Alfa Romeo
written by: Bill Habeeb
“…We are in the realm of sensations… Passions… Things that have more to do with the heart than with the head.”
What if you were given the ability to control the intensity of your life experience with a dial? A certain number of us might choose to crank it up. We’d opt to live life to its most thrilling. We’d throw caution to the wind, insist on more bang for our buck, and leap headlong into life with breathless exhilaration, just as we do with love.
Fantasy, you might say? Perhaps. But not to the owners of Alfa Romeos—the most beautiful of automotive beasts to power the road. If you are a member of that special class of driver, you know that just seeing one of those vehicles is a seduction. Driving it is… falling in love. You’ll never be the same. But you will definitely feel. You’ll gain an intimate understanding of what is means to share in A Near Life Experience—something drivers of other vehicles will never be able to grasp.
That’s the idea on which this campaign must be built. And capturing that hyper-aware level of energy and emotion calls for a film language that is cinematically bold and beautiful. We want the light, lensing, composition, film speed, editorial tempo, and sound design to deliver a visually engaging and viscerally involving story that—like an Alpha Romeo—is sexy, captivating, and powerful.
The Look & Style
I want the imagery to be captured in a way that feels as if there’s no separation between the car and driver. It’s as if, once you are behind that wheel, you become one with the car. The responsiveness, power, beauty, and comfort of the Alfa Romeo Stelvio are so overwhelming that the lines between physical and mechanic vanish.
This will be gained by combining stunning views of the car, heart-pumping driving footage, and amazing macro photography, to take our viewers into a world of beautiful color and styling, dynamic action, and heightened sensory responses.
It must look and feel unlike anything else in the category—a beautifully positive and thrilling twist on the footage of Requiem for a Dream blended with the editorial style of Baby Driver. But to be clear, I mention those comparisons only in an effort to create a basis for discussion. Ultimately, I want the look of this film to be something more; something unique; a new standard by which all other high-performance car campaigns will be measured.
The Casting
We’ll populate the film with a diverse range of types (between 25 and 50) all of whom will be attractive and aspirational, but at the same approachable and real. Although they may look different, they are all united by a common sense of character. But in the midst of these people, we will focus on two individuals—our protagonists.
The idea is to make this story more personal—a love story that celebrates the wildness of life. In it, we meet two individuals who come closer, and closer to each other—until finally coming together in a chance meeting made possible by their shared driving experiences.
They are made for each other. Soul mates. Like all the people in this film, they don’t need to seek the approval of others. They know and trust themselves. They are calm and confident individuals who are comfortable in their own skins; the original influencers. They set trends—effortlessly and unintentionally as a natural consequence of how they live and love.
They value quality. They have a deep appreciation for style and craftsmanship, and believe in incorporating art and beauty into their everyday lives—which is one of the many reasons they choose to drive an Alfa Romeo.
Those qualities will be reflected in their look and in their performance. At no time must it ever look or feel as if these people are posing or pretending to be something they aren’t. Each and ever moment we capture must imbue the stories with a sense of honesty, humanity, and passion for the driving experience.
The Car Photography
Love and beauty heighten the senses, and that will act as a visual and thematic metaphor for the way in which we capture the Stelvio.
This will be accentuated by offering the audience quick glimpses of the body responding to the stimulus of the drive. We’ll punctuate those moments with macro looks at the vehicle. In some instances, we’ll keep the imagery so amazingly close that the shots will border on abstraction.
A super tight shot of the iconic badge, a stunning angle on the dual exhausts, wheels spinning, a hand manipulating the gear shift… We want to strike a fine balance between beauty and power. It’s as the exteriors of these vehicles have been sculpted by a great artist. The interiors created by an amazing designer.
In support of this, the camera will be used to caress the contours of the vehicle. Beautiful light will make the sheet metal shimmer beneath the lens. Macro photography and graceful camera moves will allow us to immerse viewers in the comfort and luxury of the interiors.
We’ll capture epic views of the Stelvio powering down straightaways and curling through the turns of a mountain or coastal road. We’ll sweep around the vehicle at speed, see it blow past the lens from exotic low angles, and kick up dust in elegant slow motion as it glides across earth—all adding up to an experience that will separate Alfa Romeo from all other brands in the class.
When it comes to power, we will design moments that give bold visual meaning to the word. Employing a mix of dynamic angles, speeds, and perspectives we’ll use the camera to magnify the beautiful details of the vehicles, while simultaneously amping up the feeling of power and performance.
