Opening night
It’s 4am and I’m standing in a shipping port on the edge of the Black Sea. Giant cranes loom over me, flanked by towering stacks of multicoloured steel containers, freshly unloaded from a freighter moored alongside the quay. It’s starting to feel like the opener to a John Le Carré novel…
Out of the shadows appears a grey-haired man, sharply dressed in a dinner jacket with tails. He strides past in a confident manner, his shiny leather shoes clicking as they strike the concrete dock. He turns a corner and disappears. I follow, to discover him in the centre of a large clearing, flooded with bright light.
Instead of collecting a briefcase from a double agent, the man mounts a pedestal and, having composed himself, suddenly swings his arms in a dramatic circle. In front of him, a full orchestra explodes into action and frenetically starts playing the opening bars of Dies Irae, the second part of Verdi’s famous Requiem.
The musicians, assembled in a semi-circle, respond as one to the conductor’s commands. Strings either side, woodwind at the centre, brass at the back and percussion to the left, they swing and sway to each flick of his wrist. High above, perched on cherry pickers and platforms, is a choir, mouths wide and chests heaving as they sing in harmony.
At this point, you may well be wondering what the hell’s going on. No, I’m not hallucinating due to a lack of sleep; I’m in Odessa, Ukraine, on the set of Audi’s latest commercial, which heralds the arrival of its latest flagship vehicle, the Q8. For three nights, a vast team will be taking over this working shipping port to shoot a no-expense-spared film.
From somewhere comes a loud cry of ‘Cut!’, bringing the entire spectacle to a halt. Almost immediately, another flurry of activity takes over: crew and extras in high-vis jackets and hard hats spring to attention, pulling lighting into place, adjusting settings, rigging wiring and running left to right with bottles of water, make-up, notes… It’s organised chaos.
Taking refuge behind a crate of cables, I meet Ray Chan and Simon Cenamor, the duo at advertising agency BBH London who are responsible for the advert’s concept. They fill me in on what’s happening around us.
“In cinema, key moments are always announced by epic classical music”
‘The idea we came up with was the big entrance,’ says Chan. ‘The new Q8 is one of the most impressive cars Audi has ever made, so we thought its arrival deserved a fanfare. In cinema, key moments are always announced by epic classical music, so we thought, why not actually make that happen and get an orchestra to do the job?’
Ray and Simon were the creative minds behind the critically acclaimed This Girl Can campaign for Sport England, designed to encourage women and girls to get moving regardless of shape, size and ability. They specialise in clever, sometimes quite literal ideas that draw in the audience and stick in the mind. They’re hot property in the advertising industry at present, and boast a portfolio of work for large international clients such as Uber, Absolut Vodka, Next and British Airways.
‘In this project, the Q8 obviously needs to be the star,’ explains Cenamor. ‘At the beginning of the advert, you see an orchestra on the dock and wonder what it’s doing there. There is tension – the musicians are tuning their instruments while a container is unloaded from a ship in the background. It falls to the ground with a bang and two dockers open its doors. The orchestra starts playing to welcome it, as if it’s the hero in a film, and it emerges and drives off, to the backdrop of the music, in a slow and dramatic way.’
To realise this vision, BBH London has partnered with British production company Carnage. As its name infers, it specialises in filming all things automotive-related, and regularly helps organise large-scale shoots. However, this one is particularly difficult and poses a number of logistical problems, as it involves more than 300 cast and crew, and is being shot in a busy port.
‘Even by our own standards, this one’s been a bit of a beast to put together,’ says James Howland, Carnage’s Head of Production. ‘It’s involved a mountain of preparation, and we’ve been working relentlessly with a local production company called Radioaktive Film over the past few months to ensure everything is ready in time for the shoot.’
Securing a working port was one of the biggest challenges they faced, but Howland used his wide network of contacts to pull off the feat. After scouring the globe and investigating a number of potential locations, he settled on Ukraine because of the facilities and framework it offered.
‘You couldn’t do this type of operation in the UK – it simply wouldn’t be possible,’ he explains. ‘I mean, shutting down a port for three days in the middle of August is unheard of – the authorities at Tilbury or Avonmouth would never agree to it. But in Ukraine, such things can be arranged, and in a cost-effective way. There’s also an incredible film-making infrastructure over here, with many reputable studios and skilled crews, which is why so many TV commercials and feature films are now being shot in the country.’
“‘You couldn’t do this type of operation in the UK – it simply wouldn’t be possible,’”
Odessa is a place of particular renown in Ukrainian film-making: the Potemkin Steps, which lead down to the port, were the location for one of the most famous scenes in the history of Soviet cinema. Film students across the world will recognise them from a pivotal scene in the 1925 silent movie Battleship Potemkin, in which crowds assembled in support of mutinous sailors are fired on by Tsarist forces. In more recent times, the city has played host to the Odessa International Film Festival, dubbed the ‘Cannes of the East’.
‘And don’t forget that Odessa is also famous for music,’ adds orchestra conductor Ivo Kučera. During a break in shooting, baton in hand as he goes over the score once again, he spares a minute to speak with us.
‘The city has many internationally renowned music establishments,’ he says. ‘The finest is the Odessa National Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet, which is home to a highly acclaimed symphony orchestra. The Ukrainian navy also has an excellent marching band and orchestra, and they’re based here too.’
The production was certainly spoilt for choice when it came to casting, selecting musicians and singers from several institutions to create a bespoke orchestra for the purpose of filming. It will be enhanced with CGI to make it look even bigger in the final edit. While he’s a fervent promoter of Odessa, Kučera is the odd one out, hailing not from the city, or even Ukraine, but from Brno in the Czech Republic. He was chosen because he is not only a superb conductor but also has some acting experience.
Kučera may be in charge of the orchestra, but there can only be one boss on set, and that’s the director, Sam Brown. The Englishman started his career in music videos, eventually graduating to work with superstars such as Jay-Z, Adele and James Blunt. He picked up a few awards along the way, too, before making the switch to commercials. In this capacity, he’s been incredibly successful – many will have seen his adverts for the likes of Waitrose, Virgin Media, Apple, Mars and Lloyds Bank.
Brown is no stranger to cars – or Audi, for that matter. He’s previously shot cult ads for the brand, including ‘R8 on Ice’, R8 Spyder ‘Beauty and the Beasts’ and A1 ‘Oomph’.
‘I’ve done a few commercials for Audi now, so I hope I’m someone they feel they can trust,’ he says. ‘The more trust there is, the better the work gets, because it’s a shortcut to getting things done effectively. The more confidence there is in me, the more I’m able to do what I’m good at. A film can’t be made by a committee – everyone has to trust a director’s vision and take a leap of faith.’
Watching Brown work is a lesson in modesty and effective leadership. He’s a quiet but self-assured character who moves around the set in a serene fashion, chatting easily with everybody in the crew. At times, he’s glued to a monitor reviewing a take; at others, he’s holding an impromptu meeting with the camera operators about settings or giving Kučera and the musicians acting tips.
‘I don’t really feel I’m at the head of things, because I don’t think that’s what directing is all about,’ he says, when asked what it’s like to be a director. ‘It’s not about instructing people what to do; it’s about carefully drawing things out of them. It’s much healthier to picture yourself as being in the middle of the process, rather than at the forefront: you’re trying to bind lots of creative people together, and provide the vision and the guidance for what they’re all doing.’
When you look at the production from that perspective, a film crew and cast is actually pretty similar to an orchestra, looking to their director like musicians to a conductor.
I share this comparison with Brown.
‘In some ways, yes,’ comes the answer. He chuckles before adding, ‘And in both roles, there’s a similar amount of arm- flapping involved.’
