How in/out & AMV Took Guinness To New Heights

This week saw the release of a new Guinness spot which immortalises the hallowed process of pulling the perfect pint - the so-called 'pour, surge and settle' to life through gravity-defying dance.

Featuring 40 dancers, high wires and jaw-dropping choreography courtesy of the brilliantly-named Supple Nam, the acrobatic shoot marks the first commercial project from Riff Raff's rising young directing duo, in/out.

Watch the film below and read on for a peek behind the scenes with AMV BBDO's Nadja Lossgott and Nicholas Hulley (who bagged a Grand Prix at this year's Cannes Lions for their Bloodnormal campaign) and in/out.

Nadja Lossgott & Nicholas Hulley, creative partners, AMV BBDO

What was the brief from the client?

The brief was pretty simple: drive appetite appeal by showing off the iconic beauty of a pint of Guinness and its creamy, unique pour (from surge to settle) to drinkers in South Korea, China and Singapore, where the brand is relatively unknown.

It can be hard to make a product-centric ad creative; how did you come up with the idea of using dance? And how important was it to set a distinctive ‘Guinness’ tone and feel?”

We are lucky that Guinness isn’t just any beer, it’s an incredible liquid, with its surge, millions of nitrogen bubbles and particles that crash together within the pour and then finally settle. So the actual product is literally made of more. We wanted to evoke that detail and power within the pint in maximalist art direction and mood. Physically recreating the feeling and light energy of the particles. We saw it as a bold, choreographed tumult.

The aim was to find movement that was powerfully and almost violently acrobatic but within the speed warp and intricate, modern costume, would become intensely lyrical. The costume that Grace Snell made had to be incredibly detailed and contemporary, achieving a fluid mesh of colour in a painterly setting. It was important that overall we were creating a modern visual spectacle that could rival the epic, iconic nature of the pint. Every Guinness ad needs to feel new and different and we chose in/out as directors for their music video experience. They hadn’t done a commercial job yet and we knew that that was an asset for us, bringing fresh, exciting talent into the mix.

in/out, directors, Riff Raff Films

How many dancers were involved in the shoot and why was Supple Nam the right choreographer for the job?

There were 40 dancers in total, but not all used at once.

We worked with Supple on a rehearsal day for a music video project a few years back, but in that short time we really got a sense of his comprehensive understanding of the human body in motion. Plus the efficiency with which he tutored our cast member was impressive. Alongside Nick and Nadja, we wanted an intense and visceral choreography; competitive and punchy, not just beautiful elegance. And the first person who came to mind was Supple.

In our first telephone conversation he had some unique ideas, particularly around mosh pits and ‘walls of death’, which have definitely influenced the choreography. Then there is his industry experience, wire experience and troupe experience. And in general he’s an all-round fun and inspiring guy, which I’m sure makes it easier to mould talent into the role at hand; helping them unlearn any prior notions of ‘dance’ and adapt to the world we’re all creating.

Finally, he had also worked with our costume designer Grace Snell, who deserves a special mention. These two really needed to work closely because the design has to work with the action. Basically they needed to be in constant communication to find the right balance and that prior relationship really helped.

The aerial sequences are impressive– can you tell us a bit more about the logistical challenges you faced?

The first day of wire rehearsals was a “gulp” moment for sure. In a cavernous Soviet-era studio in Kiev, with a couple of test rigs and a group of eager but (probably) equally apprehensive performers, the intimidating reality of wirework was writ large. But under Supple’s and chief stunt rigger Ilya Yurchishin’s stewardship we took it slow; testing each performer’s suitability for wires. Seeing Ilya in aGame of Thrones ‘stunt team’ t-shirt was actually pretty comforting too, to be honest.

As almost all the performers had little or no wire experience it was paramount to trust in Supple’s ranking, particularly where he saw potential for improvement. It all needed patience and fortunately we had a decent amount of prep time, which was well orchestrated by our impeccably composed producer, Tom Knight, and his Ukrainian counterpart Ira Nepomenko and the whole Radioaktive team.

Wire work is obviously strenuous but not just for the talent: for every one performer there’s also an associated rigger. They don’t just need to be vigilant of the performer’s safety but also their own. In a shot with a change in elevation for example, they must jump from a scaffold to achieve the inverse height in the performer. Again and again, for every take. Add the camera and grip to the mix and you can see how it’s a complicated setup with many moving parts and a whole host of people to watch out for. So hats off to Rawden de Fresnes, our 1st AD, for overseeing much of this with a smile, a fag and a joke at every step of the way.

How much was captured in-camera versus done in post? How did you go about bringing the two elements together seamlessly?

Every element you see - from the performers in the air to the Romantic-era inspired cloudscape - was captured in-camera. In that sense, the look of the film was very much set on the shoot.

Post-production was used to ‘fill the gaps’ in the world we wanted to create. This included wire removal for our gravity-defying performers, VFX smoke to further embed our performers against the backdrop, set extension to add to the scale and background manipulation to make our cloudscape shift and billow.

It was really important to shoot as much of the physical reality as possible so when it came to the more post-heavy aspects of the production MPC had something captured and real to work off. This made for some interesting conversations on set between post supervisor Jack Stone, us and DP Ben Todd; with Ben continually pushing what was possible in-camera. Many of these conflabs revolved around how this would impact the post work to come and a big part of this was the use of haze. Haze is paramount for a technique known as ‘dry for wet’, which helps simulate the turbulence of being in a liquid; in our case, Guinness.

There were a few larger scale composite shots, made up of many plates, with the most complicated taking the best part of a day to shoot. A huge amount of work for it to be in the final edit for a second or two, but certainly worth it.