The revolutionary campaign captures surfing in a way never seen before, with the final visuals baring more resemblance to a fight scene from the famous Matrix movies than a promotional surfing video.
"We wanted to look at surfing in an entirely new way, ultimately doing something that would blow people's minds,"says James Taylor, Rip Curl Global Creative Director. "The Mirage is our most technical boardshort and this campaign showcases the performance of the boardshort, showcases the team's performance and ties the two together in a revolutionary way."
The two-day rental of Sunway Lagoon Wavepool allowed Rip Curl and Timeslice to operate in a more stable environment than the open ocean offers. The Rip Curl surfers were repeatedly towed into the machine-controlled waves by Jetski and their operational space was determined by the 52-camera rig set up in the pool.
"This shoot captures the idea that you can experience a certain space in three dimensions from more than one view at a time," explains Tim MacMillan of Timeslice Films. "This project was revolutionary for us, because we'd never worked with surf before and was revolutionary for Rip Curl, because it was their first experience with Timeslice technology. The results achieved are really quite remarkable."
The campaign was something new for the surfers too, who were asked to step out of their comfort zones and be directed by the bullet-time technology.
"The footage is unbelievable," says Fanning, reigning two-time ASP World Champion. "It was really refreshing to be a part of a unique photoshoot like this and the final videos are insane. It was a lot of fun."
The Mirage Boardshort campaign is being released across all mediums, as well as having retail floor presence in surf stores around the world.
The package is bolstered by the inclusion of a collection of unique QR Codes, a first of its kind globally for the surfing industry. The QR Codes are attached to all advertising, visual merchandise and product, offering a variety of exclusive video edits within each code.
"The QR Codes hold the key to some very cool and very unique video edits," explains Neil Ridgway, Rip Curl Marketing & Advertising Chairman. "We have a lot of awesome content to support this year's Mirage campaign both in the pool and on The Search and we love the film integration possibilities QR Codes have given us. It helps to bring print to life and that's another step forward."
The Mirage boardshort range is available for viewing at www.ripcurl.com/mirage
