Sune Sorensen directs new spot for Xiaomi about the journey of a robot with Ogilvy Beijing
Ogilvy Beijing has created this unique spot for Chinese tech giant, Xiaomi, about a robot’s journey from its first step to the unknown directored by Sune Sorensen and produced by Nice Shirt, London and Balance, Beijing.
On a remote desert road, tugged away in the deepest Mongolian wastelands, a robot springs to life and must figure out how to move forward – one small step at a time. Meanwhile, even the simplest of tasks appear almost insurmountable for the little fighter, who falls not once or twice but over and over again – each time learning a little more. Ultimately, with one single purpose. He must walk on.
Sorensen said: “It is tremendously fascinating to work with a human-like character, who is completely void of emotions and unable to convey even the most basic expressions – had it been pure fiction, we would’ve been able to animate a series of unrealistic scenes but since this is a real robot, it was a thriling challenge to see how it could come alive and turn into a somewhat whimsical, lovable character – not least considering the connotations that some audiences may have with the idea of robots. It’s hard to say if I succeeded, but personally I came to love this little guy – even if I did almost break him during the shoot”.
Xiaomi had developed two prototypes at the time of shooting and both were used during the shoot: “We had two large engineering and tech teams, who made sure both robots were cared for, but since this was shoot during the still-early-stages of the prototypes, I definitely put them through the ringer with some of my ideas. We would push the robots (wearing blue-man-suits), make them walk on difficult surfaces, and through fierce weather conditions – and I’ll admit, when one of them broke down during a heavy rain scene I was definitely worried that we’d broken a very, very, very, expensive toy – thankfully, we didn’t and the scene actually ended up in the film”.
This campaign marks the launch of Xiaomis first ever Humanoid Robot, which follows a long term effort within the robot engineering market (earlier launching other robots, such as a dog). The shoot was produced by Nice Shirt, London and took place in Mongolia with Chinese crew.
Credits
Director
Sune Sorensen
Represented by JSA and AgentZoo London: Nice Shirt Films
LA & NY: Hey Baby Films
Paris: Bandits Productions
Berlin & Hamburg: Markenfilm Canada: Circle Productions
Asia: JSA, Nice Shirt, Markenfilm Asia. Latin America: JSA.
Client
Xiaomi
Shiwei, Wang – Chief Branding Officer Jialing, Lv – Senior Creative
Nan, Su – Senior Creative
Ying, Wang – Project Manager
Agency
Ogilvy, Beijing
Teonghoe, Teng – Executive Creative Director Kim, Yi – Group Creative Director
Lily, Wang – Senior Art Director
Jason, Wang – Senior Account Manager
Production House, London
Nice Shirt Films
MD & Executive Producer – Richard Martin
Production House, Beijing
Balance
Henry Xiao – Executive Producer Lynn Wong – Producer
Adam Huang – DOP
Lei Cao – 1st AD
CG & Online
Digital Domain
Shanghai, MERCURY.LAB
Patrick Firmansyah – VFX & Flame Artist Allegra David – VFX & Flame Artist
Grading House
Raised By Wolves Vic Parker – Colorist
Talents
Xiaomi Robot Prototype 1.0.2 Xiaomi Robot Prototype 1.0.1
Editing House
Tenthree
Gary Forrester – Editor
Composer
Yicheng Xiao – Composer
Sound design
Sine Audio Post Production
Phil Bolland – Founding Partner / Lead Engineer
