Sony's Foam City
Sony's digital imaging branch sure has a history of wondrously eccentric and eye-catching ad campaigns. Over the last several years they've dropped 250,000 super balls down a San Francisco street, exploded 17,000 liters of paint in Glasgow, and most recently used two and half tons of Play Doh to have bunnies invade a New York City square. It should come as no surprise then, that their next campaign is just as if not more monolithic than their previous efforts.
When the folks at Fallon London and Sony approached the film friendly city of Miami to see if they could fill a few downtown blocks with foam for their latest ad campaign, city officials thought they were joking. Rest assured, this was no joke. We saw it with our own eyes. Over the last several days a team consisting of 150 crew people (eighteen on foam detail) led by director HLA's Simon Ratigan, took several city blocks by storm, or foam rather. With the help of the world's biggest foam machine, capable of churning out two million liters of foam per minute and filling an Olympic sized pool in twenty-four seconds, Miami was turned into Foam City.
The idea behind the Foam City ad campaign is that bubbles are beautiful, but it's extremely hard to capture that beauty in an image. However, since the latest in Sony's digital imaging arsenal, including the new Alpha 350 with tilt screen, CybershotW175 with smile shutter, and HD Handycam, specialize in ‘capturing images like no other’ we can finally see bubbles the way they're meant to be seen or in a larger sense any truly unique moment. How's 200 locals wading around a city block covered in foam taking pictures with the latest Sony gear for a unique moment?
In addition to the 80,000 plus feet of film shot for the campaign, the commercials will also feature images shot by those wandering through the sea of suds, as well as the documentary filmmaker on hand. We know you can't wait to see the finished product, neither can we. However, we're all going to have to wait until the staggered release of the various incarnations of the ad, set to debut in the Spring and Early Summer. Until then, you'll just have to be satisfied with the images we snapped while on the shoot.
