The Diary of Sauli Hirvi » Work

Läkerol Commercial: Vampire

Sauli Hirvi — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 16:30:37 +0000

Last week, we shot a commercial for Läkerol in an abandoned mansion near Vilnius, Lithuania. The place used to be a soviet era hospital and there was still some medicine cabinets left. The director, Jalmari Helander, offered 50 euros if I tried some pills from the cabinets, but I declined. I could’ve used 50 euros, though. Here’s the film and some shots from the shoot.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-ObsxZvEiM

Oma Kaupunki Campaign

Sauli Hirvi — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 09:37:08 +0000

Last month, me and Marko Rantanen went shooting around the Helsinki metropolitan area for Helsingin Sanomat omakaupunki.fi ad campaign. “Oma kaupunki”, which translates as “My city”, is a site where people can exchange tips, events, news and services. The campaign theme is “Greetings from the neighborhood. This is what Oma Kaupunki is made of.” All the ads show how people can collaboratively participate in documenting their home town.

I shot with my Pentax ME and Marko used his Hasselblad XPan. I wanted to use film cameras to get a casual feel to the photos, like they were shot by ordinary people, but still remain stylish enough to be used in advertising. The look is largely based on my personal snapshots and the handwritten, care-free typography by Jenni Juntunen plays an important part.

The print ads are comprised of short collaborative stories about Helsinki with thematically related pictures.

The campaign also contains two fridge magnet outdoor ads where people can arrange words that describe Helsinki. The magnets are free to take home with you. And if that wasn’t enough, we have a multi-user banner where five persons per banner can arrange virtual fridge magnets.

Fridge magnet outdoor ad

Fridge magnet multi-user banner

"For free" ad in stores around Helsinki

Post-it sticker ad

Marko hanging from the ground

Some of my photos allocated for this campaign

Good Taste Comes From Sweden

Sauli Hirvi — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:04:27 +0000

Our campaign for Läkerol will be starting at full force soon. For now, you can entertain yourself with a bunch of films we made about our Swedish star Håkan, a man who will bring the message of good taste into Finland. Enjoy!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1AydzLSjOk

Check out the Youtube channel with more films

Shooting Around

Sauli Hirvi — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 19:17:48 +0000

Last Sunday we flew to Sweden, only to take a cab straight from Arlanda to the Silja Line terminal and grab a ferry back to Finland. Shortest trip to Sweden ever. We were shooting some films for a soon-to-come campaign, first on the ferry and later around the towns near Helsinki. The first offline material was finished today and looked quite tantalizing.

It’s great to go out on productions, away from the dark depths of the office.

Our director Filip Nilsson with a video-rigged Canon 5D mark II

Nice shoes

My cabin on the ferry. First time I've been on a good cabin. And first time in 7-8 years on the Swedish ferry altogether.

View from the deck at 7:30 a.m. The iPhone camera doesn’t quite capture it, but it was a pretty sight; Cracked ice sheets that disappeared completely into the fog not too far away:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qXhtFf4gms

Synthesizer In A Banner

Sauli Hirvi — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:42:57 +0000

I made a fun little banner to promote Finnish TV network MTV3′s “Best Pixels of the Month”-awards (Kuukauden parhaat pikselit). Click the “Sävellä” button and you can compose music within the banner. The banner requires Flash 10. If you don’t see it below, it’s most likely hidden by AdBlock, so turn it off. This uses a trimmed down version of a Flash synthesizer engine I’ve made.

The banner and synth themselves take only 8KB, but I was lazy and used a tweening library which takes 12KB, bringing the total to 20KB.

P.S. If you don’t see the banner above, turn off your ad blocker.

Tilt Shift Is Not An Idea

Sauli Hirvi — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 00:58:30 +0000

Repeat it constantly. “Tilt shift is not an idea…” It doesn’t look good and it’s stupid. “BUT IT MAKES BIG THINGS LOOK LIKE SMALL THINGS!” Below are just a few of the tilt shift advertising and videos made during this fad of late. I hope somebody combines the two stupidest fads around: Tilt shift and vampires!