Shot all in camera, the commercial opens on a black Maserati inside a dark and empty warehouse. Off in the distance, we see a large gaseous vapor cloud with a 3-D Pennzoil bottle projected onto it. This triggers the Maserati into motion. The Maserati then speeds off through the warehouse, heading toward the gas cloud with the projected Pennzoil bottle. As it drives through the gas cloud, collecting the projected bottle, another projection emerges in the distance. This time we see animated engine pistons pumping onto a gaseous vapor cloud. The Maserati drives toward the pistons as it accelerates through the warehouse. The Maserati swooshes through the piston projection, catching it. But the game isn’t over. The Maserati chases another animation, this time a spinning fuel nozzle projected onto another gaseous vapor cloud. Once the fuel nozzle is collected, the Maserati drops gears and accelerates around a tight corner before drifting perfectly into a Maserati animation projected onto the final gaseous vapor cloud. As the two cars “gas” and “real” come together, the projected Maserati disintegrates into gas particles that form the pack shot of the Pennzoil bottles.

Our idea was to project animations of Pennzoil’s new natural gas motor oil benefits onto gaseous vapor clouds while a Maserati drove around in a warehouse collecting each one. This created many technical and engineering challenges since we were choreographing a live performance of an automobile, an uncontrollable vapor cloud and a projected animation, all in camera.

In order to control the lighting, we shot at night in low-light conditions. The projector itself served as the light source for the film. Because of this we required a very large projector, unique to this project.

Next we had to synchronize the timing of all the elements: the dissipating density of the vapor cloud; the speed of the Maserati; the movement of the projections; the projector itself; and the milo rig, all in camera. To do this we built a bespoke sled that allowed the projector, camera and milo rig to always move together. This was key in determining the clarity and shape of the projections that appeared on the clouds.

Another technical challenge was controlling the gaseous clouds. Our solution was to use fans controlled via an iPad app, which kept the clouds in place.

For the final shot we needed to capture the actual Maserati sliding perfectly into a 1:1 sized Maserati animation projected onto the gaseous vapor cloud. In order to pull this off, motion controlled cameras, along with human synchronization were key. Leading to a first-of-its-kind film shot on gas for a motor oil made from gas.