Your Shot: Preem’s Forest Adventure for ‘Gasoline of the Future'

Preem's 'Gasoline of the Future' is an awesome Swedish invention that has significantly lower carbon emissions than ordinary fuel, and is made from the residue of Sweden's forest industry. The big problem is that it's not available for public purchase yet. Preem needed to get to the politicians and decision makers of Sweden - so Forsman & Bodenfors decided to swerve them completely in the product's awareness campaign. With the country's general election just around the corner, the agency thought it better to let the Swedes push the idea to the politicians themselves. So they gave away 5000 litres of the fuel and let the population speak. Along with the giveaway came this gorgeous, metaphor-filled spot from Camp David's Oskar Wrangö that's completely captured in camera. LBB's Addison Capper caught up with Forsman & Bodenfors copywriter Ulrika Karlberg and director Wrangö to find out more. 

LBB> What was the initial brief like from Preem and what were your thoughts when you saw it?

UK> Preem wanted a tool to use in their discussions with politicians and opinion makers, so the brief was originally to target them directly. But a politician's job is to represent and listen to the people, so we thought why not let the Swedes push the agenda? With the general election coming up this fall, we figured politicians would be extra responsive to this initiative if we could create a solution that touched private consumers as well.

LBB> And Oskar, what kind of brief did F&B initially present you with? Why did it stand out as something you wanted to get involved with?

OW> They had an open brief. They told me what they needed to say in the film, and that the theme for the campaign was a pine forest and this gasoline of the future. That was exciting because the product is good and I love forests and open briefs. They also had a mood board, but apart from that they gave me free hands to develop the visual ideas in the beginning.

LBB> At the heart of the campaign is the idea of eliminating global warming with future-facing ideas. How do you feel you represented that in the campaign? 

UK> It opens the discussion to challenge the ‘traditional’ way we think when it comes to solving environmental issues – in this case those who come with our fossil-fuel transport dependent society. Instead of relying on consumers to change their cars to eco-friendly cars – for example driven by electricity – why not change the fuel in the cars they drive today? As a fuel-producer, Preem has a great responsibility to innovate in this field and I think the campaign shows that it is possible to be one of the good guys, even if your product is gasoline and diesel.

LBB> How did the idea to present the message as visual metaphors come about?

UK> The information in the campaign was very heavy, but still very, very important – especially when the target group had now become private consumers. We simply had to give the viewer something interesting to look at that also helped us tell the story. I think the way the film is made also confirms that Preem truly is a new-thinking company, especially for a company in the petroleum business. The execution thus helps both the message and the brand.

LBB> Can you tell us about the metaphors we see and what inspired them? What messages are you trying to portray?

UK> We had a pretty clear picture of what we had to say in the film, but when we met with Oskar for the first time, it became clear that we had to start at the other end – with the visuals rather than the voiceover manuscript. This opened up the brief for him and I think the end result was something between our original thoughts and his way of approaching a manuscript. 

The first one, the light, is about innovation, new ideas. The cones hanging in the woods is a metaphor for the forest, Sweden's most important natural resource. The tract is an abstract way to portray the residues being used for fuel and the water stands for the clash between the very chemical process it takes to transform the by-products to gasoline and nature. The last one, the mirror cube, is just a new way to look at the world. First you think that you're simply looking at the forest, but as the camera pans out, you discover that the forest is actually looking back at you.

LBB> Oskar, what kind of conversations did you have with the creatives around the metaphors you were portraying and how you were going to do so?

OW> I came up with a bunch of visual metaphor suggestions that I thought would fit the message of what they wanted to communicate. Then we worked together to be able to match the voiceover with the open metaphor installations. We talked about which installations could be original and interesting visually, and also what they meant for us. Then it was up to the film production team to solve these things for real. One important thing was to make open metaphors so the viewers could use their own imagination and associations.

LBB> The film is quite effect heavy, but you captured everything in camera. Why was that the right course to take with this spot? What kind of techniques and technology did you use to manage it?

