"Pool" was a 2002 advertisement for the BMW 7 Series directed by Daniel Barber. It featured the Boards of Canada song "Kid For Today".

Director's comments

Daniel Barber gave some comments about the filming this ad on the Director's Guild of Great Britain's old site:

BMW-Pool (60 seconds)

The script arrived under my door in a beautiful white envelope marked, Hotel Wellington, Madrid. My son Moses, who is four and a half, brought it to me "Letter for Daddy!" he announced, it was too early for the hotel bill. Anyway, I wasn't paying this one, I was in Spain working on a worldwide campaign for Exxon. The accompanying fax from my producer Matthew Brown, introduced the script for the new BMW 7-series. Excellent! I love BMW's and I love receiving BMW scripts they're always good, if not very good! This was a corker, a woman dives into a swimming pool with a car at the bottom. There is no water, so she swims in the air around the car and looks inside to see no gearstick, no handbrake and no ignition key; the idea being you don't have to see it to know it's there. "I love it!", " Good!" Matthew said; "You're on a flight tomorrow; do some work on it, we meet the agency creatives Jo and Simon and agency producer Binky at 11.00am". "But, I'm shooting today!" "Well you'd better be quick then!" After the initial meeting, I drew up a storyboard and took the agency through my thoughts and ideas for the ad. I was very excited, I do get very excited!

At the end of the second meeting, we were all very excited! Matthew did a budget and off I went to Los Angeles to shoot another ad. From LA, back to London and on a plane twelve hours later to South Africa for a location recce. I was a bit jet lagged, but not a lot, I think I've got used to travelling long distances in a short amount of time. Location is great, back to London, agency approve, off to Munich to see the car. Wow! It's big, it's beautiful, it's a BMW 7-series. The Z8 is great as well, I had lots of fun revving the 5 litre V5 (Ja! It's a true sports car in the British vein, announces our proud German host, but far more reliable!)

We shot the commercial at night in a diving pool, just north of Cape Town in a sleepy little town called Worcester. Jonathan Green, my production designer, made the pool and the surroundings look wonderful. Ben Davies, my lighting cameraman, lit the scene beautifully and I loved the biscuits catering made. Shooting at night can be very hard, adjusting to the time difference, waking up at 5.00pm and working until dawn is weird. We shot in the pool for three nights and it all went very well. I really got into it! I found the whole experience very peaceful and I found I could really think; no telephones ringing, no interruptions, just creative concentration - my favourite. We shot all the plate shots of the car and the pool and some shots of our diver on the board, pre dive (there was no water in the pool). Then, we all went to a huge marine tank at a military installation to shoot underwater shots of our heroine swimming in the pool.

We made sure she had no bubbles on her, a scuba diver brushed them off and we even shot reflections in mirrors positioned under water, so we could matte these onto the sides of the car. Unfortunately, there is not enough space here to go into all the technical details, but suffice it to say by mixing and overlaying our swimmer over the original plate shots on video assist, it seemed to be working very well.

Phew, just time for a last Indian meal at Buccara in Cape Town, probably the best Indian in the world before the flight home. I'm very pleased and the music is good as well a new group called Boards of Canada, composed it especially. So there you are, a lovely script, a lovely agency, a happy client and a great job!

What's next?! I'll just see if Moses has any more letters for me! [1]

Details

Title

Pool

Date

March 14, 2002

Country

UK

Agency

WCRS, London

Production

Rose Hackney Barber, London

Post Production

The Mill, London

Sound Production

750 mph, London

Copywriter

Jo Moore

Art Director

Simon Robinson

Agency Producer

James Lethem

Director

Daniel Barber

Producer

Matthew Brown

Director of Photography

Ben David

Account Directory

Simon Peck

Actor

Kate Sullivan

Mill Producer

Helen Weil

Lead Flame Artist

Jason Watts

Flame Artist

Chris Knight

Telecine Operator

Adam Scott

Flame Assistants

Matt Wilmshurst, Gavin Wellsman, Ricard de Carteret

[2] [3] [4]

External links

• Video:

• • The Reel (free registration required)
  • Shots (paid subscription required)

• Director profile
• Interview with Daniel Barber
• The Mill article