Chilli Bursts, Flying Chicken & Lots of Spice in Joshua Tree Films' New KFC Spot

The latest product film by Joshua Tree features ‘hot chillies meeting chicken’ to give KFC lovers a visual treat of what to expect when digging their teeth into the newest offering from the KFC range.

Working on their fourth project together, the film is directed by British Director Nick Sawyer and looks simple in its execution but like all simple things, was very complicated to achieve.

“The client essentially wanted a disruptive effect on screen and that was the idea behind having the stark black background, the consequent chilli burst and the movement of the chicken suspended in mid air surrounded by the chilli flakes before falling into the trademark KFC bucket. The hotness quotient of the product had to come through, further enhanced by the VO and the text,” explained Joshua Tree producer Priyanka Kher.

Shot on set in Mumbai with the Phantom, getting the chicken to stay in air and capture the movement from all directions required meticulous planning and skill application on the part of the director and the product supervisor Joel Fonseca.

The production team along with the director spent two days doing trials for the chicken movement shot as well as the chilli burst, trying to find the best solutions to effectively showcase the product and all the elements surrounding it.

“Because it was critical that we capture the chicken from all angles and the best that can be done is a 120 degree angle with a bolt-motion control, a piece of equipment not available in India, we ended up building a special rig to mount the camera and took what we eventually started calling the ‘matrix shot’ on the set. That being said, after much deliberation, we were able to achieve exactly what was required and that was a great feeling,” said Kher.

The film starts with the a full blown seething Red Ghost Chilli, flown in specially from Bangkok, seem like it was created out of fire embers followed by a massive burst that fills the screen with enlarged chilli flakes, all with keeping in mind the ‘hot factor’. The CG team at Splice Studio, Mumbai added the final edge by making the chilli flakes fill the screen and circulate the chicken to suggest that they are sticking to it.

Finally, cleaning up the rough edges, the master was given shape by the music, grading, the voice over and adding the searing fire effect on text on the final frame.

“The brief for the campaign was to raise the benchmark and do something totally different and path breaking, not just from prior KFC films but other product films as well. By giving the project our complete commitment and the best resources that we had, we hope to have had achieved that goal for both the agency and the client,” further stated Joshua Upputuru, Executive Producer, Joshua Tree.