BMW

This was the introduction campaign for the BMW 1 Series convertible.

The name of this series is "Moondrivers", which also explains the concept and its approach. These images were shot with only the moonlight. To give you an idea of how little light that is, we needed an exposure time of three and a half hours. This kind of extreme exposure cannot be done with a digital camera, so we used an analog 4x5" camera.

Before we flew down to the United States, we contacted an observatory, and with their help we researched the most promising position and path of the moon. We were very limited in our time, since we needed to use the lightest nights, just before and right after the full moon.

First we scouted our locations, the positions of the camera and the car, and what the path of the moon on our planned night would be. The three different locations are in Nevada, Arizona and Utah.

During the shoot, we had to sit right next to camera during the entire take. Cause with exposure times this long, our shot could have been ruined with just one car driving past the camera. So as soon as a car approached we had to close the lens and wait for it to leave our frame.

Since there was only one BMW 1 Series convertible in existence during shooting, we had to use a stand-in car and replace it with a CGI car in the post production. This CGI car was built with a computer model, and reference shots of the actual car we shot in our studio.

Credits

Agency: JWT Amsterdam
Creatives: Martijn van der Werf / Thijs de Boer / Bart Kooij
Production: Lisette Kooijman at JVF
360 degrees Photography: Glenn Taylor
Photo Post Production: Taylor James
Photo Assist: Jasper Buninga