Nissan creates studio to let fans star in a personalised film trailer that’s created in real-time
Nissan is letting fans experience the thrills of a James Bond-esque secret agent, making them the star of a high-speed adventure in one of its cars that’s captured in a trailer generated in real-time.
The car is the Patrol Nismo, a souped-up version of its standard SUV that’s on display at the Dubai Motorshow this week. Attendees will get to feel what it’s like to be behind the wheel of the car, albeit in the rather unusual settings of thrilling chases and daring getaways akin to a Hollywood blockbuster.
It’s all filmed and edited from a portable film studio Nissan has set up at the show to take visitors through four different scenes. Each one is shot against a green screen, with the only real prop being a full scale Patrol Nismo in order to give fans the kind of tangible experience usually missing from other immersive experiences like virtual reality.
There are 12 aspects that make up the trailer, half of which are user-generated while the other six are static. One scene is the person standing by the car, while another shows them starting it up; all are shot in quick succession using a robotic camera arm usually reserved for the complex shots commonplace in big budget blockbusters. Within two minutes of the final shot being captured, the participant is emailed their very own personalised film trailer for ‘Patrol the Movie’. It’s sent as a YouTube video to make it easier to share alongside a film poster featuring the person standing next to the Patrol.
“This is about making people feel closer to the car,” said Nissan’s head of digital for Africa, Middle East and India David Parkinson. “We find that a lot of the VR work that’s coming out from brands doesn’t let you feel the car. We want to bring the physical aspect of driving together with virtual and activity elements into an immersive experience.”
Around 1,000 people are expected to pass through the film studio’s door this week but Nissan plans to take it to more people. For those fans unable to make the motorshow, Nissan will create personalised film trailers for the ones that share with them what type of spy they’d like to be. There are also plans to set up smaller versions of the studio at the Saudi Arabia Motorshow and the Dubai Film Festival ahead of making it a staple of Nissan stands at all their motorshows worldwide.
Interestingly, Parkinson sees the studio’s real potential in dealerships, where people are increasingly visiting to “touch and feel the car”. Dealerships will be able to have the studio for three or four days in order to switch up the showroom experience and hopefully entice more people in.
It caps off a six-month process that began at this year’s SxSW festival where Parkinson was inspired by the Game of Thrones’ South by South Westeros experience. He then got together with TBWA, Unit9 and filmmaker/producer duo Alexander Horton and Alex De Rakoff to thrash out their own version.
As for future innovations, Nissan is working on an idea that blends augmented reality and virtual reality, combining touch and feel with a virtual experience. It’s being tested at the moment and is one of raft of disruptive uses of technology the car maker is planning.
“The reason we’re in this tech space at the moment is that you have to be in it in order to understand it. If you’re not a part of that technology trend when it takes off then you won’t know anything about it. We’re making sure that our finger is on the pulse event if we’re not specifically doing VR for PR.”