environment. The idea was to show that the Grand Am was built stronger and tougher and had more maneuverability than ever before.

"Last year's Grand Am was a brand new vehicle," explains Mark Zapico, group creative director at DMB&B. "It was really new from the ground up. It had a space frame design made out of hydroformed steel. It was built to be a lot more rigid and a lot stronger [than previous models]. So the idea of the steel world manifested itself out of the brand and the product, itself. We wanted a way to truly bring the steel landscapes to life."

Working with D2
Why did the agency decide to go all digital and why did they choose Digital Domain?

"It was not an easy decision," Zapico admits on both counts. As to the first question, the agency had seen a lot of digital cars, but they were static. They had not seen a digital car move along the road like a photo-real one. What changed their minds? Again, the answer was the brand, itself, the Grand Am. According to Zapico, "Since the technology for Grand Am was to build a car that was cutting edge it was worth a try to see if we could make digital cars work."

As to the second question, the agency team had to educate themselves about the world of digital production. They looked at the work of several digital houses including Digital Domain. "After talking with them [Digital Domain] a number of times, we felt confident that the full brunt of their artists, animators and designers could bring it to life, and we had the backing of our clients. Digital Domain had done work before for General Motors...So, we felt it was a risk worth taking," continues Zapico.