The Scottish Government and Road Safety Scotland (part of Transport Scotland) have launched a new 40 & 20 second TV ad to encourage drivers to adjust their speed on country roads.

The ad was created by Chris Watson & Rufus Wedderburn at Newhaven, directed by Richard Oliver and produced by Victoria Watson here at The Gate.

Starring Formula One driver David Coulthard, the commercial involves a Gran Tourismo style car chase in live action and CGI through the Scottish countryside, retracing the final journey of a crash victim. Newhaven based the ad on real life scenarios relating to real fatalities on country roads in Scotland.

Using his expert knowledge as an accomplished driver David provides a documentary style commentary throughout the ad, highlighting how he would approach the unpredictable conditions on a country road.

The Gate and Newhaven worked closely with the local police and accident investigators to choose a road that provided a wide array of typical challenges that contribute to accidents on country roads.

The intention was to produce a recreation of a driver's ill fated
journey in CG, that would be believable and not too reminiscent of a computer game.

The shoot took place at the start of January which in itself leads to challenges with reliability of weather and hours of daylight to shoot the commercial in. The Gate employed the use of the most cutting edge technology and filming techniques to achieve the most realistic sense of being in the car with the fated driver as possible. This even included the use of a highly specialised tracking camera vehicle called a Russian arm, last used for filming action sequences in bond films.

Edit19's 3D department created and modified a 3D car to match the car used within the live action. It was then tracked and animated to drive in front of the real car, creating a ghost car. The car was then composited within the smoke and mirrors graded footage and VFX was used to add skids, mud and flares throughout and modify the live action car to fit the directors vision. The crash was particularly interesting to create as it needed a great deal of research and physics knowledge.

Creative director, Adam Webster referred to the project as "a pleasure to work on. Top director and quality work from our 3D department which made this job a compositors dream. Really nice concept and a top performance from a genuine sporting legend."

Chris Watson Creative Director at Newhaven said:
"It was great working with The Gate and Richard Oliver. It was a
really collaborative process and hopefully we've come up with an ad that helps to reduce deaths on country roads".

Katherine Goodwin, Senior Strategic Marketing Manager for the Scottish
Government, said: "We needed a fresh way to get across the message that you don't have to be going over the speed limit to be driving too fast on country roads. David is absolutely the right person to front the campaign -- he's a respected and credible role model.

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