MPC teams up with 180 Kingsday and RSA for Qatar Airways' most ambitious brand campaign yet

In this Broadway-inspired visual feast, 'The World Like Never Before' takes passengers on a magical journey to a fantasy world that will capture their hearts and imagination. 

The centre piece of the new global campaign is a charming and visually stunning film portraying one family’s journey with Qatar Airways. The fairy-tale voyage takes them from their flight through to the romantic streets of Paris, to the vibrant ice-rink and parades of New York City, the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong, the comfort and serenity of the airline's A380 lounge and the compelling mix of tradition and modernity of Doha - before the family finally return to their QSuite flat-bed - and then drift off to sleep in award-winning comfort. 

The ad was conceived and created by 180 Kingsday, produced by RSA Films, with VFX and grade by MPC. 

“Each environment is a crafted theatrical set. The end result feels like a theatre show but the actual set is a mixture of live action set pieces, props, digital matte paintings and CG elements” explained MPC’s 3D Supervisor Greg McKneally. 

Describing some of the challenges involved Greg said: “Getting the clouds to work was a real challenge, making something that you could have potentially created out of cotton or some sort of physical element.  Also, the wipe devices where we created a graphical transition between scenes turned out to be a challenging aspect of the piece, but hopefully it doesn’t feel like that in the end spot, leading seamlessly from one scene to the next”.

Greg explained what it what like to collaborate with Director Ben Scott: “Working with Ben was a real pleasure. He’s got a background in production design so we were able to work with him really closely on achieving the look. He provided a brilliant sounding board for the CG, Compositing, and Matte Painting teams to hone and develop our images to create something that held together as a complete whole. He constantly pushed us to take it further and explore new directions we might not have gone in. They were brash, strong ideas that were really helpful and fun to work with”

VFX Breakdown