Metro commercials’ virtual success

Considering that last year, Metro FM had officially grown to be acknowledged as South Africa's biggest radio station, now enjoying the highest listenership in the country, boasting 6.126 million listeners, Net#work was briefed to develop a campaign that would demonstrate black success and leadership and position Metro FM as the premier urban black radio station.

According to Net#work Creative Head, Brad Reilly: "Metro FM listeners have evolved into people of power and the captains of industry. We decided to portray them as strategic super heroes epitomising the cutting edge of black pride. And what better way to create these characters than by personifying the black pieces of a chessboard. We have portrayed them as super human, super cool and elevated them into the realm of fantasy."

The images were directed by director, Kim Geldenhuys and involved close collaboration between the team of production specialists at The Refinery. Work on the advert began in November 2003. The first step involved extensive research followed by the development of 3D animation designs to create the virtual world in which the superheroes live. It was the first time in South Africa that a virtual world has been designed for the whole duration of an advert. To ensure that there was no room for error, the entire advert was first created in animation in order to fine-tune every shot before filming. The advert was then filmed using 'green screen' technology, which allowed the virtual set to be added in during post production.

Hilton Treves of The Refinery had this to say: "The greatest challenge was to create something that nobody had seen before. The previous adverts for Metro FM have set an extremely high standard. We had to develop something that was visually captivating - something that would raise that standard even higher."

Reilly adds: "It will be interesting to see where we go next, but isn't that what we say every year?!"