I presume many of you have seen this commercial from Alfa Romeo, about their new models Stelvio and Giulia. The ad was shown during the Super Bowl this year and is played often on MSNBC.
It is a brilliant ad featuring the two cars meeting at an ice rink and executing a mesmerizing dance, skating and twirling around each other in blissful harmony and love?, to the strains of Chris Isaac’s “Wicked game”, rendered soulfully by British singer Annaca and with music masterfully arranged by Ursine Vulpine.
Alfa Romeo claims that no special effects were used in the filming of the ad; all of the intricate moves by the cars on the slippery surface are natural, performed by skilled drivers and made possible by the technological advances in the cars.
Alfa Romeo states that the Q4 AWD provides all the advantages of rear wheel drive which, if required by road conditions, is able to transfer up to 50% of the engine torque to the front wheels in order to optimize traction.
As Alfa Romeo likes to say — La Meccanica Delle Emozioni!
In the following “Behind the scenes” video, the commentary is unrelated to the scenes in the video and reads like a commercial; best to turn off the sound.
Here is the full cover song — Chris Issac’s “Wicked Game” — beautifully sung by British singer Annaca. The music for this cover version was arranged by Ursine Vulpine. The arrangement and (cinematic) style is quite different from the original song but it stays true to the spirit and the emotional appeal of the beloved song.
Frederick Lloyd, who composes under the moniker of Ursine Vulpine, rose to fame with his graduation movie Pantheon; his music has been widely used for many movie trailers including those of —
See article “How composer Ursine Vulpine decides what the year's biggest movie trailers will sound like” at www.theverge.com/… for an overview of Frederick Lloyd’s work and samples of his music in movie trailers.
“Wicked Game” by Annaca was also featured prominently in the trailer for the movie “My Cousin Rachel” (based on the best-selling novel by Daphne du Maurier) and the game “Forza Horizon 3” (a racing video game set in an open world environment based in a fictional representation of Australia). In both cases, shown below, the trailer seems to have been designed around the song.
I think this is one of the best renditions of Chris Issac’s classic song and does full justice to it! And it goes very well with racing as well as dancing cars :-)
What do you think?