Virtual Precision: How Aggressive Steered an Ambitiously Technical Rain-X Spot Over the Finish Line

There’s nothing wrong with a little ambition on a film shoot. Sometimes, a brief includes a big ask: Capturing footage of multiple different cars, moving at the same pace across different locations in different weather conditions, for example. Oh, and they all need to be edited together in a way that feels simultaneously smooth and realistic, too. 

In those instances, the best filmmakers have a habit of stepping up and thinking outside of the box. In the case of this particular campaign, a promotional film for the automotive care brand Rain-X, Aggressive’s Dan Shapiro and Alex Topaller decided to embrace a unique blend of CGI, virtual production, tabletop filmmaking, and practical effects. Made in close partnership with the independent creative agency Cramer-Krasselt, the finished ad incorporates sleek transitions with a realism that lends a tangible, tactile quality to Rain-X’s products. 

Above: The ad promotes a wiper blade from Rain-X which is built specifically for trucks and SUVs. The overriding goal, in the words of Cramer-Krasselt group account director Kelly Vogt, was to “come up with an innovative idea to show off the blade design and functionality”. 

As an accompanying behind-the-scenes video makes clear, this was an intricate, artful, and at times painstaking process. In many ways, it’s an example of emerging filmmaking tech at its best - used not as a shortcut or quick-fix, but rather as an additive which can elevate a project into something which might not otherwise have been possible. 

To find out more about their experience on the shoot, LBB caught up with Alex and Dan… 

Above: A behind-the-scenes ‘making of’ video highlights the intricacies of the shoot. As DOP Jakub Burakiewicz notes, “we began the day [filming] outdoors, and then matched the movements of the camera in the studio”. 

LBB> When you first encountered the brief for this job, did you already have a step-by-step idea of how it was all going to come together? 

Dan> To an extent, yeah. It was apparent from early conversations with the agency that this was going to involve virtual production in some capacity. In a sense it was obvious - after all, this is a spot which brings together many different SUVs, in many different locations, and different weather conditions all sliced together in this mosaic fashion. Virtual production is a natural fit for that kind of job because, as you see in the making of video, you can easily swap out between snow and desert, or from rain to sun. But at the same time, there were still challenges which needed to be solved with a practical approach. 

Alex> Ultimately, we knew we wanted to take this route because we were aiming for realism - and an example of that is the rain effects. We decided that, for the sections of the ad where you see the rain and snow hitting the windshield, we wanted to treat it almost as a tabletop shoot. We wanted to show rain droplets reacting to the movement of the wipers. Can you do that whilst shooting on the actual road? Probably not nicely. Can you do it in CG? Not with as much realism as with a tabletop approach. So this was still very much a hands-on, practical shoot in a lot of ways. 

LBB> You mention in the making-of video that you’re able to edit on the fly thanks to virtual production. Was that also particularly helpful given the nature of this job? 

Alex> Well we try to do that with all of our projects, not just those shot in front of an XR stage. It is especially helpful with shoots like this, where there’s a lot of nuance in every shot and you want to maintain a high level of control. We do it through pre-viz, and our fantastic editor helps us see, for example, whether a certain shot or effect needs to come in fifteen or so frames earlier - or that the camera needs to go slightly to the left. It helps ensure that everything gels together smoothly - but not so smoothly that it no longer looks real. 

Dan> Given that the ad is for RainX, there was a lot of importance given to how the rain looks when it’s sitting on top of the windshield. You want the pattern of the droplets to be correct, as well as the lighting in terms of how it’s bouncing off or through them. With so many potential variations, yeah, you want to have that high element of control and visibility that on-the-fly editing can give you. 

LBB> This sounds totally painstaking! I thought virtual production was all about making things instantaneous and convenient!? 

Dan> Ha, well it would have been a heck of a lot more painstaking to go out and shoot on the road, I can promise you that! But no, that’s not really the point of using virtual production. It’s a tool - and just like any other tool there are good ways to use it and bad ways to use it. It’s up to people like us to figure out which is which. 

Alex> There are some shots in this ad where we cut between two or more cars driving at the same pace, with their wipers moving in the same direction. Could you imagine doing that across multiple practical sets? You could perhaps do it if you had weeks and weeks of shooting, but it’s a problem that virtual production helps to solve very efficiently. 

LBB> So with all this in mind, is there any advice you’d give to other filmmakers who are coming into a virtual production set like this? 

Dan> The important thing to remember is that realism comes through imperfection. It’s in the slight roughness around the edges, so you should try to avoid the inevitable temptation to make everything run as smoothly as possible. Even in the subtle bobs and weaves of how a car moves, for example. 

Alex> Yes - and make sure you know where your water is going to go!