The latest commercial for the Bank of Antandec sees the duo taking on their nemesis with their very own 'Cashback Fightback' campaign. The Creative Outpost team pulled out all the stops across all services to ‘escalate’ their cause, in their latest bout against formidable foe Santander.
Producer Andy Salem tells us about the pre-shoot and post production process. “It was great to work once again with House 337 and Merman on the latest commercial for the Bank of Antandec. This was a full team effort with VFX supervision, on set audio, grade and full audio and picture post.
“We were engaged early as, once the location was found, director Guy Manwaring and creatives Paul Hancock / Dave Newbold thought it would add to the humour if Ant and Dec arrived and left on an escalator. To achieve this, we did some proof-of-concept tests to change the in-situ staircase to an escalator and work out the parameters of this for the shoot, including the speed of the escalator for continuity.
“We also spent time on location, with our VFX lead Krispy attending the tech recce to check all was ok, as well as on the shoot days to cover everything off and ensure all the elements needed were captured. Our Head of Sound, Dave Robinson was also on set to record the guys for the radio commercial.
“The post itself went smoothly, with a productive day in our grading suite with senior colourist Mark Horrobin. Our pre-production work meant the escalator shots went together seamlessly. We were then left with screen comps and the usual bits and pieces of clean up, including set augmentation, before Dave Robinson put together the soundscape.”
Head of Sound Dave Robinson has worked on the Bank of Antandec campaign from the very beginning. He said of this latest ad, “As with previous films, we often use audio to enhance the visual gags, whether it’s heightening the diagetic sounds to increase the silly factor, or a neatly placed pregnant pause in the sound.
“Along with the TV mix, we also had to create a radio commercial but due to Ant & Dec’s busy schedule we couldn’t record them in the studio for the radio script. So, I packed up the location kit and went along to the shoot where I was able to nab them briefly in between set-ups to run through the script a few times and capture everything we needed.
“The set location was a rather large open-plan office building which offered minimal control when it came to reverb but I found a quieter space off to the side which helped. Plus, a bit of natural reverb lends itself to the script idea anyway, so I was able to use it to our advantage on this occasion.”
