The first filmed message from a Canadian liquor distiller hit the big screen early this month with a spot that won’t be mistaken for a reconfigured beer ad. The spot for United Distillers’ Silent Sam vodka, appropriately titled ‘Shadowlands,’ is a departure from the breezy lifestyle tableaux of many televised beer ads and features the after-dark activities of the denizens of a strange metropolis.

The assignment was out of Toronto’s Communique Group, with credits going to team Chris Stavenjord, Richard Muldridge and Ged Stankis. Revolver’s Cosimo Zitani directed. Toronto’s Spin Productions enhanced the spot’s moody imagery with compositing and effects done at full-film resolution on the facility’s Discreet Logic Inferno system. Agency producer was Karen Field and Smash’s Barry Farrell edited.

‘Shadowlands” noirish yet surreal city scenes represent close collaboration at all stages of production between Spin, Zitani, dop Barry Parrell and Revolver art director Michael ‘Spike’ Parkes. Revolver producer was Jannie McKinnes and executive was Dan Ford.

A 90-second big-screen format offered an opportunity to create something markedly different, says Stavenjord.

‘It was important to create something that wasn’t just like another tv commercial for the theater,’ he says. ‘We wanted something mysterious and intriguing with more depth.’

Zitani says he met with Communique about a year ago when he first saw the boards for the project. ‘There was the possibility to do something different and spectacular,’ says Zitani. The director says he wanted to give the spot an international feel and adds he was given a reasonable amount of creative rope to bring some ‘alternative’ images to the project.

The spot, aimed at the 21-to-35 crowd, was shot over four days early this summer around Toronto. Scenes which melded otherworldly industrial locations with cityscapes and shadows and smoke were created with the skills of Spin doctors Steven Lewis, Paul Cormack and Keith Adams. Zitani says he attempted to infuse the spot with a ‘subtext of silence’ running throughout.

The additional technical demands of delivering a high-concept spot in film resolution meant that Spin worked closely with agency and director from the shooting stage through post.

Film was scanned at 2k film resolution at an l.a. facility and then loaded into the Inferno system. With 10 megabyte per frame files, the spot required a whole lot of processing, with the entire process taking about two weeks.

‘Unlike working on video, you can’t use all the color-correction devices used in traditional video post,’ says Spin president Norm Stangl, which meant careful attention to the matching of filmed elements.

Some of the spot’s striking visuals, like an overhead shot of a futuristic circular rooftop bar, relied heavily on what Stavenjord calls ‘Spin’s seamless effects work.’

A studio-created bar was shot at an angle to match location elements shot atop a Toronto office tower and then composited into the final shot so that the bar appears embedded in the roof.

Lewis attests to the importance of accurate lighting, shadows, angles and colors in cinema format. ‘Detail is very important on a project like this; you can’t get away with anything in film resolution on the big screen,’ he says.