Story dated February 25, 2004

Pinball is the theme for the Ford Motor Company's latest advert in the UK for the Ford Fiesta car.

The spot was directed by Antoine Bardou-Jacquet of the Honda "Cog" advert and used a real pinball playfield with a model car to realise the idea of putting a Ford Fiesta car into a pinball game.  This 1/86th scale model was positioned and lit within the game and shot using an endoscope camera to get the required positions and angles.

The full size car was then shot in a studio scaling up all the distances and sizes by 86 so as to match the model.

To make the whole thing appear as realistic as possible, extensive 3D work was required to create naturalistic shadows and reflections in the pinball, the car and the pinball table.

Using a precise 3D replica of the pinball playfield and the computer-recorded lighting patterns they then built a CG Ford Fiesta, animated it as per the live action and picked-up the reflections generated by the software. These reflections were then composited onto the real car to make the final result.

The advert is currently showing on the UK's main commercial TV channels and you can view it here, thanks to Marc Cohen.