PARIS, FRANCE — The Renault 5 was an iconic model of the brand and the best-selling car in France in the 70’s and 80’s, but the production stopped in 1984. Forty years later, the new Renault 5 is back. The relaunch of such an iconic model is an event, but the new R5 was redesigned from scratch: 100% electric, using resourceful materials, with a visionary design.
It is a turning point for the brand — a revolution in the automotive industry.
And if you want to make a revolution, you have to leave everything you used to be behind you.
“R5volution is a French thing,” directed by Sebastian Strasser and produced by Henry, tells this story. Through an epic journey, viewers follow a man climbing a gigantic mountain made of old Renault cars. The mountain represents what the brand (and more generally the whole automotive industry) used to be: thermic cars, pollutants, no recycled materials. The difficult ascent illustrates how hard it is to make such a revolution in the industry. But when he finally reaches the top, he discovers what’s on the other side: a car that stands for a new car world: electric, digital, resourceful — the new Renault 5.
The mountain was created by assembling 120 wrecked Renault cars found all over Argentina. It was 10 meters high and had three climbing sides. Like a real Tetris game, they were assembled with real attention to shapes, colors, and parts of the structure that permitted them to do impressive stunts. An artistic director from Le Cirque du Soleil supervised and doubled the leading actor. CGI was used to extend the mountain around the real structure, bringing poetry and magic to this world. More than 72 Renault 3D models were used. Lipstick, the post-production company, then had to create a specific VFX tool that allowed them to pile the cars up organically and calibrate the amount of damage, rust, or missing parts of cars.
