Adriana Piquet, General Director of the APCP was in charge of opening the second session of the conference, where she was excited to present the first APCP event on-site since the beginning of the pandemic.
Two of APCP’s most awarded and talented members talked about how they produced their successful spots: “Mediterráneamente / Acto I: Alma” (Mediterranean way / Act I: Soul) for Estrella Damm and “Con mucho acento” (With a strong accent) for Cruzcampo.
The first to take the stage was Toni Moreno (Executive Producer of Agosto), who gave three examples that inspired him to make good craft and create real work from the heart:
- Doctor for Stella Artois by Ivan Zacharias
- Double life for PlayStation by Frank Budgen
- The Independent by Rob Sanders
Toni began by detailing the whole process prior to the production of “Acto I: Alma” (Act I: Soul) for Estrella Damm. A risky project, created and developed with a lot of heart and soul. The shoot was made up of an international team, at sea, in October, with 15 people underwater and the Canadian actress, dancer, freediver and synchronised swimmer Claire Friesen. Toni told us that the water was cold and the piece required not wearing neoprene… the emotion and care towards the talent, and all the details, could be seen in the final video.
The factor that made Estrella Damm choose them to produce this piece was the purpose of making it real. The aim was to develop the whole proposal in the Mediterranean sea to touch our souls with all our hearts and make us reflect that there must be another way of living, being more environmentally friendly.
All that inspiration that Toni told us at the beginning was evident and tangible when he showed us the making of the piece “Mediterráneamente / Acto I: Alma” (Mediterranean way / Act I: Soul); a risky and real project that made us connect with the sea, the message and, as its name indicates, with the Soul.
The room was filled with emotion and great enthusiasm throughout the presentation. The room was filled with applause as it was impressive to see such a spectacular production, and to know everything that happened under the sea to make it possible. It was a great example that in advertising cinema magic also happens and works of art are produced in record time.
Pablo García (Executive Producer of Primo Content) took the floor, stating that it was “an honour to have been able to listen to the great Toni Moreno talk about Estrella’s great campaign, and to be able to share the secret of Lola’s “resurrection” in the place where it was shot”.
Following the 3+1 format, Pablo presented three examples of productions that helped him to come up with the idea of “resurrecting” Lola Flores in the popular Cruzcampo advert “Con mucho acento” (With a strong accent).
- Spot BMW X3 – Bruce Lee
- Impossible is Nothing – Adidas – Muhammad Ali vs Laila Ali
- John Lewis Partners – Elton John
The difficulty, unlike previous productions, was that they needed Lola to say “empowerment”, something that had never been recorded before, so they opted to use the deepface technique, never before seen in a commercial in Spain.
He explained the long process of creation and post-production, and how the pandemic happened in the middle of the whole process. The shooting was done in Malaga with local casting and the post-production took almost five months.
The key came after contacting the Flores family, when they decided that Lolita would be the one to voice her mother. In her own words: “My mother would sign every word of what the spot says”.
(Screenshot of one of the video calls working with the Flores family)
Pablo also shared what it was like in the minutes and hours after the campaign was launched. So many months of work and the doubts of…. “How will the audience see it?” it was, of course, a success!
A standing ovation culminated the presentation after the viewing of the making of in which we saw how Lola Flores encouraged us to embrace empowerment in order to be as authentic as the work presented by both speakers.
