Cannes, France—Jun 19, 2006
BUG Norway creates world's first 3D digital cinema advert
Car advert for Mitsubishi unveiled at Cannes Lions' SAWA seminar on future of cinema advertising
Norwegian post-production and graphic design/animation studio BUG have created the world's first digital 3D cinema advert, which will première today at the Screen Advertising Word Association (SAWA) seminar 'The Best Ideas Come From Cinema - In 3D'. The highly anticipated event is part of the Cannes Lions, the world's most prestigious advertising event, where the best adverts from around the world are showcased each year. The advert for Mitsubishi's new range of cars was animated and rendered in 3D by BUG, one of Scandinavia's fastest growing and most innovative digital studios and is currently screening in 2D.
Digital 3D is widely perceived as representing the next step in cinema technology. Disney's “Chicken Little” became the first film to be released in the new stereoscopic digital format, which does away with the anaglyph
(red-and-blue) glasses and the big IMAX-style glasses, when it was shown in Disney 3D on 83 screens in the US last November and on a handful of screens in Europe and Asia earlier this year. At the NAB conference in Las Vegas this year 'Titanic' director James Cameron predicted that Digital 3D would be the saviour of cinema with most major blockbusters released by the Hollywood studios in digital 3D. Directors George Lucas and Peter Jackson have also announced plans to re-release the 'Star Wars'
and 'Lord of the Rings' trilogies in stereoscopically re-rendered digital 3D versions within a few years.
Mitsubishi’s Norwegian advertising company MK Bergen agency turned to BUG to come up with an innovative and visually dazzling campaign for its new range of automobiles and jumped on the opportunity to become the first cinema advert to be shown in digital 3D. Speaking on behalf of the MK Bergen agency Svein Roger Selle commented that “We are extremely pleased with the work that BUG has done on the exciting new range of Mitsubishi cars and thrilled that it will be the first ever advert that goes out in digital 3D.” The advert gives a 360 degree zoom-around of the new Outlander model. Despite the photo realistic look of the car in the advert, the images was created from scratch using CGI (computer graphic
imagery) and digital animation in BUG's headquarter in Bergen, Norway.
“Making the advert was a real creative challenge and to then re-render it stereoscopically was a true technical challenge, but we are very happy with the result,” comments BUG's Manager, Thomas Berland. BUG hopes that Mitsubishi will also participate in screening the advert in Digital 3D in a selection of Norwegian cinemas that are taking part in the NORDIC (NORway's Digital Interoperability in Cinemas) trial together with a future 3D title. The NORDIC project is Europe's largest digital cinema test currently under way, with over a dozen screens across Norway testing equipment from every major digital cinema manufacturers and films from the Hollywood studios, as well as other types of content.
The advert will play off a digital cinema server provided by Dolby and through a 2K DLP Cinema(tm) digital projector from Barco and viewed with special glasses provided by NuVision. Other co-sponsors of the SAWA event are Kodak and Technicolor. As well as the BUG/Mitsubishi advert, the event will screen digital stereoscopic footage from the Disney film “Chicken Little” and James Cameron documentary “Aliens of the Deep”, as well as company trailers in 3D.
BUG is wholly owned by digital cinema advertising pioneer Unique Promotions, which was the first company to switch an entire country's cinemas to digital screen advertising when Norway switched from 35mm film to digital distribution in 2002.