Justin Timberlake fronts new Sauza 901 Tequila campaign created by La Comunidad Miami
Strange Beast director and animator, Piccadilly Curtains, has teamed up with Miami-based creative advertising agency La Comunidad and actor/musician Justin Timberlake to create an online promo using in-camera visual effects via projections for the new Sauza 901 Tequila.
La Comunidad came to Strange Beast with a brief to tell the story of the meeting of minds between Don Sauza, the founder of the brand, and Justin Timberlake, the creator of the new Sauza 901 Tequila. The overarching concept for the brief was ‘Premium Remastered’ – to bring the expertise and values of Sauza up to the present day - and the narrative centres on the conceit of Timberlake reading from Don Sauza’s diary. La Comunidad asked for a fusion of the illustrative aesthetic of the 1800s and a modern twist, using in-camera projections to immerse Timberlake into this world.
Director Piccadilly Curtains was enthusiastic about the prospect from the outset: “Projections, illustration, alcohol and a superstar -‐ what’s not to like about a brief like that? I loved the idea of creating a very detailed, almost Victorian style of illustration and finding out how this would fit within a more modern aesthetic. By using traditional cel animation, but then projecting it in and around Justin during a live-‐action shoot, I feel we really nailed the theme of ‘Premium Remastered’.”
Piccadilly Curtains led a team of over 40 to create the content as a core group of animators toiled around the clock to prepare the material for projections on a tight schedule and the live-‐action department worked with the director to determine the best range of screen sizes and materials for the shoot. The final film captured almost everything in-‐camera. Of the working process Piccadilly Curtains says: “I wanted to create a single, installation-‐type space which was a real-‐world representation of an ‘exploded’ diary or book, with large screens representing the cover and an array of smaller page-‐like projection surfaces where Justin could literally become immersed in the knowledge and words contained within.”
The collaborative process was one of the highlights of the production, explains Piccadilly Curtains: “Justin was instrumental in pulling this whole thing together on the day. He was a real joy to work with. Finding the right path both he and the camera should take around this world and hitting that balance between beautiful abstractions created by the projections and keeping the coherence of such a strong narrative script made for an exciting day.”