Sam Scaife - Digital Media Design BA

I have been looking at some high end waters to see what the competition is like out there and so far while some of the products have looks good there web presence has been very poor. I did however come across one water Wattwiller that has a very high end television advert.
I felt that it was worth posting this because this advert is exactly what I was imagining that the client wanted to project his brand into. This is a television advert so can not be directly compared to a brand promotional video but I love how every detail in in is minimal and pure. It fuses the water and high end design by psychically putting them in the same scene which unfortunately is not something I can achieve with no budget and 2 weeks!

During todays lesson we where getting ready for our pitch tomorrow and we had a few minuits to write down our idea in 50 words. This is what I wrote

A short artistic dance film which expresses the Eco-luxury values that Aquapax represents. The message will be communicated through a juxtaposition of movement, music, clothing and location. It will be high fashion while not alienating a wider audience. Ultimately making up a really engaging piece.

My tutor and piers felt that this did not contain enough of the idea of the water. I have had several ideas of how to create a more watery feel to the piece, which you can read in my previous posts, but I think I need to revisit them and remember that the ultimate goal of the video is to sell more.
one of the stronger ways of using water is to have the dancers interact with the water like in Pina and this comercial for VW Golf (thanks to Simon for showing me this video)

After quickly thinking about other ways of showing more water I came up with two ideas.

1. Have some of the shots coming from below the water like you would see in a horror movie
2. To render graphics effects of water into the composition  

I need to think about how this idea of using dance will actually work as a promotional video for the brand and decide whether I need a rethink, eek.

My family has just come back from a holiday in France, where Aquapax is an established brand. In the interior design magazine, Marie Claire Maison, which my mother brought there was an editorial featuring a picture of Aquapax,

The article which this was featured in was on canteen style restaurants and covers several different styles. the format was one page each containing 1 picture of the interior, a dish they sell and a portrait of the owner or a beautiful member of staff. The picture was for a restaurant called Merce & the Muse they have some great pictures on there facebook page. There style already fits with my impression of the target audience so I will use there style to heavily inspire my styling.

Our brief is all about creating a video which promotes the brand of Aquapax, in a lecture the other day we talked about about brands and there was one definition of brand which I think is helpful to keep me on track with this video

Brand is the promise, the big idea, and the expectations of the client 

What my video is trying to do is place this big idea into the minds of the public so that they associate the product with these idea and when they think of the ideas they think of the product.

I think it will be helpful to look at what the products competitors are doing so that I know what it has to stand out from. The product has a large market in France and its main competitor is Evian, here is a recent TV advert


This is a advert for TV and as such has more focus on the product. It does however promote the values of the brand with slogans such as drink pure coming up on screen and the actors being from a wide age group. It uses white through out the whole video and provides visual interest with an animation style and clever visuals of babies dancing.
When I see this it makes me think of a funny version of the video I have in my mind. Evian seem to have taken the line of humor in there adverts recently. This I think is a potential area which I can exploit. If I create a video which is very trendy it will make the brand be perceived as a higher quality than Evian's fun baby videos.

In order to achieve this I need a story line which does not look like it is trying really hard to be cool but understates the cool aspect of the things its doing. Another way of doing this would be to gently poke fun at the being cool aspect


This video uses a load of elements that are currently trendy such as the text, colour grade, fashion and not to mention the bikes. It then lightheartedly teases its self by performing stupid moves on bicycles. This also works because the style of satire is also currently on trend.

At the moment I'm developing ideas based on promoting the luxury side of the brand. I think that there is room for me to promote other sides of the brand alongside the luxury which will give me finished product which will have more depth.

I really like the key word Ecolux used by the client to express a combination of environmental and luxury. I think I can express the both of these with the wardrobe and location. What I do need to consider however what kind of luxury I am going for. The client showed us a high end cantering company, Feedback Cuisine, which use Aquapax but this contrasts to the design of there bottle which has a youthful trendy style.
I could therefore go with a urban taken on luxury such as BAPE an expensive urban clothing label worn by celebrities, this could also help with the issue I raised in my previous post about making my idea more fun.

I like this idea as it allows me to contrast to different cultures and to create a strong balance between the too. I also think it is important to create a video which stays true to the packaging style as potential customers will have brought the product and be looking at the QR code on the packaging & it could give conflicting messages if the video was too far away from the bottle.