OW> It is always right to do as much as possible in camera I think. More fun, more beautiful, harder, and often cheaper to. So I developed ideas that were possible to do for real. We used really simple techniques to do this – we just hanged things in the trees. One tricky thing was to get the water twirl going in the tube. There we used a drill machine with a propeller on it. After some training we managed to keep it rolling for at least 20 seconds. Quite easy actually. 

We shot everything on Red EPIC with a gyro rig called Mövi, both handheld and in the RC-Octacoper. We worked with Henning Sandström [remote heli pilot/DOP] & Mattias Andersson [camera operator/DOP] on this. They are specialists in working in small teams with moving and flying cameras. With the Mövi and the Octacopter you are able to achieve unique camera movements that would be impossible with cranes or full size helicopters. We flew close between trees in the middle of the forest with no rig time at all.

LBB> What kind of research and pre-production did it involve? 

OW> We did some water twirl research. A part from that we knew that everything else would work. A lot of the pre production involved the prop makers who built all of the physical installations. We also to find the right forest.

LBB> Why was Oskar the right man to shoot it? 

UK> He has a very different way of approaching storytelling, I think. Every time you turn to him with a project, he'll come back to you with a completely unexpected solution. This means you have to work close together during the whole process, keeping things fluid, making decisions along the way. And you have to have a brave client that is not afraid to visualise. Despite what the artistic touch of Oskar's work would imply, he is not overly prestigious when it comes to making adjustments and has just the right amount of integrity to still make it good.

LBB> Each metaphor is accompanied by a specific sound. Why were they an important addition to the spot? What kind of conversations did you have with composer Mattias Petersson to make sure he was hitting the mark?

UK> It was very important that the feeling of the film didn't turn out too poetic or romantic about nature, which is often the case with this type of message. The Gasoline of the Future is an innovation and we felt that the sound of the film had to add a futuristic and modern feeling. Oskar presented Mattias to us, we loved him, and he was given pretty loose reins to come up with a suitable sound for each metaphor.

LBB> Where did the shoot take place and for how long for?

OW> It took place in a private pine forest in Sörmland, about one hour drive from Stockholm, Sweden. We shot from eight in the evening until 10 in the morning, so it was 14 hour shoots almost without any break at all. It was hectic as we were such a small team. But great fun!

LBB> What were the trickiest components during production and how did you overcome them?

UK> It was that damn tract. It had a built-in screwdriver with a whisk attached that would drive the material through it. It didn't work the first time we tried to shoot it for some reason. The whole shoot took place during one night, from 8pm-8am, and dramaturgically the light would travel from night till dawn. As the sun basically never sets this time of year in Sweden, but the light changes almost minute by minute, we had to finish every shot strictly on time. When the tract didn't work when we'd planned for it to work, we had to re-do that shot in the morning, when the sun was on its way up again. It was a bit sweaty, but in the end we got it.

OW> Nothing was extremely tricky. Maybe being able to push the production with a small budget was the trickiest part. Also it was tough to shoot it well in 14 hours with no control over the light. It’s all about good preparations. The weather helped us this time also. We were lucky with that.

Credits

Title: Gasoline of the future

Advertiser: Preem

Client: Helene Samuelsson and Jeanette Granström

Copywriter: Ulrika Karlberg

Art Director: Annika Frankel, John Bergdahl

Designer: Viktor Brittsjö and Johan Fredriksson (assistant)

Account Director: Anders Härneman

Agency Producer: Johanna Bringefält

Agency Producer: Åsa Hammar

Web producer: Niklas Lindström

Director and Editor: Oskar Wrangö

Director of Photography: Mattias Andersson

Production Company: Camp David

Executive Producer: Kristina Wibom

Producer: Per Welén

Post Production: Frost/Stopp

Production Company Web: Oddler

Production Company Print: F&B Factory

Media Agency: Scream