Responses by Victor Chevalier, writer and Sébastien Mertens, art director, Romance.
Background: In a time when all you could hear in the news was about terrorism, bombings and war, our client, the international online game developer Wargaming, wanted to create a spot to promote its original flagship game World of Tanks without endorsing violence. At first, our client didn’t even want to show tanks at all, but it’s hard to imagine World of Tanks without filming tanks.
Reasoning: We wanted to show that even though tanks are very fun to use in video games; they suck in real life.
Challenges: Ukraine.
Favorite details: Originally, the client wanted to shoot only one spot, “Gas Station.” But we loved the parking lot so much that we asked production to make two spots instead of one. After all, all we needed was a barrier as we already had a tank on location. In the end, we managed to convince everybody to shoot the spot “Parking Lot.” Wargaming was also really glad to know that we shot two spots instead of one.
Specific demands: We only had the budget for one spot, so we had to shoot both spots in one day. On top of that, the gas station only allowed us to shoot at night. So, we started to shoot at midnight in the gas station and finished at midday in the parking lot. It was pretty intense.
Alternative approach: We would try to shoot three spots instead of two.