RUBE GOLDBERG MACHINE

TitleRUBE GOLDBERG MACHINE
BrandSWISS FEDERAL RAILWAYS (SBB CFF FFS)
Product/ServiceSMARTWAY APP
Category A04. Production Design / Art Direction
Entrant MAXOMEDIA Bern, SWITZERLAND
Idea Creation MAXOMEDIA Bern, SWITZERLAND
Production PHOTOBY Berlin, GERMANY
Credits
Name Company Position
Andrey Klemenkov Maxomedia AG Creative Director
Bernhard Herzig Maxomedia AG CEO
Stefanie Pfeffer Maxomedia AG Advertising Manager
Claudia Fahrni Maxomedia AG Project Co-ordinator
Tomasz Kosiński Analog/Digital Executive Producer
Patrycja Krajewska Analog/digital Producer
Andrzej Dragan Analog/digital Director
Jan Oblak Analog/Digital DOP Lighting Cameraman
Natalia Mleczak Analog/Digital Set design / Props Master

Write a short summary of what happens in the film

The video is a 60 second one shot demonstration of how SmartWay, the new app from the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB), connects every vehicle of the public transport seemlessly. It starts with a simple push on the new SmartWay app on a smartphone touchscreen – and the journey begins. We ride tramway through a city, jump on a train to the mountains where we go walking, we use car sharing to drive to a beautiful lake, where we take a ship. From there, an electric scooter gets us to a cable car which takes us to a hill top and our journey with the new SmartWay app end back on the phone screen.

Cultural / Context information for the jury

As the digitalization and technological progress develops, public transport is changing, too. Now it is the so-called multi-modal mobility, which connects the different means of public transport. Therefore, the Swiss Federal Railways developed SmartWay – an app to seamlessly connect everything that moves you in one app: car sharing, electric bikes, tramways, trains, ships or even a cable car with one tap in the app. In a city like Zürich, where the app was launched, people are already used to travel by all kinds of different means of public transport. But they face also a lot of advertising targeting them, with local and international players alike. Which was the reason we had to do a video campaign, that would stand out and grab their attention in order to facilitate downloads.

Tell the jury about the production design / art direction. You may wish to comment on choices, challenges or effects.

The main challenge was combining a creative concept and precise marketing goals into a working Goldberg machine. The machine had to be simple enough for viewers to see the various connections but not overly childish. It had to consist of very specific „stations” and involve chosen modes of transport – like the 20kg scale model of an SBB train, a Swiss boat and a Bernese cable car among others. The set designer and the machine constructors faced the real challenge of bringing all the various vehicles in different scales and many of the elements, not only had to be visually attractive but also functional and simply working. The set was lit from above from a specially built rig and lights were pre-programmed to follow the action of the Goldberg machine. In the end, we had a one shot which again reinforces the idea of seamless connection from start to end.