Click to read the fascinating story behind Volvo Trucks’ ad “The Epic Split”, where Enya’s music is heard to Van Damme’s truck stunt. This is from AdAge.com:
Part of what makes Volvo Trucks’ ad “The Epic Split” so brilliant and bizarre is its soundtrack: Who expects to see a stunt by action star Jean-Claude Van Damme set to a song by the ethereal Enya?
Now the ad world is expecting Forsman & Bodenfors’ viral video, featuring the Enya song “Only Time,” to take a Grand Prix at Cannes this month. And it turns out that a top ad creative, one with a Grand Prix himself, actually directed the Enya music video back in 2000.
Graham Fink, Ogilvy & Mather’s chief creative officer for greater China, made his name with ads including Saatchi & Saatchi’s classic 1989 “Face” commercial for British Airways. He was taking a break from advertising to direct when he was asked to shoot a music video for the Irish singer — “A lovely lady,” he said.
Enya’s team played him the track, “and even before I had the idea, it seemed the most important thing was, what was Enya going to wear?” he said. “It was more important than the concept or anything.”
Mr. Fink interpreted the song (“Who can say where the road goes, / Where the day flows? / Only time”) as being about the seasons. Because Enya lived in a castle (Dublin’s Manderley Castle, which she purchased in 1997) he set the video in one. But he brought the “weather” indoors, rain and autumn leaves included.
“We collected thousands of leaves from some of the parks in London … and as we were firing all these leaves at her I remember I was really worried that perhaps we’d picked up some dog shit too, and I just had these visions of Enya getting covered in dog shit,” he said. “Thankfully that never happened.”
Read it here.