Take a four-minute tour of the feature-quality work MPC put into Heineken “The Trailblazers,” probably the most ambitious 90 seconds of VFX-driven advertising you’ll see this year.

MJZ director Matthijs van Heijningen and a crew of 70 artists spread across the London, Amsterdam and Bangalore studios of MPC spent three months creating six intensely detailed worlds in this epic romp thru Publicis Italy.

Dirk Riesenfeld, MPC Amsterdam VFX lead :”The Heineken Trailblazers spot is a feature-film scale project with the level of craft it required. It’s the type of project that every VFX artist wants to work on. Whilst immersing our audience into the extreme worlds – we had to keep reality at the front of people’s minds.

“Just some of the tasks involved included building two entirely CG ships, which required extensive pre-vis before the shoot itself, a spacecraft – which van Heijningen wanted to shoot up close – and a sequence where the guys scale Mount Everest with a Himalayas backdrop. Not forgetting the feat of creating a 10,000-strong Roman army from a cast of 100 actors.

Watch the finished spot:

Agency: Publicis Italy

Production Company: MJZ
Director: Matthijs van Heijningen

VFX: MPC
VFX Supervisor (CG): Carsten Keller
VFX Supervisor (CG Ships): Andreu Lucio Archs
VFX Supervisor (2D): Dirk Riesenfeld
VFX Producer: Philip Whalley