Joaquin Baca-Asay has directed Acura’s latest commercial ‘Airbag,’ featuring a slow motion deflating airbag to highlight the car’s safety.  The spot was produced by Carolyn Casey at RPA and Park Pictures. MPC provided the post including the seamless compositing of multiple passes.

Featuring the strap line ‘sometimes the gifts that mean the most are the ones you hope are never opened’ ‘Airbag’ highlights the car’s security technologies.  Joaquin Baca-Asay explains ‘I had very specific and far reaching technical needs on the Acura Airbag job I did with MPC.  An extremely high frame rate necessitated that we use a specialized video camera with lower than ideal resolution and exposure latitude.  Using multiple exposure passes, they were able to blend everything seamlessly and give me full detail on the car, and a beautiful airbag.  I felt that they understood what I was going for aesthetically, and they gave me full support, from pre production through post.  I was very satisfied with the final result and was back at MPC for my next job’.

MPC’s work for the commercial, commenced in pre-production collaborating with Joaquin to establish the digital dailies process and optimum frame rates 23.98 for the job which was shot at 6900 fps on a Phantom camera.  The main thrust of work included re-creating the entire dash board environment – the only real thing is the air bag itself – from a set of digital stills captured on set by VFX Supervisor Kim Stevenson.