Earlier this week, we premiered our latest spot for FIFA, directed by Yael Staav.
Part of the fun and challenge of the project was that we were tasked to recreate four countries within Mexico City: Brazil, Nigeria, Japan and Canada.
In order to pull this off, we enlisted master production designer Roberto Bonelli to transform various landscapes within DF to whole other continents. We asked him a few questions on his approach and the movie magic behind the FIFA spot.
Can you take us through the challenge of recreating such diverse locations in one city?
Doing four countries from four continents in one city is always a challenge but I would say that Mexico City is one of the easier places to do it. The real challenge was in fact to do it all in just one day without too many long company moves.
The first thing was to set up a plan for choosing only one area of the city that could work for all four scenes. We worked closely with not only the location scouts, but also the AD and producer to solve the logistics. We went for Brazil and Nigeria first with the idea that Japan could be indoor and Canada at night.
Let’s go through each of the locations one by one. Starting with Brazil.
Brazil was where we had the more wide shoots and required the biggest location. Yael told me that she wanted to feel the vicinity of the town or city area around the dusty pitch but that there would be no real focus on the details in the background. Our approach was to make the pitch folkloric and non-professional and add color on to the great-but-grey location. The set-dressing was casual, almost accidental but the color scheme was carefully planned.
And Nigeria?
For Nigeria we decided on a dusty dirt road that was in a nearby gravel quarry. We found the ideal spot under a freeway bridge and decided to design a mural or graffiti for the pillar to add a splash of color to the bleakness. Something to represent Nigeria and Africa but without being political. We had to sacrifice a stencil of a Zulu warrior from the original design for that same reason. Then we spent a lot of time making soccer balls from plastic bags and bicycle-wheel chambers, but in the end we used an old worn ball I found during the scouting of the Brazil location.
Now Japan?
The approach for Japan was to do it accurately but in a non-obvious way. It was important to capture the essence of a middle-class average school girl but keeping in mind that the intimacy could be lost by doing it too boldly. First of all I set up the plan ‘B’ which was to shoot in an apartment in case we did not find an adequate school in our chosen area. (Brazil and Nigeria had priority in terms of choosing the area). We found several locations that could give the look of a small, functional apartment. Wooden floors, white walls and the rest would be dressing. Modern practical furniture, lots of natural wood, some black details and a few red ones as well. Then we planned on making some special Japanese details like a low rack for shoes and a classic heater. Luckily we did find a school which had that very clean and modern look, almost like it was designed by Tadao Ando. ‘Modern’ and ‘clean’ are very generic for the hole western world so now the focus was on adding details that could make it Japan. School artwork in the hall and lunch boxes were our main focus but little details such as the plants also helped to create the general feeling.
Lastly with Canada.
Canada was more about showing a girl that was improving her skill through disciplined training. It was important that it looked like a training session of a real but non-professional team. We had uniformed training equipment and color pallet but broke it up with the players personal belongings, bags etc. Again the location and its lighting was fundamental to giving the right atmosphere.
I think in a way all the vignettes ended up representing their countries general soccer style.
The essence of this spot was to bring us very close to these girls and their dreams and it was fascinating to collaborate with Yael and Jon (our DP) to make that happen.