MTS India: Born For The Internet

MTS underlines the data superiority of its 3GPLUS™ network in India with an endearing and quirky campaign which features a new born baby who is familiar with technology and is exploiting the internet straight from birth, and quite literally so.

The campaign sign off – “Born for the Internet” – is a reference to both the MTS network, which was created to deliver a great data experience, and to the MTS customer – today’s digital natives for whom the internet is a way of life.

The film opens in a labour room, where a woman is being coaxed by the doctor to ‘push’, as  the father and the nurses watch anxiously. Suddenly, the baby’s hand pops out from under  the cover and gestures everybody to stop.

The baby crawls from under the sheet and sits on the mother’s chest. From here on in the film the baby does a series of activities that leaves people in the room shocked. He searches for ‘how to cut the umbilical cord’ and then cuts it, takes a selfie with his mom on a mobile phone and posts it to Instagram, makes a video and even uses the GPS system to  navigate out of the room.

Finally, the baby walks out of the clinic, even as you see the receptionist is already watching a video of the baby on Youtube. As the baby walks out, supers appear on screen saying,  “Born for the internet. MTS 3GPLUS™ Network.”

Amitesh Rao, Director – Brand & Media, MTS India, said, “We needed a campaign to reinforce our strongest differentiator - the fact that we have designed and optimized the MTS 3GPlus network specifically for data. At the same time we needed to be true to the MTS brand that talks to today's 24x7, always-on, data hungry consumer for whom the internet is the biggest opportunity platform there is. The challenge of course was to do all of this in an engaging and entertaining manner, which is what the story of a new-born baby  going online to announce himself to the world does perfectly.”

The campaign is conceptualized by Creativeland Asia, who brought the narrative to life by combining cutting-edge graphics technology with exceptional visual storytelling. Creating a  human from scratch in CGI is one of the hardest challenges still posed by post-production;  and creating a baby with such detailed characterful qualities and emotions was a whole new  challenge on top of that.

Speaking about the TVC, Sajan RaJ Kurup, Founder and Creative Chairman, Creativeland Asia, said, “The script for the film began with the simple insight that today’s kids seem so comfortable with technology, devices and the internet even as babies. When I see them (including my own daughter) handle tablets, mobiles and laptops, I have always joked that  they look like they were born with it. We just pushed that thought a little further. It took six  months of painful labor. And the baby is finally out there. ”

The film has been produced by Smuggler films and directed by Guy Shelmerdine.

The film was shot on location in Prague, 4 real babies were cast to provide the body of the baby along with reference for expressions, lighting and skin texture. Glassworks London  created the CGI assets, using real expressions from our babies to build up a CGI head that was as realistic in character as it was in texture and appearance.

“When you see a script like this you just have to make it happen, whatever the technical  obstacles are. Ideas like this are born to be made”, said Chris Barrett Co-MD of Smuggler  London.

Staying true to the internet generation, the film will be premiered as a bit-torrent for onliners  to download and watch. Followed by a digital & social media campaign and last but not the  least television release.

Kurup adds, “The film was released in the torrent world even before it has been aired on television. We thought it was apt considering that the MTS 3GPLUS™ network is designed to handle uploads and downloads at breakneck speeds. Something that today’s internet  generation is hungry for.”

The Production team on creating the MTS baby boomer:

"We knew when we embarked on this project that it wasn't going to be easy. Creating a realistic human in CG is probably one of the trickiest tasks there is. There were many  hurdles to overcome along the way.

The head was re-modelled in very high detail using many photographs and measurements  of younger babies for reference. A full 3d scan of a baby and Textures from the real baby's  face were used as a base from which to paint more complex texture-maps. There was a lot  of time spent on the material qualities of the skin, as the subtleties involved have to be  balanced incredibly well in order to recreate the fleshy, human feel your eye expects to  see. Small details in the hair, eyebrows and eyelashes were paramount in making the face  look real. He went through quite a few hairstyles!

As always, matching the lighting is of the utmost importance when trying create anything  that's meant to photorealistic. Set recreation and projection mapping of High Dynamic

Range images, taken on set, is necessary to emulate the original environment as closely  as possible and achieve a realistic lighting base. Our lighters then light the shot, sometimes  using a little creative license, to bring out the best of the baby's features, and most  importantly the eyes."

Production 

Production Company: Smuggler 

Director: Guy Shelmerdine 

Director of Photography: Alex Barber 

Executive Producer: Fergus Brown, Chris Barrett 

Producer: Nick Fewtrell 

Editing 

Editing Company: Stitch 

Editor: Andy McGraw 

Postproduction 

Postproduction Company: Glassworks London 

Executive Producer: Abi Klimaszewska 

2-D Lead: Duncan Horn 

3-D Lead: Jon Park 

Colourist: Duncan Russell 

Agency 

Agency: Creativeland Asia 

Creative Chairman: Sajan RaJ Kurup 

Director of Brand & Media, MTS India - Amitesh Rao