Sound Design
The film demands an evocative sound design filled with audio cues that bring a feature-like quality to the narrative. This added cinematic element will allow us to feel the power and sexiness of the Stelvio. We’ll hear the roar of the engine, the rush of wind, and the rasp of tires. Inside the cabin, those sounds will fall away, enveloping the audience in elegant silence that allows us to appreciate the symphony of sound provided by the musical score.
The Near Life Experience
We’ll open on beautifully composed living portraits of different people fully embracing life and engaging in a mix of different extraordinary activities. Those can include someone leaping off the precipice of a mountain and paragliding through the air, a woman gleefully dashing through a rain storm, another person diving into an ocean towing a lifesaving float behind them, or bursting up through the surface of water and gasping for breath…
A moment that hits you so hard, you almost feel alive.
Keeping the camera relatively tight on these people, will allow us to focus on physicality and emotions at the heart of each action, without needing to see the details in their surrounding environments.
In stunning contrast, we’ll cut wide to see the body of a person in the distance—tiny in comparison to the vast and epic landscape.
For a split-second, your eyes sparkle like a distant planet.
At this point, we focus our main characters—the man and woman. Introducing them separately, we’ll create the feeling that they every move they make brings them closer, and closer, and closer to an inevitable meeting.
It’s unavoidable; an act of predetermined fate that triggers a powerful response from the universe.
The dramatic tension builds, until it has to be released. A star nebula explodes in an eruption of light, motion, and color…
Clouds fly across a beautiful blue sky, an eye dilates, hairs rise on skin, beads of sweat glide across part of someone’s body…
Offering the viewer a very personalized perspective, we will place them inside the vehicle by giving them views captured during a drive. Looking through the windscreen we see trees fly by with sun filtering down through the leaves. Gazing down across the hood, the reflection of clouds glide across the contours of the car.
Your heart rattles your rib cage. Your imagination catches fire.
Integrating more driving footage, we see the Stelvio powering across a beautiful stretch of road while hearing the sound of its engine roar.
It’s now that we get our first glimpse of our protagonists. We see the hands of a woman reaching down toward the gear shift, and take an opportunity to capture some organic glimpses of the interior.
Perhaps now we can see a branded drink tumbler and/or the Alfa Romeo key chain swaying gently from the motion of the car…
Cutting to the face of our man, we see him enjoying the experience of the drive. His hand grips the steering wheel—with an Alfa branded Fitbit wrapped around his wrist. Another option would be to see him reach out to interact with the touchscreen…
Exploring the interior, we catch a look at a branded iPad case resting on the luxurious leather seat… These moments can be punctuated with more macro cuts, ruby red lips part, a heart pounds, an eyelash lifts as an eye widens, long beautiful hair blows in the wind, a body breaks the surface of water sending a explosion of air bubbles toward the lens, a hand extends out an open window to feel the rush of wind…
And in that moment, you cut the cord, and set yourself free.
In a bold display of power, the Stelvio powers past the lens.
Adding in detailed shots that romance the vehicle, we see the Alfa Romeo badge on the front grill captured at speed. Macro shots of wheels spin across pavement… We look through the glass to see the face of our driver—with the reflection of the natural environment flying across the surface of the window…
A Near Life Experience.
Increasing the tempo, we cut between the man and the woman driving their cars. The pulse of the film increases like the pounding of a racing heart.
We see the cars swinging through the curves of a coastal road, climbing up toward cliffs.
The two cars pull in and stop at an overlook—with this epic view of ocean waters stretching out toward the horizon.
They glance toward each other. We feel the connection between the two…
We have…
Every day.
With the sun bringing a golden warmth to the setting, and the endless possibilities of this chance meeting just beginning… We cut away to the logo.
Alfa Romeo
The Mechanics of Emotion.
Summing things up for now…
The ideas I’ve included are meant to inspire and ignite a continued collaboration that I’m confident will lead to an amazing piece of film.
The key at this point, is to search for ways of using the camera, light, casting, and environments to captivate viewers so that they share the same passion, excitement, and exhilaration that our characters experience when driving an Alfa Romeo.
It’s a great concept that requires the skill of a dedicated team who care enough to give themselves fully to making sure this film meets—and exceeds—its full potential.
Thanks, and I look forward to speaking with all of you again..