Telkom uses lightning-Bolt to strike

THE FASTEST man alive, Usain Bolt, has debuted in Telkom’s new advertising campaign for its Boltspeed fibre.

The launch of the Boltspeed Fibre TV commercial follows hot on the heels of Telkom’s recent announcement that it has also launched South Africa’s largest fibretrial campaign.

Telkom is offering more than 11 000 DSL customers across the country the opportunity to experience Boltspeed Fibre, at no additional cost.

In true Bolt-style, even the filming of the TV commercial had to be done at high pace. The athlete’s preparations ahead of this year’s Olympic Games remain his primary focus, and filming had to be carefully structured around his punishing training schedule. Filming took place in Bolt’s home base of Kingston, Jamaica, and the team, led by Telkom’s ad agency, DDB, was given just three hours to complete the shoot. Bolt’s management worked closely with Telkom and DDB to ensure the developed concept would resonate with the superstar athlete.

The storyline, which sees Bolt training and developing a young athlete, certainly achieved this.

Telkom used cinema-style technology to produce the advert – which features a toddler track star in training – while keeping a realistic look and feel.

As children have proportionately bigger heads, feet, hands and knees compared to adults, fat suit technology was used to allow an adult athlete to be filmed in the sporting sequences. This allowed seamless filming while maintaining the correct proportions of a 2-year-old boy.

Similar state-of-the-art technology was used in The Avengers and Resident Evil movies. Computer-generated imagery in the ad was kept to a minimum and used mainly for wider shots.