Hundreds of barking seals lounge around in an icy coliseum and a jet blasts through a young guy’s nose in a two-spot international campaign revealing the intense vapor powers of Warner Lambert’s new maxair gum.

Bates Canada coined the explosive creative and Navigator’s Bill Scarlet directed the spots, which called for three days in the South African sunshine, with local dop Terrence Maritz, and a day at Marineland in Niagara Falls, on with two California sea lions and dop Paul Tolton.

The spots, shot for about $750,000, will hit Canadian airwaves in mid-January. Fifteen-second versions will debut in Japan at the end of February, followed by Portugal in April with other markets to follow.

‘Seals’ starts off simply with a young man, shot straight on, standing in a park about to pop a piece of gum into his mouth. Once the chewing begins, the top of his head blows off leaving a trail of vapor and revealing an ice-covered stadium with endless tiers of seals. Cut to a product shot of the silvery, sparkling package and back to the boy for feeding time as he drops a herring into his open head.

The seals, who according to Scarlet were very cooperative and affectionate, were captured on a green screen head-on, close-up and in about eight different positions, attitudes and angles.

‘It was loud, wild and a lot of fun,’ says Scarlet. ‘But, since we didn’t really know how it was all going to fit together, I had to provide many pieces to keep it as flexible as possible.’

With the Marineland footage, Axyz, the folks who brought us an infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of typewriters for Molson Canadian, used virtually the same layering technique to create a head full of seals.

Once the ice-covered stadium, the background for the sea creatures, was created in Houdini, the animals were cloned and placed around it using both the Inferno and Henry.

‘Jumbo Jet’ embodies the same explosive qualities as ‘Seals’ but rather than a straightforward set-up, the action this time goes back and forth between an unsuspecting gum chewer hanging out in the park with his buddies and two pilots preparing for take off in their maxair plane.

When the gum’s vapor powers are released the two stories converge as the camera (from the p.o.v. of the jet) hones in on the boy’s face, flies up his nose and exits the back of his head.

The pilots were shot on stage with a mock up cockpit on a blue screen, a cg model Boeing 747 was animated and everything was put together in Houdini.

While ‘Jumbo Jet’ reveals the gum’s nasal appeal and sends the literal message that the sensation is strong, ‘Seals’, according to creative director Bill Martin, takes the creative into a much more experimental direction.

‘`Seals’ moves into an area which says the gum is a head hit and addresses the fact that there is a mental form of exhilaration,’ he says.

The Axyz team that worked on the spots include Henry artists Joel Saunders, Andres Kirejew, Gary Thomas and Sean Cochran and Inferno artists Steve Zourntos and Dave Giles. John Coldrick, Mario Marnego and Pete Thorup handled animation. John Fraser and Mike Schwab painted the mattes and Bruce Copeman edited.

Bates Canada’s James Dunlop wrote the spots and Gerald Flach was art director.