Oscar Mayer - Cheeseplosion

Category

Techniques

Director & Agency

Anthony Farquhar-Smith and Not To Scale New York team up with Johannes Leonardo to create the latest stop motion spot for Oscar Mayer. In an iconic showdown, a hot dog car and a cheese car collide together to create one of Oscar’s many meaty offerings, the Cheese Dog.

The Cheese Dog’s origin story traces back to the Wild West. Anthony’s aesthetic approach channelled action and Western movies to recreate the tension of a classic standoff in a dusty desert. The spot is brimming with grit and adrenalin; with their big tires and exaggerated exhausts, the cars emulate the hot rods of the ‘70s to create that pop-art ‘Keep it Oscar’ aesthetic.

Anthony Farquhar-Smith,

Director

“There is a certain amount of surreal humour to be had from two food based cars having a standoff. And by being faithful to our source of Western and race movies, it’s even funnier to create something so silly in such straight fashion.”

Setting the Scene

Western Vibes

The Crash

Whacky Racers

Dynamic camerawork, featuring rolling shots and extreme low angles on wide lenses, aims to enhance the adrenalin and imitate the classic car chases we see in the movies. At the same time, Anthony inserts his own creative flourishes for the climactic collision of the race cars, which is cleverly made entirely of cotton wool, before we finish on the heroic final frame of the Cheese Dog in all its sizzling and cheesy glory.

The Shoot

Jeph Burton,

Creative Director at Johannes Leonardo

“In collaboration with the amazing filmmaker Anthony Farquhar-Smith, we created a high-octane need for cheese. And like the kind of insanely delicious product the Oscar Mayer Cheese Dog is, it shouldn’t work… but it totally does.”

Ensuring maximum taste appeal of the Cheese Dog was always of the upmost importance. Anthony worked with a food stylist, John Bentham, and the model-makers to ensure the replica cars looked as tasty and realistic as possible. Yet, the real challenge was to capture an epic sense of scale via stop motion, requiring thorough collaboration with the camera department and the model-makers.