The Mill teamed up with R/GA on ‘Mind Blowing Savings’ the first spot in Jet.com's hilarious campaign introducing the new members-only shopping site.
Tracing history back to the barter system and on to the invention of the cash register, and online shopping, humankind has found their minds blown from these modes of exchange throughout the years. And now Jet.com is here, blowing consumers minds into exploding clouds of Jet.com purple when they learn about how much they could save on the new shopping site.
The Mill created these the explosions with a combination of practical and CG elements. Using a dummy rig and a bit of puppeteering, The Mill team shot the ceramic dummy heads with cracks in the skull so there were elements to composite on the talent, this was executed by the 2D team. Air cans that shot powder out of the skulls were used for each explosion. Some of the cranium explosions were done in CG so there was more control over the speed and trajectory of these head explosions allowing the viewer to take a peak inside the cranium.
The Jet.com purple color of each explosion changes throughout each era in the spot. The team shot everything the same, catching the powder explosions in camera and the 2D treated each of the colors to match the era it represented.
Other details such as reflections of the explosions in glass and the billboard extension at the end were composited into the spot.
A 15 and 30 second version of the silly spot will air nationwide as well. It’s the biggest thing in shopping since… shopping!