New Art Miami the multi-disciplined creative service boutique, collaborated with SapientNitro, a leading marketing and technology company, to help create a series of three web spots for Fiat’s new website that introduces the long anticipated arrival of the 2013 Fiat 500 Abarth. The New Art Miami team brought its seamless approach to color correction, conforming, clean up and audio mixing to a campaign that puts the racecar-inspired sports coup through its paces.
Featuring Italy’s supermodel Catrinel Menghia (who paired her seductive charms with the Fiat 500 Abarth earlier this year in a Superbowl commercial), the trio of spots (‘Sin City,’ ‘Winning’ and ‘Burning up the Desert’), were shot on location on the legendary Las Vegas strip, at a nearby raceway and on Nevada’s desert terrain. Director Disco Fish (Odd Machine) used the RED Epic, Canon 5D and 7D cameras, as well a Sony camera for aerial shots that captured the speed, power and style of the motorcar.
New Art Miami’s senior colorist, Patrick Desfayes, met the challenge of transforming the mix of footage from multiple cameras - shot at various speeds, into a cohesive visual experience. Working in the boutique-style facility’s Scratch suite, he used all of the non-linear color-grading system’s bells and whistles to achieve a seamless look.
Desfayes, who also conformed the spots and created VFX, noted, “The scenes with fast-paced cars needed lots of complex tracking of windows and keys in The Scratch. We exported all of the VFX scenes as DPX 10-bit sequences into Flame. The black cars were surrounded by desert dust, and the sun created multiple glares, which required some finessing during the color correction process.”
Kyle Reynolds, New Art Miami’s senior Flame artist, cleaned up everything - from removing power lines, eliminating reflections of the chase car’s camera from the Fiat driving scenes, and adding license plates - to replacing existing billboards with Fiat 500 Abarth’s logos and artwork provided by the agency.
“SapientNitro’s in-house editor, Javi Urquiza, cut the web spots and did an exceptional job getting us exactly what we needed to make this web campaign successful,” adds Reynolds. “Most of the scenes were also able to be used for the alternate versions, as well as for the Italian versions.”
New Art Miami’s Juan Dieguez created the sound design for the project. The scenario for ‘Winning’ pitted the supermodel against a journalist in a race around the track, and ended with the supermodel slapping her opponent. Dieguez created a subtle, yet impactful sound that enhanced the scene and brought home the punch line of the spot.
“ ‘Burning up the Desert’ called for intricate music edits to create the balance and tempo that the spot demanded,” says Dieguez.
SapientNitro serves as Chrysler’s digital agency of record. The videos for Fiat 500 Abarth are featured on the vehicle's homepage at www.FiatUSA.com/Abarth.
