VILKA AGENCY

Cat's adventure in the mysterious summer forest

a real production nightmare in a snowy March
Major pharmaceutical company BAYER is launching an advertising campaign in support of the flea and tick protection collar "Foresto". They came to us with a detailed brief from which we had to come up with an interesting approach to promoting a cat collar protecting from ticks and fleas. We had to create a promotional video.
cat sign
We have to make a video with a cat in a mysterious summer forest at night. He has to jump, play around, and chase the "monsters". Yes, the bedroom with happy owners must be there, too, to purr next to them after the walk.

And that would be fine, but what month do you think it is? End of February — what perfect timing! And we need it as urgently as ever: it goes live in April. But we are experts, and snow outside is just the trifles of life.

The video's plot is centered on the domestic cat Tiger, who sneaks out of the house and explores the night woods at his owners' cottage. He encounters all kinds of "monsters", exciting obstacles, and curious routes along the way. But in the morning, of course, he returns home to his owners and falls asleep in the same bed with them. Just like it often happens in real life, when we come to the summer cottage with our pets. The advertising campaign focuses on the fact that sometimes we have no idea where our pets walk and what uninvited guests they bring into the house after their walks.
So here we go. Cat casting. Tiger was unparalleled and immediately broke out as a favorite.
And where are we shooting? Well, certainly not in the March forest near Moscow. Should we go to a place a bit warmer? But the budget won't cover this adventure. Okay.
We're looking for the greenhouses and — hallelujah, there's an exposition of the woodland in the Apothecary Orchard. Except the floor is concrete and there's no grass at all, only larch trees.

Where do we film sleeping owners? Done! We'll build a lounge and decorate the bedroom right in the greenhouse. The bed we'll bring there. For a week, the art director collects moss, grass, leaves, sticks, bark, and earth from all over Moscow. And on top of that, the director says, we need a frog. A frog? But monsters! And we found it! And with the alternate.
We also brought an almost trained hedgehog: you spray him with a spray gun — he runs — everything is clear.
Well, the whole floor had to be planted with grass. We made a fallen tree of pipe, moss, and bark so that the little cat would have a tunnel. We planted some bushes.
We even dug in a fence — it's a country house, after all.

Instead of the moon, there is an illuminator. "We'll draw it up in the post", the cameraman said. "Okay", said the producer, and his eye twitched slightly. Well, in the end, there were birds in the post, a dawning ray of sunshine, and a twinkle in the eyes.

And three meters from the woods we build a bedroom. A few sheets of drywall, two buckets of paint, and a bed from Ikea. We cover ourselves with a black cloth and wave leaves in front of the light fixture — like it's a tree outside the window.
But that’s nothing compared to the task of getting the poor, albeit well-trained, Tiger the cat to perform all the planned staged movements required of him by the script.
It took the protagonist, a cat of a rare breed, some time to "get into his role," but in the end, with the help of the beautiful trainer Lucy Shulepova, Tiger gave it a 100%.
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Team
Creative Director and creative: Ivan Us
Cameraman: Grigory Apaliais
Producer: Olga Pankratova
Artistic Director: Anna Chernova
Tiger (Lyusya Shulepova), the Cat