Week 11: The works of Marco Brambilla and the Sapporo ‘Legendery Biru’ commercial
Marco Brambilla (born 1960, Milan, Italy) is an Italian-born Canadian artist and filmmaker who works in the United States. Educated at Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada, where he studied film, he first worked in commercials and feature films, directing the successful 1993 science fiction film Demolition Man. In 1998 he shifted focus to video and photography projects, and has since exhibited works in private and public collections, including at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, “Cyclorama” at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and “HalfLife” at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, His commissions include “Superstar” for the “59th Minute” series in Times Square in 1999, and “Arcadia” for “Massless Medium: Explorations in Sensory Immersion” at Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage in 2001, both for New York public arts organization Creative Time. His installation, “Cathedral” was showcased during the Toronto International Film Festival 2008 and his latest work “Civilization” will be a permanent installation at the Standard Hotel in New York when it opens in 2009.
Transit, a collection of photographs Brambilla took in and around national and international airports, was published by Booth-Clibborn Editions in 2000. Brambilla currently lives and works between New York and Los Angeles.
Sapporo beer, one of the most popular brands in Japan, is being brewed in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. The Canadian market is being given a new appreciation of the brand’s cultural heritage through “Legendary Biru” (biru is Japanese for beer), a 2 minute commercial exploring the brewing process behind Sapporo beer. Filming on location over a month in Guangzhou, China, the ad combines live action, motion control and CG and 2D art and matt paintings projected onto geometry. The action moves from level to level with trained martial arts experts, sumo wrestlers and actors cast as samurai and geisha. Japanese cultural advisors were on set throughout to ensure authenticity across the production, with the same level of detail being paid to costume design and art direction.