Another element of the brand I really like is Aquapax's involvement in the idea of a social revolution towards ecological awareness , like is says on the bottle "There's a revolution in the air". This makes me think of pioneers, fashion forward and assisting the crowd. I need to have a think about how I can get this into the piece.

initial ideas for this include

• including emerging talent
• collaborating with small labels
• literal expression through the video of people joining in/looking at whats going on

When I wrote collaborating with small labels I though of a great little mens where boutique on ship street in Brighton the name of which escapes me (I'll update with a site link when i remeber) which I might be able to collaborate with. They have some represent some fantastic designers who produce clothing which is defiantly on the luxury end of the market.

I've not got a basic idea but when we met the client I got the impression that Aquapax is a uplifting and positive brand. I feel like my current idea dose not reflect this so I need to think of a way of bring that side into my idea.

The other week I saw this video promoting the grand opening of Westfield Stratford City.


This viral has just the sort of fun element that I am looking for. It gets it by taking a popular viral Evolution of Dance and adding fashion, style & location into the composition to strengthen the idea and remove the need for changing music. An upbeat soundtrack would also help to communicate the uplifting & positive side of the brand. Interestingly this video dose not change the position of the camera throughout the whole video. The camera is a window showing you the whole picture instead of leading you to various details.

Other sources of inspiration I have had is to combine video footage and animation to be able to give my dancers more character. This music video for the band Is Tropical dose a very cartoony version of the effect I'm talking about.

I would do something similar though it would be styled for a more high fashion audience like this piece by Oliver Daxenbichler

Neue Mode magazine curated by Javier Peres artwork by Amie Dicke Fall/Winter 2006

Doing something like this would allow me to bring in the pointed limbs to express movement which could be scene in the animations on the previous post.

(ps: my theme hack hates images I'll have to fix this!)

I have had several days to think about this project so far and have been keeping a document with a series of links that have been inspiring my though process as I develop my idea.
To remind myself of this inspiration, inspire new idea and let you see what I'm working towards I'm going to do a quick write up of the stored links.

During the summer I saw the film Pina which is a combination of dance and documentary about the dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch. It features incredible location and dancing and is full of beautiful shots. There is one scene in the film where they are dancing in water the piece is very stripped back and there is just the dances a large rock and the water of set. This reminded me of the pure and neutral qualities of Aquapax and got me thinking that I would like to create a piece that involved dance and moment.
There is a really great quality about being able to see the power of the dances and the water. the splashing makes interesting forms and extends the dancers movements. The high quality footage I am very keen on as it expresses the idea of quality.
If I where to film something like this location would be very important as it creates a mise en scene which allows for the dance pieces to be read on more levels than the physical movements.

Due to the difficulties of filming a piece as high quality as Pina I began to think that I could create an animation similar to the Google doodle for Martha Graham

I really love the simple lines in this piece all the movement looks really fluid due to the stylised pointed limbs as they move and the liquid trails which they leave. This Piece also made me think of Thoughts of You



This is another dance animation but In this piece the white figure of the woman is made of smoke this makes the relation ship between the to figures really interesting and creates a great story. This concept of stylized animation could be used really well to express brand values by having one of the figures representing the consumer and the other representing the brand. This piece also makes use of pointed limbs in the movement.  The colour pallet of both pieces are muted paper tones which seems to be a reflection of the stylized pencil  drawing styles.

I really like this Idea of using dance in my piece but I felt like it was not let at the quality level that the client wanted. M&S have had TV campaigns where they raised the public opinion of there brand.



They filmed high quality in super slowmotion and set it against a sensual voice talking about how the food was so high quality and its link with M&S. Having the product be the central focus of the advert is something that reflects high end jewellery and desirable items. Another way this advert helps to a sense of luxury is the colour grade which the video has, it reminds me loads of classical still life paintings which are regarded as an interest of high society.

Looking at these videos my current idea is to create a promotional dance film such as this one by american apparel


It will take inspiration from M&S and use super slow motion combined with an interesting voice over to build an idea of luxury. By carefully selecting models, wardrobe and a location I can communication even more of the brand values without making the piece into a public service announcement.